(With apoligies to Brendan Loy) Go Bruins! BEEEAAAAAT the Ducks!

Third quarter, Bruins lead Oregon 6-0.

It goes without saying: Bruins beat Ducks, Trojans beat Bruins, Trojans go to Rose Bowl.

UCLA leads 6-0 . . . no, make that 9-0, as a third Duck turnover leads to a third Bruin field goal.

The Bruins--who have featured three different quarterbacks--cannot move the ball on the Ducks' side of the field, simply intercept the ball and kick it essentially in that very spot.

The Ducks--who have featured three different quarterbacks--cannot move the ball, period.

Never has a boring game been so thrilling.

Fourth quarter.

Update: UCLA intercepts, penalty takes the ball inside the twenty, whatever yokel is working with Dan Fouts says, for the third time--"You gotta go to the end zone," when clearly what UCLA needs to do is run a few plays into the line, burn the clock down, and . . .

Update: . . . Oh, never mind. Oregon intercepts in the end zone, does nothing, punts, and UCLA drives back for a touchdown. 16-0 Bruins. Game over.

And USC, which--with a win next week--goes to the Rose Bowl, has got some work to do.

BCS

So . . . how does a USC-Hawai'i Fiesta Bowl grab you?

A Kansas-West Virginia National Championship game?

Today was just the latest in the craziest college football season in memory.

Consider:

*Two dramatic, BCS-affecting upsets (Arkansas over LSU, Texas A&M over Texas), one of them in a rivalry game, and both winning coaches (one for sure, the other almost certainly) headed out the door in dual jump-or-be-pushed scenarios, both of said coaches are involved in separate off-the-field kerfuffles best described, both of them, as bizarre.

*The team with the second-to-easiest schedule in the country plays the team with the third-to-easiest schedule in the country--and the game has major BCS implications.

*Kansas--at this moment in time--is essentially the number one team in the country, and yet no one gives it any chance at all to survive the next eight days with more than the Orange or Sugar Bowl as a consolation prize. Probably correctly.

*Three years ago, Cal, with one loss (and that by six points, on the road, to the undefeated Leinart/Bush/Lendale/Tatupu/Cody/Jarrett Trojans) was left out of the BCS in favor of the Vince Young/Cedric Benson Longhorns, who themselves had one loss (by twelve points, on a neutral site, to the Jason White/Adrian Peterson Sooners). Now teams with two or three losses (a considerably not-as-good Trojans team, first and foremost) find themselves in the catbird seat, and little seems to stand between Hawai'i (which played a weaker schedule than Odessa Permian) and a fat New Year's payday. Yes: the extra BCS game is a factor. However, between 2001 and 2005--a five-year span--we were treated to four BCS Championship games featuring two undefeated teams from major conferences, and in one case an undefeated from a top-tier conference (Auburn, 2004), on the outside looking in, and probably incorrectly. (Would Auburn have fared better against USC than 55-19? Probably.)

The moral? The era of the super-team is on hold. In 2004 we spent four months waiting for USC-Oklahoma; likewise in 2005 with USC-Texas. This year? Does Kansas-West Virginia grab you? Missouri-Ohio State? Brother.

*As for USC-ASU. In Sun Devil Stadium yesterday, enjoying my Thanksgiving dinner out behind Packard Stadium (my brother's father-in-law brought the game he'd shot: pheasant, grouse, and so forth), I reached an inner peace about the whole affair. Strange how my mood seems to affect USC games. 2002 against Notre Dame and (in the Orange Bowl) Iowa, I was quietly confident. Two blowouts. 2003: the Rose Bowl. Quietly confident, USC whallops Michigan. 2004: Oklahoma, a kind of "well, let's see what happens" attitude. Result? 55-19. 2005: Absolute, infinite, obsessive insanity from about Labor Day on, as I realize USC and Texas are headed for a collision course. Result? The Vince Bowl.

Last year: the Rose Bowl. Even keel. USC blowout.

So: my lesson learned. Even keel is good luck. So: yesterday, I went with my Sun Devil family to enjoy my repast, the gorgeous weather, and see what happened.

Then USC took the kickoff, marched smartly down the field and scored.

And I knew the game was over. I knew the game was over because finally, finally the team that we might term the post-Jarrett era was hitting on all cylinders and playing the way their press clippings claimed they would play.

To look over the season. Idaho State was basically a scrimmage. Nebraska (a far worse team than we thought) was won when Carroll simply abandoned the passing game altogether, and rammed the ball down the Blackshirts' throats. Then the injuries piled up, complacency set in; the Stanford game (or something like it) was inevitable. Arizona was close. Notre Dame: next.

In the end, Oregon was an unfortunate happenstance, a loss against a better team, a hard pill to swallow, as it represented the end of USC hegemony lasting all the way back to the fifth game of 2002.

And then? The Cal game might have been the fulcrum, the game that saved the Trojans from (ick) El Paso. And then there was last night, with some crucial pieces (COUGHsambakerCOUGH) back in play. At 7-0, it was over. At 7-7 (with the fluke of a kickoff runback) it was over. Booty had all the time in the world, and Carpenter didn't. And that was your ballgame.

