Damn.
Why does it have to be November?
Thanksgiving and football (more to the point, Thanksgiving during football) was my undoing.
15,000 words short.
I shall fight on!
Final totals here.
Friday, November 30, 2007
ASU v. Arizona: the meanest rivalry, one year later
(My first reprise: with the Fiesta--or perhaps Rose--Bowl on the line, a look back to my post of a year ago: The Meanest Rivalry).
Tomorrow the college football nation will be treated to a special game: the, by all available evidence, meanest rivalry in college football.
Arizona State v. Arizona.
There are older rivalries (Lafayette-Lehigh, Harvard-Yale). There are more historical rivalries (Army-Navy). There are rivalries with more National Championship implications (Ohio State-Michigan, Notre Dame-USC, Texas-Oklahoma). And there are rivalries that produce better games (Notre Dame-USC again, plus Oklahoma-Texas again and, until recently, Miami-Florida State).
For sheer unvarnished hatred, however, perhaps only Alabama-Auburn can crowd the annual Thanksgiving-weekend tilt between the Sun Devils and Wildcats.
This fact may come as a surprise to most people, who associate Arizona with Lute Olson's basketball teams and think of Arizona State as the place Pat Tillman attended two decades ago. But as a veteran of USC-UCLA, USC-Notre Dame, and as someone who has seen both UT-A&M and Ohio State-Michigan fans up close, I can testify: nothing, nothing matches Arizona State-Arizona for sheer unvarnished ugliness.
My younger brother Robbie-Boy once put the ASU-UA game in perspective. He told me he'd spoken to an alumnus of the so-called Big Game, Stanford-Cal, and was told, "Sure, it's a rivalry, and we want to win. But we have friends on the other side from college and we spend the days before the game wine-tasting and going out to dinner. It's part of the fun." Such behavior would be unthinkable between Sun Devil and Wildcat fans, who, starting four hours before game time, begin eyeing one another from one tailgate party to another like panthers circling the same watering hole.
The fist-fights come later, on and off the field.
The hatred has grown in two stages, and its story is a lovely sliver of college football history. The man most deserving of credit (or blame, as you will) is Frank Kush, the coach who put ASU on the football map in the late sixties and early seventies. It was Kush--along with a slew of quality quarterbacks, including Danny White, Dennis Sproul, Fred Mortenson, and Mark Malone--who made Arizona State a football power. A writer in previous generation once said, "For me, college football gives out west of New Haven and doesn't pick up again until Palo Alto." In Kush's early years, the flyover area was shorter: college football gave out west of Lincoln, Nebraska, and didn't pick up again until Los Angeles. And so it was, until Kush's Sun Devils emerged in the desert and introduced not only to a team but an entire region to the rest of the country.
I was barely old enough in the middle seventies to remember the extent of the bias against Arizona State and other small schools in distant regions. Today's so-called East Coast bias (it is really an L-shaped bias, starting in Ann Arbor, stretching south to Austin, then east through Alabama to Gainesville) has not a patch on football in the seventies, during which the NCAA held a stranglehold on television rights and restricted broadcasting not only to a handful of games, but the same games every year: USC-Notre Dame, Ohio State-Michigan, Pittsburgh-Penn State, Oklahoma-Nebraska. Arizona State was turning out first-rate team after team in virtual anonymity; two months into almost every season, Kush's teams would be 6-0 and perhaps eighteenth in the country, behind many teams with one loss and a few (an Alabama or an Ohio State) with two. A single loss, and ASU would drop out of the Top 20 (as it was called back then). It is hard to remember, but well to remember, that much of the reason the Fiesta Bowl came into being was to gain Arizona State national exposure; the original contract was for the Fiesta Bowl to feature "the WAC champion," but in those days everyone knew who that would be.
