2013 Pac-12 Football Media Day coverage: SB Nation’s live on the scene

The Pac-12 announced contact-limiting practice rules at its football media day on Friday. In a released statement, the conference outlined exactly what the new rules will mean.

Student-athlete safety is one of the biggest topics currently trending in college athletics, and the Pac-12 appears to be taking the issue seriously. The conference first announced the plan after its annual meetings in early June, and it followed through on that promise Friday. In addition to the contact limitations, the Pac-12 is establishing a Head Trauma Task Force, which will study head trauma and attempt to “limit danger and exposure to student athletes.”

The Pac-12 descends upon Los Angeles — well, Culver City, technically — for its Media Day on Friday, bringing each of the league’s 12 coaches and two players from each team to the stage at Sony Studios. You can watch right here or on Pac-12 Networks.

League commissioner Larry Scott will open the day’s festivities with 15 minutes in front of the microphone, at which point he’ll yield to schools. Three of those schools have new head coaches: California (Sonny Dykes), Oregon (Mark Helfrich) and Colorado (Mike MacIntyre).

Washington State coach Mike Leach went first at the latest edition of Pac-12 Media Day. He was asked a brief series of questions, all of which left him room to be Mike Leach, whether by referencing zombie apocalypses or asking him what’s currently “chapping” his “hide.” You can catch up on the video here.

On opening statements:

Pac-12 Football Media Day is underway, and commissioner Larry Scott is already firing shots. In his opening remarks Friday, Scott called for fans currently watching television via DirecTV to change providers and pick up the Pac-12 Networks.

Addressing the Pac-12 Networks situation, Scott told the media, “Unfortunately we are still at an impasse with DirecTV... no closer than we were last year. I urge our fans to drop DirecTV and subscribe to [a provider] that has it.” The Pac-12 Networks website has a clear display explaining how to move on from DirecTV.

With Pac-12 Media Day on Friday, USC athletic director Pat Haden answered the question he knows will be on everybody’s minds before anybody could ask it: Lane Kiffin is not on the hot seat.

Haden appears in a video released Thursday night by USC Athletics on YouTube, starting out by discussing the school’s plans to renovate the LA Coliseum, and praising the team’s running back depth and the coaching staff’s ability to work with inexperienced quarterbacks.