USC-ASU: Two days to go . . .

And it only gets better.

ASU-USC and some BCS

Six days out, soaking in the Valley desert, the host of a Sun Devil family and the run-up to the game, I thought I'd look at the BCS and who might qualify:

1. LSU--win out, they're in. This may require a victory over Georgia in the SEC championship game, a harder row to hoe than you might think.

2. Oregon--out.

3. Kansas--win, they're in. This means beating Missouri and Oklahoma. Frankly, I don't think they can do it. I am always suspicious of basketball schools playing football in football conferences (Arizona, UCLA, Kansas, Michigan State, Purdue, Indiana, Kentucky), and aside from UCLA's Pac-10 football prowess, which basically started with John Robinson's first departure from USC in 1982 and basically ended with Pete Carroll's arrival at USC in 2001, I've mostly been proven right. To drive to the Kansas Athletic Department, you take Naismith drive--and Naismith? Who did what? Kansas hasn't mattered since Gale Sayers, who was portrayed in the movie by a young Lando Calrissian, and they've played a succession of cupcakes, save Oklahoma State. Which brings us to . . .

4. Oklahoma--out.

5. Missouri--Wow! Win, they're in! From the five spot! But: Means beating Oklahoma and Kansas. Something tells me that the Big-12 is going to play rock, paper, scissors. Oklahoma beats Mizz, then beats Kansas. Okay, scissors, paper; scissors, paper. But the Big-12 will cancel itswlf out, call it a hunch.

6. West Virginia--suddenly . . . in a good spot. Never mind LSU; if the Big-12 RPS takes place, UWV zooms to #2. No kidding.

7. Ohio State--This is what the Big-10 goes through every year, and will go through for the next few years. Back in the day, Ohio State would play Michigan for the Rose Bowl on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, ABC would carry the game, Keith Jackson and Ara would call the game, and all was well with the world. If Ohio State won, Woody Hayes would drill his team into the ground, check his team into a Pasadena monastery, and then watch his Buckeyes get their asses kicked (save 1968) on New Year's Day. If Michigan won, Woody Hayes would attack a cameraman, Bo Shembechler would issue a thousand homespun statements, and Michigan would get its ass kicked (save 1989) on New Year's Day.

Now? Now the Big-10 resembles a kid who is back of the pack in Augusta or Pebble Beach, then comes out on Sunday and shoots a 62 with eight groups ahead of him, and heads to the clubhouse with the best final score. Ohio State played Michigan today, and secured, at worst, a Rose Bowl bid, with five other conferences and four other bids still to be hashed out. This resembles nothing so much as Arizona State 1975, which went into the Fiesta Bowl undefeated and number 7, beat number 3 Nebraska, and spent a week noodling over how, if every New Year's Day Bowl went their way, they would be number one!

That was the year Arizona State finished number two, as the unclean, once-defeated Oklahoma won the Orange Bowl, and outpolled the Sun Devils at the end.

But this is where Ohio State is: siotting pretty, the only BCS-qualified team, but watching the world do what it does around them.

8. Arizona State--so here we are. USC is better than Michigan. Arizona was helped by beating Oregon. So. With Ohio State in the clubhouse (this becomes a problem!) ASU beats USC, then beats Arizona, then waits for the Big-12 rock-paper-scissors to play out, and hopes to outdistance tOSU.

Ducks lose?

So all of a sudden the Sun Devils can get to the Rose Bowl, but the Trojans can't, not without some help.

I think.

College football is the only venue in which the team ahead of you losing is potentially bad news.

Eleven Days Out . . .

And with both teams having a bye next Saturday, it's not too early to talk a little junk re Arizona State and USC, and their Thanksgiving evening tangle . . .

. . . a game I realized last night, as soon as I heard Illinois had beaten Ohio State, that may very well have Rose Bowl implications.

C'mon, Robbie-Boy, how do you size them up?

Oregon 35, Arizona State 23

Now, I didn't know tonight's game was over at 13-0. But I did know the Devils had dodged a couple of bullets and were gaining confidence. They gave Cal a quarter-and-a-half. Not much. But the Bears needed to take it, and they didn't.

Well, Oregon took it. What was a cute affectation through eight games--the Devils' notoriously slow starts--finally came back to haunt them.

More experienced viewers of the Devils than I will have to explain why the Devils' defense seems not only overmatched but--as with Cal last week--positively flummoxed for the first three or so possessions for so many games. The only difference was that Oregon cashed in where Cal didn't, and Oregon's first three possessions all ended in touchdowns for a score of 21-3. The Devils outscored the Ducks 20-14 thereafter, to no avail.