It is also well to remember that, in those days, the hatred between Arizona State and Arizona was mostly confined to one day a year. Frank Kush did his level best to express his loathing of all things Bear Down: refusing to land at the Tucson airport when recruiting the latest stud from Amphitheatre High School, for instance. But mostly the fans of both teams (the Devil fans especially) wanted their school to beat the other without wishing the other school ill against, say, UTEP. As a kid whose parents took him to ASU games six Saturday evenings a year, I remember when the PA announcer at Sun Devil stadium would read the days' scores, an Arizona win would be greeted with general applause.
That all changed when the rivalry moved uptown, in successive stages. Stage One was The Game, which featured The Catch. In 1975 Arizona State came into the game 10-0 and flirting with the outer edges of the Top Ten for the first time ever; Arizona, for its part, was 9-1 and ranked 17th. This was the first time in the rivalry where a victory by either side would secure a bowl berth. What followed was the greatest ASU-UA game ever, a 24-21 victory by Arizona State featuring a lunging, diving touchdown catch by sophomore wide receiver John Jefferson. (It was a foretelling of the bitterness to come that, starting then, and to this day, certain Wildcat quarters claimed the catch was a trap.) In the Fiesta Bowl a month later, Arizona State pulled off not only a fabulous upset, but one of the most consequential games in college football history, a game to rank with Notre Dame's defeat of Army in 1920 or Miami's upset of Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl. ASU's 17-14 victory over Nebraska was consequential in the way the other games were: not just introducing a heretofore unsung football power, but literally moving the center of the sport. Notre Dame introduced the country to the football of the Midwest, and specifically to Knute Rockne's Irish; Miami established the primacy of Florida. In the final 1975 tally, Arizona State jumped from number 7 to number 2 in the rankings (many said it deserved the whole macaroni); more importantly, its victory introduced an entire nation to football in the Mountain Time Zone, to Arizona and Colorado State, to Brigham Young and Utah, to Boise State and Air Force. Every time one of these schools finds itself on ESPN or in a BCS Bowl, it should throw up a silent prayer of thanks to Frank Kush.
The events of 1975 were far-reaching in another way, and became the catalyst for the Pacific-Eight to extend an invitation to ASU and Arizona to enter the conference, thus becoming the first of the large conferences to alter itself in any meaningful way. Over the next thirty years, the Big East would be formed, Penn State would join the Big 10, Arkansas would leave the Southwest Conference for the Southeast Conference, the Big Eight would become the Big 12, the SWC would be smashed into half-a-dozen pieces, and--in the last few years--a dozen schools would switch allegiances for an upgrade in status.
It was this trade-up in class that brought the rivalry to Stage Two. Suddenly, both teams were fighting for the Rose Bowl--or rather, Arizona State was, and Arizona was obsessed with playing the spolier. The nastiness reached its present level in the early 1980s, when twice (1982 and 1985) ASU needed to beat or tie Arizona to advance to the Rose Bowl. Both times ASU lost, and both times the sheer joy Arizona took in denying the Sun Devils laid the hatred bare. It was along this time that Arizona State began losing almost every year to Arizona--usually under the most freakish circumstances--that it became clear that Arizona, a basketball school in a football conference, saw its entire season in terms of a single game, Arizona State on Thanksgiving Friday or Saturday. This, then, has been the dynamic of the ASU-UA rivalry for going on a quarter-century: Arizona State, almost always the better team, looking to use the game for a stepping-stone to a bowl, or a better one; and Arizona, almost always the weaker team, taking malicious delight in every bad bounce, every tipped pass, every bad call (and in the Pac-10, the calls can be atrocious).
I have been to four Fiesta Bowls, two Rose Bowls, a Cotton Bowl. I have been at Yankee Stadium for a Yankees-Red Sox double header, been at Fenway Park when Jose Canseco came to bat, sat in the bleachers to watch the Angels come to within one pitch of the World Series, and lose. I have seen Cubs fans up close, and learned the truth of the adage that the Cubs aren't a baseball team so much as an excuse to drink in the afternoon. And nothing--nothing--beats the sheer raw hatred of Sun Devils for Wildcats, or vice versa. And at 5 pm central time tomorrow, I'll turn on my TV and feel a little of that hatred for myself.
