Morning Links:

Giants Answered the Call: I tend to believe the Giants version of the story, that the Cards called them and not the other way around. Leinart is more hype than anything else at this point and that contract is very prohibitive in trade talks. Giants still could use a backup so I wouldn’t say talks are officially dead, but Arizona would practically have to give him away for New York to be interested.

Ohio State and Michigan Will Be Split Up: With the Big Ten (you got to change the name) adding a 12th team next year they will move to a division format. The conference will be split in two with Michigan and Ohio State in separate divisions. They will still maintain their rivalry game every year at the end of the season, but now it is quite possible they could meet again in the Conference Championship game. I personally like the plan to split up the two schools. For one thing it helps bring some balance to the divisions, for another is it allows the schools to keep the game at the end of the regular season inline with tradition. If they were in the same conference, you probably wouldn’t want year in year out for those two teams to face off right before the conference championship game if they were the two best teams in the conference. Now If they do face off as the top teams in their respective divisions they can potentially redeem themselves the next week.

UNC Suspends Austin Could Suspend More: Losing Mavin Austin is a major blow to the Tar Heels and things could get a whole lot worse. In addition to Austin it looks as though DE Robert Quinn and Linebackers Bruce Carter and Quan Sturdivant could also be suspended, and none of them will probably play in Saturday’s opener against LSU. Austin, Quinn, Carter and Surdivant are all top talents and potential top 50 picks in next April’s NFL Draft. While the team says this has nothing to do with the NCAA investigations into agent tampering, I don’t know if I’m buying that story. Whatever the cause, this is a huge body blow for a team that I thought had a legitimate shot of winning the ACC.