Also: what in the world was Rudi Carpenter doing at the end of the first half? With the momentum ready to shift, with ASU ready to cut the lead to less than seven with any score at all, and thereby prepared to go on offense to start the second half with a chance to take the lead, Carpenter . . . well, he didn't do any one thing, save run a play into the line with zero time-outs and the clock under thirty seconds. In a situation like that, you either spike the ball or run a set play with a spread offense. In any case, you give yourself a minimum of two real snaps, and each time you look first for the end zone, second for the sideline, and if the D gives you nothing, you heave the ball into the tenth row. Coaches who understand clock management--the Bill Parcells, Bill Belichiks, Mike Shanahans, and Jeff Fishers of this world--usually have a play in place for just such an eventuality (first-down, field goal range, no time outs, half a minute left); QBs can either run their play or spike the ball to stop the clock. The hash that Carpenter made of things had to contribute (of this I am sure) to the missed field goal. Things were sliding.

ASU could not even take solace in the BCS fall-out. With LSU winning a game it had no business winning (thank you, Nick Saban) the Tiggers are poised to run out the table with walkovers against La Tech and Ole Miss and a mere trifle with Arkansas. Had Alabama won (and I can't think of that game, or the SEC in general, without hearing that loathsome CBS trumpet blast--DAH, dah-deh-dah, dah-deh-deh-dah! Duhduhduhduhduh, DAH!--or Verne Lundquist's unctiousness, in my head), Oregon would be poised to go to the BCS championship game, with the Rose Bowl grabbing the Pac-10 runner-up (which suddenly made the ASU-USC game three weeks hence glisten with possibility).

Now? La Tech. Ole Miss. Soo-Piggie. SEC championship game. Hold that Tiger, indeed.

Ohio State v. LSU for the National Championship? Excuse me while I go throw up.

ASU 31, Cal 20

Home from a literary conference bang at 9 pm, Central Time, I sat down to Arizona State with one question to answer. Call it the Butch and Sundance question:

Who are those guys?

I knew Rudi Carpenter, sure. But as the week went along, I was faced with the very real and somewhat embarassing fact that I could not name one other player on the team.

Enter SunDevil Joe.

On that, more in a minute.

But first, in general, a few things impressed me about the Devils:

1. Both times I've seen them this season, the Devils refused to panic when things went south. Tonight, an early ASU turnover resulted in a Cal defensive touchdown. Bang, 7-0. This was followed by two long Cal drives, during which the ASU secondary seemed not only overmatched but downright confused. However, the defense dug deep with the shortened field and held Cal to two field goals. Someone reading the scoreboard, but not watching the game, might find an early 13-0 Cal lead disheartening. Anyone watching the game knew otherwise: ASU was only one touchdown away from getting back into it, whereas Cal had to be wondering why it wasn't ahead 21-0. The fulcrum was Dimitri Nance's first touchdown, which made it 13-7 and announced to everyone, We Officially Have A Game.

2. The cliche of this autumn is: The Red Sox are the new Yankees. It is too soon to tell, but the Devils may, right now, be the new Trojans. Like the Carson/Williams/Leinart/Bush Trojans, they don't panic early, they adjust well, and they hit a fresh gear at about the 10-minute mark of the third quarter. From the fifth game of the 2002 season straight through to the Washington-Stanford-Arizona poo-poo platter, the Trojans were college football's Seabiscuit, the team that might play you even through the backstretch, then turn to you, smile, say, "So long, Charlie," and score, oh, 35 unanswered points. Devil fans well remember a few of those games. Now they get to enjoy them. The longer the third quarter went on, the faster the Cal pocket collapsed, the less time DeSean Jackson had time to get open, the more panicked Tedford's offense (which is predicated on time in the pocket and turning the game into streetball) became, the worse things looked for Cal.

This, more than anything, has to be emphasized: Cal's second-half rash of injuries were not the cause of ASU's dominance, they were the result of ASU's dominance.

3. No, I have to stay on this ASU/USC comparison. The greatest game of my lifetime was the 2005 Orange Bowl: USC 55, Oklahoma 19. There were about eleventy billion things about that game I love, but the one that sticks out was when I knew the game was over. The muffed punt? Jason White's twenty-seventh interception? No, I knew the game was over when the score stood Oklahoma 7, USC 0. White was throwing off his wrong foot falling backwards, Adrian Peterson was being stood up at the line, and Lofa Tatupu and Sean Cody were missing sacks by mere inches. The Sooners converted two third-and-longs on absolute flukes, broken plays turned into cross-field passes. I thought: No way you can play like that for 60 minutes. And sure enough . . .

Now, I didn't know tonight's game was over at 13-0. But I did know the Devils had dodged a couple of bullets and were gaining confidence. They gave Cal a quarter-and-a-half. Not much. But the Bears needed to take it, and they didn't.

4. Big thanks to SunDevil Joe, who provided me with some of the names I needed to watch. A short honor roll: Dimitri Nance (three touchdowns), Keegan Haring (crucial yardage splitting time with Nance); receivers Michael Jones, Kyle Williams, Chris McGaha (how does Rudi love to distribute); and, crucially in the fourth quarter, cornerback Justin Tryon and linebacker Robert James--Tryon, for locking down Jackson as best as anyone could, and both Tryon and James, for coming up with knee-buckling fourth-quarter interceptions on consecutive Cal possessions.