Three words.
Skin the Cats.
Tomorrow the college football nation will be treated to a special game: the, by all available evidence, meanest rivalry in college football.
Arizona State v. Arizona.
There are older rivalries (Lafayette-Lehigh, Harvard-Yale). There are more historical rivalries (Army-Navy). There are rivalries with more National Championship implications (Ohio State-Michigan, Notre Dame-USC, Texas-Oklahoma). And there are rivalries that produce better games (Notre Dame-USC again, plus Oklahoma-Texas again and, until recently, Miami-Florida State).
For sheer unvarnished hatred, however, perhaps only Alabama-Auburn can crowd the annual Thanksgiving-weekend tilt between the Sun Devils and Wildcats.
This fact may come as a surprise to most people, who associate Arizona with Lute Olson's basketball teams and think of Arizona State as the place Pat Tillman attended two decades ago. But as a veteran of USC-UCLA, USC-Notre Dame, and as someone who has seen both UT-A&M and Ohio State-Michigan fans up close, I can testify: nothing, nothing matches Arizona State-Arizona for sheer unvarnished ugliness.
My younger brother Robbie-Boy once put the ASU-UA game in perspective. He told me he'd spoken to an alumnus of the so-called Big Game, Stanford-Cal, and was told, "Sure, it's a rivalry, and we want to win. But we have friends on the other side from college and we spend the days before the game wine-tasting and going out to dinner. It's part of the fun." Such behavior would be unthinkable between Sun Devil and Wildcat fans, who, starting four hours before game time, begin eyeing one another from one tailgate party to another like panthers circling the same watering hole.
The fist-fights come later, on and off the field.
The hatred has grown in two stages, and its story is a lovely sliver of college football history. The man most deserving of credit (or blame, as you will) is Frank Kush, the coach who put ASU on the football map in the late sixties and early seventies. It was Kush--along with a slew of quality quarterbacks, including Danny White, Dennis Sproul, Fred Mortenson, and Mark Malone--who made Arizona State a football power. A writer in previous generation once said, "For me, college football gives out west of New Haven and doesn't pick up again until Palo Alto." In Kush's early years, the flyover area was shorter: college football gave out west of Lincoln, Nebraska, and didn't pick up again until Los Angeles. And so it was, until Kush's Sun Devils emerged in the desert and introduced not only to a team but an entire region to the rest of the country.
I was barely old enough in the middle seventies to remember the extent of the bias against Arizona State and other small schools in distant regions. Today's so-called East Coast bias (it is really an L-shaped bias, starting in Ann Arbor, stretching south to Austin, then east through Alabama to Gainesville) has not a patch on football in the seventies, during which the NCAA held a stranglehold on television rights and restricted broadcasting not only to a handful of games, but the same games every year: USC-Notre Dame, Ohio State-Michigan, Pittsburgh-Penn State, Oklahoma-Nebraska. Arizona State was turning out first-rate team after team in virtual anonymity; two months into almost every season, Kush's teams would be 6-0 and perhaps eighteenth in the country, behind many teams with one loss and a few (an Alabama or an Ohio State) with two. A single loss, and ASU would drop out of the Top 20 (as it was called back then). It is hard to remember, but well to remember, that much of the reason the Fiesta Bowl came into being was to gain Arizona State national exposure; the original contract was for the Fiesta Bowl to feature "the WAC champion," but in those days everyone knew who that would be.
It is also well to remember that, in those days, the hatred between Arizona State and Arizona was mostly confined to one day a year. Frank Kush did his level best to express his loathing of all things Bear Down: refusing to land at the Tucson airport when recruiting the latest stud from Amphitheatre High School, for instance. But mostly the fans of both teams (the Devil fans especially) wanted their school to beat the other without wishing the other school ill against, say, UTEP. As a kid whose parents took him to ASU games six Saturday evenings a year, I remember when the PA announcer at Sun Devil stadium would read the days' scores, an Arizona win would be greeted with general applause.
