Inside tip: Run toward daylight

GRAPHIC of the Week: Fox’s lead college football analyst, Joel Klatt, revealed “Keys to the Game” prior to USC-UCLA that read: “Attack Space With Athletes.”

➤ Penalty kicks determining World Cup games — all soccer games, for that matter — can seem unduly harsh. To be called for non-flagrant fouls while contesting the ball should not carry the same game-decisive punishment as tripping a player as he’s about to shoot from just in front.

➤ We’re left to surmise that NBC continues to believe we enjoy Cris Collinsworth asa Sunday night every-play know-it-all. There’s no delicate way to write this, so we’ll borrow Ralph Kramden’s assessment of his motherin-law: “You are a blabbermouth!”

➤ I just don’t get it. During the first 25 minutes of the England-U.S. match Friday, three Fox announcers, including reporter Jenny Taft, kept encouraging us to do what we already were doing: Watch the match.

➤ If Fox Sports 1’s Colin Cowherd weren’t such a transparently giant gasbag, he’d just be a standard-sized gasbag. Before the 1-1 U.S.-Wales World Cup match Monday, as chronicled by @BackAftaThis, Cowherd said: “This match, from people I trust, is going to be low-scoring.” He was serious. He had inside info that a soccer match just might be low-scoring.

➤ Well, punch my ticket: It’s no longer a matter of being considered for a College Football Playoff spot, now it’s a matter of “becoming part of the conversation” and entering “the narrative.”

➤ Drew Brees seems to have disappeared from all those “Live Your Bet Life” TV sports gambling ads, the ones that encourage young men to bet every game, all game.

➤ Axe and You Shall Receive: College Hoops Game of the Week — Eastern Illinois 102, St. Mary of the Woods (Ind.) 40.

➤ This is not a drill! Viewer Red Alert: Bears-Jets, 1 p.m. on Fox. Daryl “Moose” Johnston in the booth. Check remote for fresh batteries, double-check mute button for optimal function, remove sharp objects from reach, notify next-of-kin.