Lats night, I stumbled upon the inaugural game in the United Football League.

The UFL is an upstart league headed by its commissioner, Michael Huyghue, a former NFL official. It has sufficient funding, a smart plan and (some) credibility. The head coaches of the four franchises in 2009 all are former NFL coaches: Jim Fassel (Las Vegas Locomotives), Dennis Green (California Red Woods), Ted Cottrell (New York Sentinels) and Jim Haslett (Florida Tuskers).

The league's rosters are made up mostly of also-rans, but there are some names football fans will recognize, such as Simeon Rice (New York) and J.P. Losman (Vegas). Locally, Lions fans will recognize David Kircus (Vegas) and Teddy Lehman (Vegas).

Games will be played every day of the week except Sunday (smart move). Teams will each play six games in the league's regular season and its championship game is slated to be played the weekend after Thanksgiving.

The league will use most of the same rules the NFL does, with a few exceptions: Among the different rules, both teams will be given at least one possession in overtime, after which sudden-death rules will apply; the Tuck Rule has been eliminated; quarterbacks under duress can ground the ball inside or outside the pocket without penalty; players will be given more leeway on touchdown celebrations; and "tasteful" group celebrations will be allowed.

Those are welcome changes, and after reading about the league over the summer, I became intrigued.

I settled in to watch the league's first game (pitting California against Vegas in Vegas) and jotted notes down of what transpired.

-I'd like to congratulate my 11-year-old sister on gaining gameful employment as designer of UFL team unis. I guess being colorblind was a requirement. Those things are louder than a sports talk radio show host. The Red Woods' unis are white and lime green. When I think football, lime green is the first color that comes to mind. It screams tough.
-Denny "They are who we THOUGHT they were" Green was asked by a sideline reporter about the Las Vegas team and its game plan. "We know they commit to the run," he said. How does he know?!? It's the first game?
-Kordell Stewart is a sideline reporter. Was Jake Plummer not available?
-The refs wear red polos on the field. Sweet.
-Something cool: interviews right after scores.
-The stadium the game was played in had a capacity of 40,000. About 14,000 showed up. I wonder how many guys were walking up the strip and got handed a ticket from a UFL street team member and became disappointed when they realized it wasn't a card for a brothel.
-Color commentator Doug Flutie calls Lehman a "leader." So was David Koresh.
-The NFL has Bud and Miller as advertisers. When the first commercial break happened, I half expected to see an Olde English commercial.
-A GetUFL.com commercial comes on advertising league and team apparel. Yep. I gotta get me some of that Tuskers gear.
-What's a Tusker?
-You can't escape Brett Favre. That stupid Wrangler commercial made the air before the end of the first quarter. Since the quality of play in this league is exactly the opposite of that in the NFL, shouldn't the commercials be, too? Let's see, Favre is one of the best QBs ever. So a commercial at the opposite end of the spectrum should star, say, Ryan Leaf...pushing Bayer or extra strength Advil.
-If you haven't noticed by my lack of comments on the actual game, the quality of play isn't very high. Losman hit Kircus between the numbers for what should have been a big gain but Kircus couldn't haul in the pass. Yea, I'm shocked, too.

Vegas wound up winning, 30-20, behind Losman's 2 TD passes. I found that out on SportsCenter because I couldn't watch anymore after the 1st quarter. I think I watched more of Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami than I did that game.

I think it's safe to say I won't be setting any reminders for UFL games.