Am I reading too much into two games?

Perhaps.

And Oregon--on the road--looms next week.

But this was some performance.

ASU 21, Cal 20 (3rd Quarter)

I am sitting here, and I am stunned. The first half ended at 11:10, two hours and ten minutes after the opening kickoff.

Two run-and-shoot WAC teams, circa 1991, could not accomplish this.

And yes, incomplete passes will slow things down, but helping in no small way was the work of the usually brilliant Pac-10 officiating crew.

To sight one example:

Second quarter, minute to go, ASU punts. Deep in his own territory, Cal return man cathces it, starts to run, is hit, juggles the ball. Before he hits the ground, the back judge crosses his arms above his head, signaling "down," but--and you had to be there--does not blow his whistle.

Incredible. Thirty-two years of watching football, that's the first time I've seen anything like that.

To continue: the relevant players, who are all locked on the ball, do not see the back judge's motion, so the scrum on the field continues.

Result: ASU's ball, inside the 15.

Okay: review. Was the return man down?

Long about now, the the play-by-play man says, for about the third time, "Umm, I didn't hear a whistle back there."

Official's Conference.

Head set for the ref.

More conference.

Back to the head set.

Conference.

Then finally, "There was no whistle, but the ball was signaled down."

Is there anything--anything--that can keep a Pac-10 official from looking like a 15 year-old umping his first Little League game?

Update: 24-20, Arizona State. Discussing the first half with Astro-Girl, in terms she would relate to, I said, "If this were a baseball game, you'd say Cal left too many men on base. They're letting the Sun Devils hang around at home, which is never smart."

Now, in the early part of the fourth, I wonder if . . .

Whoa. I was about to type, "I wonder if ASU isn't emulating Cal in the second half. No excuse for the offense to receive the gift of a Justin Tryon interception, repeatedly blow Cal off the line of scrimmage, move briskly down the field and wind up with no points."

Just as I started this thought, Robert James intercepts for ASU. And the Devils move briskly down the field.

Well, lookee here

Pac-10 conference standings:

Arizona State 4-0
UCLA 4-0
Oregon 3-1
USC 3-1
Cal 2-2
Oregon State 2-2

The next few weeks should be interesting.

The Fiesta Bowl, Boise State, and the Future (part three of three)

There is no question that, at present, the Fiesta Bowl is one-fifth of a system that is unwieldy at best, and possibly corrupt as well. The BCS is college football's horse-by-committee, a closed shop that manages to strip away most of the traditional rivalries of the bowls while doing nearly nothing to resolve the problem of an identifiable champion. When it works, it does by accident, when there happens to be two undefeated major programs and zero undefeated mid-majors, a Utah or a Boise State. This has happened exactly twice, in 2002 and last year. Furthermore, anyone who thinks that Boise State victory brings us any closer to a playoff should consider that 1975 Fiesta Bowl, which was played the day after Christmas. In those days, with no BCS, schools played their bowls and turned matters over to the voters. Even when number one played number two--as happened with Penn State and Alabama in the 1979 Sugar Bowl--nothing was guaranteed. (Alabama defeated Penn State, but was number two to USC in the UPI Poll by virtue of having lost to USC earlier in the year. USC, at 11-1, lost the only game it would lose over two seasons, to . . . Arizona State.) In 1975, having won the Fiesta Bowl, having beaten a major power, the Sun Devils and their fans had a week to do equations in their heads, thinking, "Well if UCLA beats Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, and if Alabama loses the Sugar Bowl (or even wins unimpressively), and if Oklahoma loses in the Orange Bowl . . . my God, we'll win the National Championship!"

It takes a lot to go from number seven to number one in one week. In fact, it has never happened. But it very nearly happened that year. Alabama won the Sugar Bowl, but in lackluster fashion, and (in Dick Vermeil's final game as Bruin coach)UCLA pounded Ohio State. In those days, the Orange Bowl was always the last game on New Year's Day; most of Sun Devil Nation tuned in, hoping for a miracle. It didn't happen. Oklahoma won, and all of us were treated to final AP and UPI polls that began as follows:

1. Oklahoma (11-1)
2. Arizona State (12-0)
3. Alabama (11-1)

This was the first serious call for a playoff I remember. Bear Bryant, furious for (in his eyes) being robbed of a championship, screamed bloody murder. And this was thirty-one years ago. However, what has happened in the interim--the Bowl Alliance, then the BCS--has been an effort to prevent a play-off, rather than lead to one. The issue is not money; though the Big Six conferences do enjoy their fat guaranteed paydays, there is no question the money would skyrocket if the bowls were somehow lashed to a playoff system. (Think March Madness times ten.) The issue is always, will always be, power. The NCAA has full power to regulate any intercollegiate playoff system; hold so much as a single game that might be called a "play-off" (the so-called "Four- (or Five-) plus-one" scenario, and the Big Six-plus-Notre-Dame will lose their power to include, exclude, negotiate, schedule and divide up the profits among themselves.

