Some Reading Material

• According to the Dispatch, OSU's working on a home-and-home with Alabama (HT: Roll 'Bama Roll). If it happens, it'll probably be a decade from now, because OSU's got a pretty loaded slate of nonconference games for the next ten years or so: Texas this year, Washington (meh) next year, USC in '08 and '09, Miami in '10 and '11, Cal in '12 and '13, and Virginia Tech in '14 and '15. It'd be awesome to add Alabama to that list. I can't think of the last time Ohio State played an SEC team outside of a bowl game, and if the team we'd play is one with as much history as Alabama, well, that's pretty cool. Hopefully they can get the deal finalized, and hopefully both schools are top-ten in the country by the time the games roll around.
• Stewart Mandel's got a new mailbag up on SI.com. On the second page, there's a question about the Big Ten creating its own channel on DirecTV, leading eventually to this:
  

  But in talking to league officials, I've learned that they envision a day in the not-too distant future when fans are watching games on their laptops and hand-held devices as often as they do actual television. When that happens, sports leagues will want the ability to control these potentially lucrative revenue streams, and I imagine eventually the Big Ten, SEC and every other major conference will follow the Mountain West's lead.

  Now, I'd like to know: would anyone out there choose to watch the Buckeyes on a computer over watching them on TV? Now, I admit this would be nice for times when you aren't around a TV or when you've traveled to a place where you can't get an Ohio State game on TV, but if the people in charge think fans are going to watch games on 6- and 17-inch screens "as often as they do actual television," they're crazy.
  
• Last up, a little-known fact: a Michigan Man does not have to show up at court appearances. It's true, ask Cato June. Just don't ask the Indiana legal system; they think that sort of thing should get you arrested or something.