2011 U.C.L.A. Football: Pac-12 Media Day Open Thread

The Pac-12 Bicostal Media Tour begins today with Pac-12 Media Day in Los Angeles, at the Fox Studios in Century City.  Each Pac-12 team will be represented by the head coach and one player, and will be available to the media for 15 minutes for questions. 

Keeping with the Pac-12's advances into modern times, the entire press conference will be shown on a free live video stream, beginning at 9am PDT.   For our Bruins, Coach Rick Neuheisel will be joined by Johnathan Franklin, and they will have their turn at the podium at 11:30 am PDT.   The schedule for the press conference can be seen here.  Even better, the event will be hosted by Gus Johnson.  Yes, this Gus Johnson.

But back to football. 

You can watch the video of the presser liveor on demandat the Pac-12 video site (just in case my embedded video below isn't working - and if it is, all credit goes to Telemachus).

Today's press conference will introduce the North Division first, followed by the South and our two new conference mates, Colorado and Utah.  Commissioner Larry Scott will open the event with some comments and a video, and then it goes directly to the teams, with Cal leading off. 

Scott's schedule allows for 5 minutes for himself, so I don't expect that he will offer any new details on the pending TV contract.  On the other hand, Oregon Coach Chip Kelly (9:20am) may be wishing he had only 5 minutes, as he is likely to get a load of questions regarding Will Lyles.  Look for Chip to stare down the questioner, not answer the question, and try to shift the topic back to his team. 

Other highlights from the press conference should include Stanford at 9:50 so everyone can ask Andrew Luck what the hell he was thinking; Wazzu at 10:20 so everyone can take a bathroom break; and those people across town at 11:45 who will rant and rant about Ohio State and wonder why they got so unjustly hammered.  And in doing so, they will have unwittingly answered their own question.

Following today's presser, Larry Scott's 2nd Annual Travelling Pac-12 Road Show will jet east for appearances in Bristol and New York City on Wednesday and Thursday.

Coach Neuheisel's schedule with tWWL on Wednesday will keep him busy.  Note, all these times below are Eastern, so the live Sports Center segment will be at 7:40am in Los Angeles.

College football is getting really really close!!  I am looking forward to hearing what Neuheisel has to say today.  Join us for the press conference here and feel free to post your comments below in our open thread.