(It is precisely because there is no playoff that, despite common misconception, the winner of next Monday's game won't be the "National Champion" of anything, strictly speaking, or even the "Champion" of anything save the BCS. The rough analogy is the Master's Golf Tournament, which unlike the other majors, which crown the national champion of a professional body--the Professional Golfers' Association, say--the winner of the Master's is not the champion of anything but a particular tournament. The Master's is not even a tour event, strictly speaking; all its glory is conferred upon by the players, the media, and the fans of the sport. Which is why Augusta National can talk of requiring a uniform (read: less areodynamic) golf ball without fear of interference from the PGA or USGA.)

When the BCS has been expanded, it has been for no other reason that to forestall Congressional anti-trust oversight. The notion is that an odd Utah or Boise State will keep the hounds at bay. This does little to help us. If Florida manages to defeat Ohio State in any convincing manner, the final BCS standings will probably read as follows:

1. Florida (13-1)
2. Boise State (13-0)
3. Ohio State (12-1)

What can be said for the Fiesta Bowl is that, when a mid-major school attempts to enter the party, it usually uses the Tempe gate. Arizona State was the first to do so. Penn State and Miami gave us the second National Champion crowned in a bowl outside the Original Four (Brigham Young won its lone National Championship by prevailing in the Holiday Bowl in 1984; its finish ahead of 11-1 Washington was helped in no small part by the respectability Arizona State had helped bring to the Mountain Time Zone.) Only two teams outside the Big-Six-Plus-Notre-Dame have ever played in a BCS Bowl. Both have gone to the Fiesta Bowl. Utah did so by going undefeated in 2004; Boise State went this season. Both times their geographical location was actually a benefit; the Fiesta Bowl reasoned, quite correctly, that not only would the fans of these schools buy up their allotment of tickets and any others they could get their hands on, but that thousands of fans without tickets would flood the Valley with their tourist dollars. This brightens prospects for whatever mid-major may manage to run the table: a TCU, a Brigham Young, even--one day--an Air Force, Wyoming, or Nevada. The future will be the opening of the door--just a crack, though. The playoffs are at least fifteen years away, maybe twenty. At least.

The Fiesta Bowl, Boise State, and the Future (part two of three)

It is an effort to list all of the consequences of that single football game.

The 1975 Fiesta Bowl was the game that turned college football on its head, opened up the Pac-8 to the Arizona schools, put the Fiesta Bowl on the map, introduced a college football-watching country to an entire time zone, and helped inch the football world toward an opening-up of television contracts.

(It is hard to remember but well to remember how byzantine the bylaws and contracts were back then. Until the late seventies, neither the Big-10 nor Pac-Ten could send a team to any bowl but the Rose, and so in 1974, for instance, Michigan started the season 10-0, lost to Ohio State, and stayed home. Also, the NCAA negotiated all television contracts, and allowed only a handful of games on the air. Nowadays the Pac-10 and Big-10 send at least ten teams to bowl games, and on Saturdays one can watch college football, uninterrupted, from late morning until past midnight on multiple stations. A single school (Notre Dame) has its own network television contract, for heaven's sake.)

What happened soon thereafter was a realization by many that both the Fiesta Bowl and Arizona State had outgrown one another, and both had outgrown the WAC. Arizona State was ready to challenge for the Rose Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl was ready to be more than a mere showcase for ASU. In 1978, Arizona State (along with Arizona) moved to the Pac-8, making it the Pac-10; and the Fiesta Bowl, which was contractually allowed to break its ties with the WAC should any team leave the conference (of course, everyone knew the clause had been written with ASU in mind), became free to offer both of its bids to any team that would accept them. This double-bid status became a piece of enormous good luck over the next dozen years, as independents, along with conference champions with no bowl tie-ins, became the Next Big Thing in college football.

A bowl designed for an upstart became an upstart itself, moving to New Year's Day in 1981 as a clear challenge to the Big Four. Soon thereafter, the game became the first to add a corporate title to its name. The Sunkist Fiesta Bowl was born, the appearance purse bulged, and the game became a locus of perennial national consequence. It helped that over a seven-year span, six independents (Miami three times, Penn State twice, Notre Dame once) won the national championship, two of them by winning the Fiesta Bowl. (Had Penn State beaten Oklahoma in the 1986 Orange Bowl, the string would have been seven-of-seven.) The watershed was during the 1986 season, when it became clear that two undefeated independents--Miami and Penn State--would wind up the regular season No. 1 and No. 2. Completely free of any conference tie-in, the Fiesta Bowl went to work, taking the revolutionary step of moving the 1987 game to January 2nd and then fattening the purse. The traditional bowls (especially the Orange, which considered Miami its possession) howled, but the two teams met in that year's Game of the Century. It hardly mattered that the game itself was a dud, aside from the thrill of watching a Miami team full of loudmouths and criminals beaten 14-10 by Joe Paterno's Eagle Scouts (the offensive player of the game was John Bruno, the Penn State punter.) The 1987 Fiesta Bowl was the highest-rated football game to that point, and there was no turning back.

