Warning: Possibility of sports overload ahead

Reading time, two minutes:

• The NFL will count them, pennant races sizzle and high school and college football hits overdrive. Warning: Sports overload ahead.

• Just asking: Why do no-huddle prep teams keep running plays at warp speed while they're protecting a slim lead in the fourth quarter? Any thought given about using some clock and keeping your defense off the field?

• While the Dodgers and Giants again clutch each others' necks this weekend: Brian Johnson's famous home run happened 15 years ago.

• Brandon McCarthy's horrific injury underlines the obvious: Baseball is a hard game played by hard men.

• Here's a get-well to one of the Modesto Nuts' most devoted fans — Cliff Meyer.

• New coach at Fresno State (Tim DeRuyter) but still the valley's team: WR Isaiah Burse (Modesto Christian), K Quentin Breshears (Pitman), OL Cody Wichmann (Mariposa) and NG Andy Jennings (Pitman).

• The 49ers game plan: Keep the ball away from the Packers and Aaron Rodgers and, at some point, some shock value from Jim Harbaugh.

• We're guessing some of that shock will be authored by Colin Kaepernick (Pitman High).

• Many people believe Andy Roddick underachieved. We think he carried the torch of American men's tennis, virtually by himself, for a decade.

• There's no other place to start with the Raiders — their first full season without Al Davis.

• When you're attacking the right problem (Bountygate) but overreach: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

• Looking for an American League Manager of the Year? Look no farther than the Athletics' Bob Melvin.

• Why Week 1 is overrated: Buffalo 31, New England 0, to open the 2003 season. The Bills finished 6-10; the Pats lifted the Lombardi Trophy.

• Why Yankees fans are hyperventilating: They've never blown a seven-game lead. Never.

• Great names do not grow old: The Kings' Lionel Simmons, the L-Train.

• Cleveland does hate someone more than LeBron James — the late Art Modell, who moved the beloved Browns to Baltimore and won a Super Bowl there.

• Modell's contribution to the entire NFL: Monday Night Football.

• Walt Harris Sr. of Sonora died last month. Yes, he's the father of the former head football coach at Pacific, Pittsburgh and Stanford.

• We're 99 percent sure Harris' last coaching job was at California University (Pa.) as offensive coordinator in 2010.

• You know why it's sports overload? The Cal-Stanford game, scheduled for Oct. 20 (someone must be kidding), could collide with the ALCS and NLCS.

• I'm not ready for baseball to bury the 30-year anniversary of The Play.