That all changed when the rivalry moved uptown, in successive stages. Stage One was The Game, which featured The Catch. In 1975 Arizona State came into the game 10-0 and flirting with the outer edges of the Top Ten for the first time ever; Arizona, for its part, was 9-1 and ranked 17th. This was the first time in the rivalry where a victory by either side would secure a bowl berth. What followed was the greatest ASU-UA game ever, a 24-21 victory by Arizona State featuring a lunging, diving touchdown catch by sophomore wide receiver John Jefferson. (It was a foretelling of the bitterness to come that, starting then, and to this day, certain Wildcat quarters claimed the catch was a trap.) In the Fiesta Bowl a month later, Arizona State pulled off not only a fabulous upset, but one of the most consequential games in college football history, a game to rank with Notre Dame's defeat of Army in 1920 or Miami's upset of Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl. ASU's 17-14 victory over Nebraska was consequential in the way the other games were: not just introducing a heretofore unsung football power, but literally moving the center of the sport. Notre Dame introduced the country to the football of the Midwest, and specifically to Knute Rockne's Irish; Miami established the primacy of Florida. In the final 1975 tally, Arizona State jumped from number 7 to number 2 in the rankings (many said it deserved the whole macaroni); more importantly, its victory introduced an entire nation to football in the Mountain Time Zone, to Arizona and Colorado State, to Brigham Young and Utah, to Boise State and Air Force. Every time one of these schools finds itself on ESPN or in a BCS Bowl, it should throw up a silent prayer of thanks to Frank Kush.
The events of 1975 were far-reaching in another way, and became the catalyst for the Pacific-Eight to extend an invitation to ASU and Arizona to enter the conference, thus becoming the first of the large conferences to alter itself in any meaningful way. Over the next thirty years, the Big East would be formed, Penn State would join the Big 10, Arkansas would leave the Southwest Conference for the Southeast Conference, the Big Eight would become the Big 12, the SWC would be smashed into half-a-dozen pieces, and--in the last few years--a dozen schools would switch allegiances for an upgrade in status.
It was this trade-up in class that brought the rivalry to Stage Two. Suddenly, both teams were fighting for the Rose Bowl--or rather, Arizona State was, and Arizona was obsessed with playing the spolier. The nastiness reached its present level in the early 1980s, when twice (1982 and 1985) ASU needed to beat or tie Arizona to advance to the Rose Bowl. Both times ASU lost, and both times the sheer joy Arizona took in denying the Sun Devils laid the hatred bare. It was along this time that Arizona State began losing almost every year to Arizona--usually under the most freakish circumstances--that it became clear that Arizona, a basketball school in a football conference, saw its entire season in terms of a single game, Arizona State on Thanksgiving Friday or Saturday. This, then, has been the dynamic of the ASU-UA rivalry for going on a quarter-century: Arizona State, almost always the better team, looking to use the game for a stepping-stone to a bowl, or a better one; and Arizona, almost always the weaker team, taking malicious delight in every bad bounce, every tipped pass, every bad call (and in the Pac-10, the calls can be atrocious).
I have been to four Fiesta Bowls, two Rose Bowls, a Cotton Bowl. I have been at Yankee Stadium for a Yankees-Red Sox double header, been at Fenway Park when Jose Canseco came to bat, sat in the bleachers to watch the Angels come to within one pitch of the World Series, and lose. I have seen Cubs fans up close, and learned the truth of the adage that the Cubs aren't a baseball team so much as an excuse to drink in the afternoon. And nothing--nothing--beats the sheer raw hatred of Sun Devils for Wildcats, or vice versa. And at 5 pm central time tomorrow, I'll turn on my TV and feel a little of that hatred for myself.
Three words.
Skin the Cats.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Coliseum, cont.