Occasionally, the double-indy system did not work. Sometimes the game was the runner-up bowl; it seemed for half-a-dozen years that Nebraska (by losing to Oklahoma) kept playing Florida State (which kept losing to Miami). And occasionally the greatest schemes fell flat; in 1993, the game set itself up for a re-match of a Notre Dame-Florida State thriller, but Notre Dame spoiled everything by losing to Boston College, and the Fiesta was left scrambling, finally settling on Arizona and a Miami team imploding from a decade's worth of misbehavior. (Arizona breezed, 29-0, in a stinker; on a hunch, my younger brother Rob and I drove to Sun Devil Stadium New Year's morning and bought a pair of field-level seats from two kids unloading their parents tickets. We paid fifteen bucks--total. Try doing that these days.) Often enough, though, the formula did work, and when the wind blew the other way--when Penn State, Miami, Florida State, Pittsburgh, and every other major college program save Notre Dame became conference aligned--the Fiesta Bowl swung back again, and found its way into the Bowl Alliance, and ultimately the BCS, hosting the championship game every fourth year. When the BCS added a fifth bowl, a stand-alone BCS championsip to rotate between the four BCS sites and run a week after New Years', the Fiesta Bowl location (now moved across the Valley to Glendale for the new stadium) was chosen as the first host.

The real loser, as time went on, was the Cotton Bowl: not as nimble, not as spendthift, too interested in landing the Heisman Trophy winner; plus the game is played in a bad neighborhood in, too often, terrible weather. (Don't know why, but New Year's Day in Dallas is almost always miserable: either wet or freezing, and always windy. Just ask Joe Montana.) The founders of the Fiesta Bowl had wanted, more than anything, to convince the country that the Valley of the Sun was as good a place to spend Christmas week as Southern California, Miami or New Orleans. To that extent--and against a dozen bowls that might have beaten them, had any of them been a little more aggressive--they had succeeded.

The Fiesta Bowl, Boise State, and the Future (part one of three)

So this time--for sure--the BCS will reform, right? In the wake of Boise State's spectacular, incredible, excellent, very good Fiesta Bowl comeback against Oklahoma (a game that included both a hook-and-ladder and a Statue of Liberty play, both for scores), we are faced with the very real possibility of the only undefeated Division I-A team--having won a BCS Bowl and beaten four Bowl teams, including Oregon State (which beat USC, which clobbered Michigan, which lost to Ohio State by three points)--ranked second in the BCS come next Tuesday. Surely, then, this will be crystallizing moment, when college football sees the error of its ways and institutes the long-awaited playoff system--four teams, eight, ten?

No. Of course not. The reasons why, in a minute. First, a few words about the Fiesta Bowl, and how appropriate it was that Boise State's classic victory should take place there.

The Fiesta Bowl has always been for upstarts. In the beginning, it was formed by resentful triplets starving for attention: the Western Athletic Conference, Arizona State University, and the powers of the greater Phoenix/Tempe area.

As is recounted in the history of the game, in the late sixties and early seventies, the Western Athletic Conference was growing dissolute about the fact that no prestigious bowl would accept its champion. Football in those days was even more a closed shop than today, as a long-ago (and non-archived) Sports Illustrated article recounts. To paraphrase, outside of a few tie-ins, the power rested neither in the NCAA nor the conferences but in a few powerful schools, which invariably meant that a few coaches-for-life who would set up bowl match-ups between themselves and present the match-up as a fait accompli. (The 1975 Sugar Bowl, between Alabama and Notre Dame, was apparently settled on a single phone call between Bear Bryant and Ara Parseghian.) Arizona State, churning out one undefeated (or one- or two-loss) season after another, was simply shut out, not only from the big four (Rose, Orange, Sugar, Cotton) but from most bowls, most years, period.

The solution--for the WAC, for Arizona State, for the Phoenix community at large (itself tired of feeling like a suburb of Los Angeles, its citizens receiving boring 10-7 Los Angeles Rams shoveathons week after week)--was the Fiesta Bowl. The very existence of the Fiesta Bowl was, as the sixties became the seventies, a close-run thing; throughout the sixties, the only bowl game approved by the NCAA was the Peach Bowl, a game (incidentally) won by Arizona State to make the school even so much as a blip on the college football radar. The Phoenix businessmen who backed the Fiesta Bowl would follow the Peach Bowl's model, and blend the game with endless charity efforts in the Valley of the Sun. The model was presented, and the NCAA approved.

