Six months after they announced a deal, and only nine days before the football team opens the season at Washington State, San Diego State officials and Clear Channel Broadcasting revealed its cast of characters for Aztecs football broadcasts.

And it's a doozy.

Ted Leitner will team with Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton, with Mike Costa roaming the sidelines for broadcasts on KOGO (600).

Leitner and Hamilton are both first-class play-by-play men, but Hamilton will be the color analyst.

So we're talking about two men who at least don't like each other on the air -- and that's as mildly as I can put it -- working in an enclosed booth for 3 1/2 hours with Hamilton as out of place as a pork chop in a lion's den. Both men have publicly bashed the other. Neither will drop by the other's home for a holiday toddy.

It figures the engineer for Aztecs game will have to wear a referee's shirt and step between these two.

"It is very exciting to have two people of this caliber in the same booth at the same time," said San Diego State athletic director Jeff Schemmel.

Yeah, and it's interesting when gasoline meets an open flame.

Certainly people will listen at first for the novelty of it, but Hamilton is a play-by-play man. Will he work hard, do his homework, go to practice and talk to coaches? Certainly.

Does he know a draw from a sweep, a zone defense from a man-to-man? It remains to be seen.

"We are thrilled to have these two veteran announcers together," said Bob Bolinger, vice president and market manager for Clear Channel San Diego.

Well, he's the only one.

This is a disaster and shows Clear Channel's complete disregard for the Aztecs.

And it shows the Aztecs' complete naivete with the San Diego market.

Is there anyone in a decision-making position at San Diego State who has any history with the Aztecs? Do you people listen to the radio? Do you know the market? This is a desperation move, born out of despair when color candidate after candidate turned down the job.

Will people listen to Leitner and Hamilton? Maybe. It's kind of a moth-to-a-flame thing.

People stop and gawk at car wrecks, and this figures to be a multi-car disaster that closes the freeway.

So maybe people will tune in.

Maybe Schemmel and Bolinger are geniuses.

I certainly don't think so. But you listen and you be the judge.

Prep football

The high school football season kicks off tonight, and there has never been this much interest, both locally and on a national level.

Channel 4 returns for its second season of prep football, but this year the games switch from Thursday to Friday.

"We love doing these games and had a lot of positive feedback last season." said Dennis Morgigno, station manager at Channel 4. "But playing on Thursday locked us into games for the entire season.

"By moving to Fridays, we'll have a flexible schedule, be able to pick the best games the second half of the season. The only thing we'll ask is that the schools involved move kickoff from 7:30 p.m. to 7."

Channel 4's first five games are set -- and all are decent -- Carlsbad vs. St. Augustine (tonight), Oceanside at La Costa Canyon (Sept. 7), Carlsbad at Helix (Sept. 14), Escondido at Rancho Buena Vista (Sept. 21) and Grossmont at Valhalla (Sept. 28).

Because of conflicts with the Padres, all those games will be shown on a taped-delayed basis after the baseball game.

Steve Quis and former Chargers linebacker Lew Bush will work tonight's opener.

Chris Ello jumps into the play-by-play seat for three weeks with Quis back on Sept. 28.

Also locally, Time Warner Cable will have seven games, all involving Carlsbad or La Costa Canyon. Craig Elsten and Jack Cronin, who do a very credible job, call the action.

There will be two postgame highlight shows this season.

"The Prep Pigskin Report" -- the oldest and best postgame show maybe anywhere in the country -- returns to KUSI 9/51 for its ninth season. Paul Rudy and his crew cover nearly every game in the county and have highlights from those games. The 60-minute show starts at 11 p.m. Fridays.

For those who want a quicker fix, Channel 10 jumps into the mix this season with "First and 10". The show, hosted by Ben Higgins and Steve Smith, starts at 11:20 p.m. Fridays. There will be scores and highlights from several games over a 15-minute period. Sky 10 will be at three North County games tonight at Escondido, Orange Glen and Torrey Pines.

On the national level, ESPNU has 12 prep games, including Poway at Torrey Pines on Thursday, Oct. 11. The schedule includes several of the top teams in the nation, including a Sept. 15 match between Northwestern (Miami, Fla.) and Carroll (Southlake, Texas). The games are generally on Thursdays and Fridays, but the Northwestern-Carroll game is on a Saturday. There are two prep games Sunday -- St. Xavier (Ohio) vs. DeMatha (Md.) at 9 a.m. on ESPN and Central Catholic (Pa.) vs. Northmont Clayton (Ohio) at 12:30 p.m. on ESPNU.

"We feel we need to show games and high school football is a great way to not just get programming, but programming that will pull in a different, younger audience," said Burke Magnus, vice president and general manager for ESPNU. "We think high school football will be good for us."