A former college classmate and fellow DT-er sends me this:
Yes, precisely, but more to the point, without the Trojans in the Coliseum, why exactly would the Coliseum--and, by extension, the Commission--even exist? The Rams, Raiders and UCLA have vacated the Coliseum; the Lakers, Kings, Clippers and USC basketball have all fled the Sports Center. (One need only look a few miles north on Figueroa, to the Staples Center, home of both the Lakers and Clippers, to see what the CC could have accomplished with with just a little imagination.)
Furthermore:
The Coliseum, as presently constituted, will never host an NFL game, not even on a temporary basis if LA ever got a team (which it doesn't want).
The Coliseum, as presently constituted, will never host another Olympic Opening Ceremony. It would be lucky to host soccer.
So, if the Trojans leave, precisely what would the Commission do? Concern itself with Monster Truck Rallies and renting out the place for the filming of The Last Boy Scout II?
From Bill Plaschke's column in the LA TIMES:
The most amazing part of this story is that UCLA has given USC
permission to negotiate with the Rose Bowl.
That's UCLA, as in, a university owned by the state of California.
Which is the same entity that owns the Coliseum.
Has everyone here lost their minds?
The day that the Coliseum allows USC to leave is the day they fire up
the bulldozers and tear that sucker down.
The day that Carroll has to drive a recruit through rush-hour traffic to
Pasadena to show him his new field is the day that Carroll joins the San
Diego Chargers.
This is a lose-lose proposition that needs to be fixed, and fast.
As smoke bombs go, this one really stinks.
Yes, precisely, but more to the point, without the Trojans in the Coliseum, why exactly would the Coliseum--and, by extension, the Commission--even exist? The Rams, Raiders and UCLA have vacated the Coliseum; the Lakers, Kings, Clippers and USC basketball have all fled the Sports Center. (One need only look a few miles north on Figueroa, to the Staples Center, home of both the Lakers and Clippers, to see what the CC could have accomplished with with just a little imagination.)
Furthermore:
The Coliseum, as presently constituted, will never host an NFL game, not even on a temporary basis if LA ever got a team (which it doesn't want).
The Coliseum, as presently constituted, will never host another Olympic Opening Ceremony. It would be lucky to host soccer.
So, if the Trojans leave, precisely what would the Commission do? Concern itself with Monster Truck Rallies and renting out the place for the filming of The Last Boy Scout II?
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
USC to the Rose Bowl? (as in--home games, 2008?)
The Los Angeles Coliseum is an ancient, crumbling, smelly old husk of a stadium, one that could be saved only with a face-lift that ran into the scores of millions ($100 million would get its foot in the door), which face-lift would include a complete renovation of its restrooms and concessions, a new sound system, a new video system, new entrance gates . . . and a replacement for every one of its 90,000 seats.
It is, also, situated in South Central LA, part of fifty blocks of squalor surrounding the green and pointed USC campus--a locus for the university that, pre-Pete Carroll, served as one of the great recruiting deterrents in the nation. All through the eighties and nineties, potential USC recruits were warned away by rival assistant coaches: "Why you wanna go there? The ghetto? In front of a half-empty stadium?" For it is gospel truth that the USC fan base is, collectively, the biggest group of front-runners in American sports, and not without reason; for if, on a gorgeous October afternoon, one is given the choice between driving into South Central to watch a dreary Sun Bowl-bound team tangle with Oregon State, or heading out to Santa Monica, up to Ventura, down to Disneyland or San Diego--well, did anyone hear the surf's up at Zuma?
So, it is one of the great ironies that these two institutions benefit from one another. The Coliseum is run by the Coliseum Commission, one of those civic institutions in which cronyism, sloth, and ineptitude are forever battling for supremacy. Including the nearby SportsCenter, the CC has run off, at various times, virtually every non-baseball team between San Jose and San Diego. It is left, really, with USC football and nothing else.