From the start, there was no question of why the game existed. The Fiesta Bowl was contracted to feature an at-large invitee to play "The WAC champion," but it was clear the game was designed by wealthy Phoenicians as a Valley showcase for Arizona State, period. ASU played in five of the first seven Fiesta Bowls, winning four; had the Fiesta Bowl been incorporated (as it should have been) in 1969, ASU would have played in seven of the first nine, and almost certainly won six. The entire country (by which I mean the football-watching country at large) was in ignorance of the squads ASU coach Frank Kush was turning out year after year--which he did, first, by securing the best (not-insignificant) talent between Texas and the Colorado River; and second, by working and drilling said talent until said talent dropped. The ASU training facility in Northern Arizona is called Camp Tontozona; the hellacious mountain to be climbed at a jogger's pace is called, to this day, Mount Kush.

In the first few years, the Fiesta Bowl was between Arizona State and some offensive-minded independent such as Pittsburgh or Florida State. It was a nice sideshow, a flurry of offense in the dry desert Christmas air, right up until 1975, when ASU went 11-0 in the regular season and intruded in on the AP Top Ten, much like an newly minted oil baron might crash the country club.

The andidote, it seemed, was number three Nebraska, who (in the view of paranoid Sun Devil fans; "They're out to screw us" is embedded in an Arizona sports fans' psyche) seemed sent by the nation's football establishment to squash the Devil uprising. Oklahoma or Ohio State or Notre Dame might have worked, but (Devil fans projected) Nebraska would do. Nebraska was 10-1, having lost only to Oklahoma, and only accepted the Fiesta Bowl invitation the second time it was extended.

Compared to Boise State versus Oklahoma, no one can imagine the sense of David v. Goliath that December 26th, 1975, when the team with the sophomore quarterback (Dennis Sproul), the sophomore receiver (John Jefferson), and the stud cornerback (Mike Haynes) took the field against the Great Red Farm Combine.

I was ten years old, and living in Phoenix. The game itself was a classic, and held my family and I spellbound for every minute of its play. ASU scored two field goals early (courtesy of coach's son Danny Kush). Nebraska responded with two touchdowns; then, when Sproul was injured near the goal line, sophomore back-up Fred Mortensen replaced him. Mortenson's first play: a touchdown pass to Jefferson. His second play: a two-point conversion, another pass, this time to Larry Mucker. 14-14.

Fourth quarter: another Danny Kush field goal. 17-14, ASU. With a few minutes to go, the Huskers began a march toward the end zone. Their lineman blew the Devil defenders off the ball, their running backs were pile drivers. My family, assembled before the black-and-white RCA, sat silent, resolved to our team's fate. Nebraska drove the ball to ASU's 31. Quarterback Terry Luck threw two incompletions. On third-and-ten, he completed a pass to fullback Tony Davis, who was hit by two Devils and fumbled the ball. The Devils recovered and ran out the clock.

Bedlam. Sheer insanity.

To this day, Arizona State 17, Nebraska 14 is a score I keep in my head alongside USA 4, USSR 3. When I heard a commentator say, "Well, 52,000 fans paid for seats they didn't use much today," Yes, I thought, and yes. I was ten. I had never loved a team with such innocence, nor ever would again. (My next sports crush, the late-70s Yankees, would introduce me to winning's ugly side.) I had been given a mini-bike for Christmas a day earlier--the greatest Christmas gift of my life; it was a magical week--and, after the game, as my father drove me and my mini-bike out to a place where I could ride, as we listened to hi-lights of the game on his AM radio--especially Mortensen's heroics--I thought, What a team. What a game!

My father chose a spot of desert that, in a few year's time, would be a golf course. As I puttered up and down the hills, as a typically breathtaking Valley sunset broke pink and orange over the distant mountains, I saw my father through the dust, seated in the Country Squire station wagon, smiling as the game commentary played on the radio.

Vince Bowl: One day remaining

Simmons checks in, of course.

Money quote:

Hard to believe those reports that the David Carr era is wrapping up in Houston. It seemed so promising there for ... actually, wait, there wasn't a single moment when it ever seemed promising. Scratch that. Anyway, can you think of a worse turn of events for Texan fans than Reggie Bush's fantasy breakout week happening on the tail end of back-to-back "All Vince Young does is win football games!" weeks? Now they're about to get their butts kicked this week by the franchise that ditched them (the Titans) and the rookie QB they passed on (Young). On the bright side, if there's ever a week for somebody to hold up a "BRING BACK CAPERS" sign, this is it. I have my fingers crossed.

If I were at the game, I'd bring that sign

Reggie? Vince? Matt? Er, Mario?

The debate rages on.

Norm Chow Arizona State?

So says the Irish Trojan.

I would wish Norm well in any situation, judging him one of the four men (along, of course, with Carroll, Palmer, and Leinart) most responsible for returning the Trojans to glory.

And I would love to see Arizona State (my second favorite team) return to its proper place as at least a second-tier national power (augmented with an occasional Rose Bowl and National Title run).

Something tells me, though, this isn’t the right job for him. The last dozen years have seen offensive geniuses a bit lacking in the charisma department crash and burn when given the reins.

From what I’ve read, though, I think he’s going to have to find this out for himself.

Koetter out

A day late, but: Dirk Koetter gone.

So, who? Recruiting starts NOW.

