A few of the things we've looked at this morning despite the fact our Internet is running rather slowly:

Florida's Urban Meyer has signed a $4 million deal at Florida, making him the best-paid football coach in the SEC. Here's the Gainesville Sun take on that story.

SEC football teams reporting to camps on Monday: Georgia, where they're celebrating the fact there were no off-season arrests; South Carolina, where Steve Spurrier has six (!) new assistant coaches; Tennessee, where new coach Lane Kiffin insists only one starting job on his depth chart is secure. Auburn was set to report on Tuesday with workouts starting on Wednesday.

The watch list for the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award is out this week and the odd thing isn't that the list contains two Heisman Trophy winners but that it has an Arkansas QB on there who has yet to take a snap with the Razorbacks. Yes, Jevan Snead of Ole Miss is on there, too.

The Cincinnati Enquirer updates Monday's injury of tight end Reggie Kelly, who's from Aberdeen. He's still on track for season-ending Achillies surgery on Wednesday.

Bill Hall, the big-league veteran from Nettleton, tells MLB.com that his brief trip to Triple-A Nashville helped him get "some confidence back" at the plate. He went 0-for-3 Monday night at Los Angeles but did draw a base-loaded walk -- and that goes in the books as an RBI.

Big lefty pitcher Joe Savery, the Philadelphia Phillies farmhand who has family in Tupelo and Oxford, won his Triple-A debut on Monday night. That story is the lead item in the Phillies' minor league update today at MLB.com

ESPN.com decided this week, just for fun, to “downsize” major college football to improve its overall quality. On Tuesday, four of their writers held a mock draft to select the 40 best programs out of the 120 now in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

You can see the mock draft here.

The bottom line? Nine SEC teams made the cut, with Mississippi State, Kentucky and Vanderbilt all voted off the island.

Southern Cal was the No. 1 draft pick, followed by Florida, Oklahoma, Texas and LSU.

Howls are surely being heard from Ohio State (6), Alabama (8) and Notre Dame (9) in particular. Hey, at least they made the top 10 -- 80 teams got cut.

The rest of the SEC’s picks worked out like this: Georgia (10), Tennesee (15), Auburn (19), Ole Miss (29), South Carolina (33) and Arkansas (35).

A few other draft picks of note: Utah (17), Boise State (20) and Texas Tech (25).

Off the top, a few notable omissions would seem to include Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Colorado and TCU.

The Daily Journal published the entire major college football schedule in Sunday’s newspaper and we noticed that Oregon State was the only NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision team that had not yet set a kickoff time for its opener. Are the Beavers trying to sneak up on their opponent, Portland State?

Here’s the Oregon State schedule.

“We’re working on some details with our regional television provider, Fox Sports Northwest, so we can get this game on TV,” Oregon State assistant athletic director Steve Fenk told us Tuesday morning. He probably was puzzled why someone from Mississippi cared about the kickoff time for that game, but we were curious and now we know.

Bill Hall of Nettleton was recalled to the Milwaukee Brewers after outfielder Corey Hart's unexpected need to have his appendix removed. Hall was at Triple-A Nashville to work on his swing, having stumbled to a .201 batting average with the big-league club this season.

Here's a Brewers update from MLB.com.

UPDATE: Hall was in the lineup for Monday night's game at the L.A. Dodgers in right field.He drew a bases-loaded walk on four pitches to drive in the Brewers' first run, but otherwise went 0-for-3 and is now batting .198. Milwaukee won 6-5 as Hall caught the final out in the ninth off the bat of Manny Ramirez with the bases loaded.

The AP reports that Henry Winkler, best known as Fonzie on Happy Days, was in the crowd.

In Tuesday's sports section, we'll have reports out of the start of high school football practice and MSU's first day of camp, along with the news that Tupelo High School's Fletcher Johnson won an USGA Sectional in Memphis on Monday and qualified for the U.S. Amateur.

Not the U.S. Junior Amateur, mind you, but the big-boy event – the won that Francis Ouimet won in 1914 (the year after he won the U.S. Open, the story of which got made into a pretty good movie) and that counts among its other winners such greats as Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus and that Tiger guy. Very cool.

Joe Savery, a former Rice University college baseball standout with family ties to Northeast Mississippi, has been called up to pitch for Triple-A Lehigh Valley in the Philadelphia Phillies organization.

Here's a story from the team's web site.

He started for the Iron Pigs -- love that nickname -- on Monday night in Rochester, N.Y., and got the victory, pitching six innings of four-hit baseball, giving up just one earned run while walking five. He didn't have any strikeouts.

It's been a pretty quick ride up the ladder for Savery, a first-round pick (19th overall) by the Philadelphia Phillies in 2007. He was 12-4 with a 4.41 ERA at Double-A Reading this season.

Loyal Journal readers know we have often checked in on Savery -- who has family in Tupelo and Oxford -- during his college days and also since getting drafted by the Phillies.

We keep hearing reports that one SEC football coach -- not in Mississippi, so don't even go there -- keeps taking his team to local car dealerships, trying to get some of that government cash for clunkers. We'll keep after that story.

Don't blink or you might miss the reference to Tupelo's Chris Garrett in this story about LSU's quarterback situation.

Garrett's in a challenging spot, with sophomore Jordan Jefferson the starter, third-year sophomore Jarrett Lee pushing him and heralded true freshman Russell Shepard also in the wings. Garrett helped himself by getting out of high school last December and going through spring practice.

Without a crystal ball, of course, there's no way to know how this plays out. Garrett could eventually be one of those fifth-year seniors who leads the Tigers to glory, or he might wind up taking his last snaps at Delta State -- like Baldwyn's Blake Barnes did after several years of carrying a clipboard at Georgia.

The Associated Press reports that the Cincinnati Bengals' veteran tight end, Aberdeen native Reggie Kelly, has ruptured his Achilles’ tendon. He's facing surgery on Wednesday and there was quick speculation that he could be out for the season. Kelly finished third on the team in receiving last season with 31 catches for 207 yards.

Here's a story from the Cincinnati Enquirer, which notes that it's the first major injury Kelly has suffered in an 11-year career.

His Wikipedia page already suggests that it could be a career-ending injury, but Wiki users know to take that kind of speculation with a grain of salt. At the minimum, though, it's a six-month recovery -- and that takes the 2009 season off the board, for sure.

Players reported at Itawamba Community College on Sunday and began work on Monday, they'll kick it up a notch with two-a-days starting Tuesday.

Northeast's players report on Tuesday afternoon.

Both teams are preparing for Aug. 27 kickoffs. We'll have a report from both camps later this week.