Fox Sports Net has an 11-game regular-season schedule, involving CIF Southern Section teams. There are some great games, but nine of the 11 contests are on FSN-Prime Ticket, a station that is available to only a handful of San Diego viewers.

On radio, three stations will carry games.

KCEO (1000) with veteran play-by-play man Jerry Gross and former Michigan and Buffalo Bills tight end Curt Stephenson will call all Torrey Pines games. This marks the fourth season for Torrey Pines on KCEO.

Starting next Friday and continuing every Friday that games don't conflict with the Angels, ESPN Radio 800 will pick up a broadcast from kbcsports.com.

Starting next week, KASH 1700 will carry a prep game of the week with Ted Mendenhall and either Johnny McGregor or Darryl Sykes calling the action. The schedule includes mostly North County teams.

Kbcsports.com will carry internet broadcasts from several games around the county each week.

John Kentera's "High School Scoreboard Show" returns for its 18th season. The show on XX Sports Radio 1090 and KASH 1700 will start the first Friday after the conclusion of the Padres' season.

NFL Notes

- The NFL season kicks off at 5:30 p.m. Thursday with NBC's presentation of the Saints-Colts contest. Faith Hill will perform the opening theme for NBC Sunday Night Football -- "Waiting All Day for Sunday Football."

- The NFL Network will have an encore presentation of Super Bowl XLI at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Local notes

- Channel 4 officials had no way of knowing when the schedule was released in January, but in the heat of the NL West race, Monday's 1:40 Padres game at Arizona will not be on TV. Channel 4 officials are being true to their belief of not televising weekday day games, but this is a pennant race game on a holiday. Still, ratings for past Padres Labor Day games have been terrible. The good news is the Sept. 20 day game against the Pirates is the only other Padres game the rest of the season that won't be on TV.

- Speaking of ratings, the Padres' games with the Diamondbacks this week have been great with an 8.7 on Wednesday. The postgame show pulled a 4.1.

- KKSM (1320) will have live coverage of Palomar College home football games, starting with Saturday's 5 p.m. season opener with San Bernardino Valley.

- The University of San Diego opens its football season at 7 p.m. Saturday at Azusa Pacific with Chris Ello calling the action on AM 620.

College football

- With all the new networks, there are no fewer than 24 college football games on TV Saturday. The best of the bunch figures to be Colorado-Colorado State (9 a.m., FSN), Missouri-Illinois (12:30 p.m., ESPN2), UCLA-Stanford (12:30 p.m., FSN), Washington State-Wisconsin (12:30 p.m., ABC), Georgia Tech-Notre Dame (1 p.m., NBC), Tennessee-California (5 p.m., ABC) and Idaho-USC (7:15 p.m., FSN).

- Bob Papa and Pat Haden will call Notre Dame games on NBC with Alex Flanagan roaming the sidelines.

- CSTV and Chick-fil-A are partnering on a weekly Southeast Conference pregame show that will air at 9 a.m. Saturdays from the site of the CBS game.

Start you engines

The California Speedway in Fontana is in the spotlight this weekend for Saturday's NASCAR Busch Series race and Sunday's NASCAR Nextel Cup event.

ESPN2 has the CampingWorld 300 Busch Series race at 6:45 p.m. Saturday.

ESPN has Sunday's Nextel Cup race -- the Fontana 500 -- at 4 p.m.

ABC has Sunday's IndyCar Series race from Detroit at 12:30 p.m.

Around the dial

ESPN Classic will have live coverage of the first FIBA Americas Championship semifinal at 4 p.m. Saturday with the second game taped at 6 p.m. FSN and NBA Network have live coverage of the bronze-medal game at 1 p.m. Sunday and the gold-medal contest at 4 p.m. Sunday.

- David Beckham continues to deliver big ratings numbers for ESPN. Last Thursday's L.A. Galaxy-Chivas USA match on ESPN2 delivered a solid 0.6 rating or an average of 532,000 homes, making it the most-viewed MLS telecast ever.

- Bison Dele, who played in the NBA as Brian Williams, walked away from a $40 million contract and disappeared with his girlfriend while cruising the South Pacific on a 55-foot catamaran. Today at 4:30 p.m., ESPN2 investigates the disappearance on "Biggest Unsolved Crimes and Scandals."

- CMT's presentation of the two-hour documentary "Dale" -- based on the life of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt -- debuts at 8 p.m. Tuesday. There are encore presentations at 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday.

The show includes interviews with Earnhardt's mother, Martha, his son, Dale Jr., his wife, Teresa, and car owner Richard Childress. Paul Newman narrates.

- "The Natalie Gulbis Show" returns for its third season on The Golf Channel.

The six-episode series will air at 7 p.m. Wednesdays. staring Sept. 19.

John Maffei's TV/Radio Column appears every Friday. He can be reached at (760) 740-3547 or jmaffei@nctimes.com.