Over the last twenty-five years, ASU's pattern (Larry Marmie aside, God bless him) has been to cherry-pick successful coaches from less pretigious colleges who had achieved some success. Darryl Rodgers from Michigan State, John Cooper from Tulsa, Bruce Snyder from Cal, Koetter from--where, Idaho?

Robbie-Boy floated a Dave McGinnis rumor. Beyond that--having not ventured to the Sun Devil zone--I haven't any idea.

USC-Notre Dame, second half

Okay, I settle in just in time to see the Trojan babies push another one across. Back before the kickoff, I thought, "Okay, if USC scores to start the second half, no matter the score, that's excellent good news for the Trojans."

I say it here, it comes out there. Most important drive of the season. 28-10, USC.

Now, the (as the Irish Trojan puts it) Pete Carroll Second Half Magic.

Three-and-out, with a sack. Demonstrating, at least now, that counting on your passing game will exhaust your o-line by the middle of the third quarter. So far, anyway.

Now: USC, third and one. Didn't make it. Gotta punt.

Update: Booty to Jarrett, extra-point missed. 37-17. Beat the Bruins.

Update: 44-24. All else evens out. Beat the Bruins.

Footballapalooza

ASU-UA at a standstill.

ND goes for it on fourth-and-nine, fails. USC quick first down.

Observation here: a team that thinks it can simply pass into isolation coverage against USC will soon end up sleeping in the street. Pete Carroll--I've said this before--understands the entire sixty minutes of a game better than any coach I've ever seen, save Bill Parcells and Bill Belichek. (He is limited in other aspects of game strategy, but not here.) Pass block? Fine. Pass block for two-and-half quarters and check with your o-line.

Booty. Touchdown. 7-0, USC.

Now what's this at ASU? Ball at the half-line? After UA wins a reversal? Oh well, touchdown, ASU. 27-14, awaiting the extra point.

Update: USC, great punt return, great play selection, TD pass to Jarrett. 14-0, USC.

Update: I think I have a man-crush on Terrell Thomas, cornerback extraordinaire. Stops a TD. 14-3, SC.

Arizona State grinding down minutes. 28-14.

Update: Wow, that Lane Kiffen is some player. Oh, wait: USC scored while we were treated to a shot of Lane Kiffen in the booth. 21-3, SC.

Now Brady Quinn, first down, runs for 60 yards. Go figure.

Meanwhile, the state of Arizona has just gone to bed. 28-14, Devils.

Back at the ranch . . . Notre Dame, first and goal. Darius Walker fumbles . . . SC recovers.

Mercy.

Update: USC , three and out. Blocked. Punt. Touchdown. 21-10.

And in the most boring ASU-UA game ever (thank you!), ASU leads 28-14 with two minutes remaining.

Update: ASU wins, 28-14. Wonderfully tedious. Meanwhile, USC works around two Booty interceptions. Still 21-10.

Right now, I want to do a half of a Clara Bow and have sex with USC's defense, which is basically responsible for the lead right now.

Good night, Footballpalooza. We go to the second half.

Arizona State-Arizona underway

A few observations:

*Where in the world did Arizona get those ugly-ass uniforms? Red shirts with blue helmets and blue pants? They look like the prisoner team in Longest Yard II, and I don't mean the re-make. And . . .

AAAAAH! Touchdown, ASU! 7-0!

*Where was I? I was about to write, if Rudi Carpenter can get in a groove against Stoops's gambling, swarming defense, this might work. I say it here, it comes out there.

Update: Arizona State goes for it on fourth and short, results in a touchdown . . . and a vicious, late, punk-ass forearm to the windpipe of Carpenter by a ScumCat defender. I'm sorry, but try that against Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or Brett Favre in the NFL, and you'll find your ass in the locker room awaiting the news on your fine.

Update: I like baseball more than college football, only because you walk away from a baseball game often saying, "I never saw something like that before." Well, I've never seen a punter punt the ball twice, as the UofA punter just did. ASU ball, first and goal . . . and in. 21-0.

Update: Excessive celebration leads to a deep kick-off, a return to midfield, a called fumble (correctly reversed--apparently even the good calls go against ASU). Soon enough, touchdown, UofA. 21-7.

Update: What a crap call! UA's Tuitama gets a clean hit, his head snaps back, bangs against the helmet of a Sun Devil defender . . . the announcers basically admit that, yeah, the hit was clean, the contact incidental, but if you knock heads "with a kid who had two concussions . . ." With a kid who had two concussions? What is this, gridiron affirmative action?

Update: So it goes. For the past three decades, Arizona State has had the superior talent, all the starters on a combined team featuring all the Arizona schools, all but the rare future NFL star who inexplicably showed up in Tucson (Chuck Cecil, Rickey Hundley, Teddy Bruschi, No-Bowl Bobby). The talent has, with rare exceptions, been on ASU's side, and the breaks have fallen to Uof A. Such is life. So it happens that two ASU blow-them-off-the-ball drives are flattened by two turnovers, and what might have been at least 28-7 ASU is now 21-14 at the half. Brother.