(And the Olympics? The Coliseum has hosted two Summer Olympics, dating back to 1932; in 1978, hot on the heels of the '72 Olympics humiliating one country (West Germany) and the '76 Olympics bankrupting another (Canada), the 1984 Olympics was LA's for the asking, and the city was allowed to call the shots, including staging the Opening Ceremonies in a stadium whose construction preceded the Great Depression.
This leads us to another irony: Peter Ueberroth--who created the modern Olympics as much as anyone--demonstrated in LA '84 that the Games could be run at a profit, or at least the break-even point; so now, thanks almost exclusively to Ueberroth, two dozen cities compete for the Summer Games every quadrennial. If Los Angeles were ever to beat out, for instance, Tokyo and Istanbul and Johannesburg for the Summer Olympics--in 2024, say--the entrance fee would be a behemoth venue, the sort of which is being constructed in the tumescent smog of Peking. The Coliseum, in that instance, would be a non-factor.)
As for USC, one of the selling points of autumn Saturday afternoons is the walk across Exposition Boulevard to that crumbling, smelly old masoleum. The band, the beers, Tommy Trojan, the kicking of the light pole (a tradition born only after my graduation), the walk past the rose garden, the view of the field that once featured Gifford, Garrett, Davis, Bell, White, Lott, Allen, Keyshawn, Carson, Leinart, Bush--this is not nothing.
The solution (or solutions) seem simple: Either the CC upgrades its venue, or USC upgrades it by themselves, in exchange for a long-term lease and some say in management. Apparently the CC is content to agree to neither, and allow USC to follow everyone else out the door. This matter was covered first in The Irish Trojan; I wrote this comment:
Further down, this from hero Mike Garrett, who won USC's first Heisman, and later helped return the Trojans to glory as AD:
Keeping USC would seem to be in the Coliseum Commission's best interests. But what do they care?
It is, also, situated in South Central LA, part of fifty blocks of squalor surrounding the green and pointed USC campus--a locus for the university that, pre-Pete Carroll, served as one of the great recruiting deterrents in the nation. All through the eighties and nineties, potential USC recruits were warned away by rival assistant coaches: "Why you wanna go there? The ghetto? In front of a half-empty stadium?" For it is gospel truth that the USC fan base is, collectively, the biggest group of front-runners in American sports, and not without reason; for if, on a gorgeous October afternoon, one is given the choice between driving into South Central to watch a dreary Sun Bowl-bound team tangle with Oregon State, or heading out to Santa Monica, up to Ventura, down to Disneyland or San Diego--well, did anyone hear the surf's up at Zuma?
So, it is one of the great ironies that these two institutions benefit from one another. The Coliseum is run by the Coliseum Commission, one of those civic institutions in which cronyism, sloth, and ineptitude are forever battling for supremacy. Including the nearby SportsCenter, the CC has run off, at various times, virtually every non-baseball team between San Jose and San Diego. It is left, really, with USC football and nothing else.
(And the Olympics? The Coliseum has hosted two Summer Olympics, dating back to 1932; in 1978, hot on the heels of the '72 Olympics humiliating one country (West Germany) and the '76 Olympics bankrupting another (Canada), the 1984 Olympics was LA's for the asking, and the city was allowed to call the shots, including staging the Opening Ceremonies in a stadium whose construction preceded the Great Depression.
This leads us to another irony: Peter Ueberroth--who created the modern Olympics as much as anyone--demonstrated in LA '84 that the Games could be run at a profit, or at least the break-even point; so now, thanks almost exclusively to Ueberroth, two dozen cities compete for the Summer Games every quadrennial. If Los Angeles were ever to beat out, for instance, Tokyo and Istanbul and Johannesburg for the Summer Olympics--in 2024, say--the entrance fee would be a behemoth venue, the sort of which is being constructed in the tumescent smog of Peking. The Coliseum, in that instance, would be a non-factor.)
As for USC, one of the selling points of autumn Saturday afternoons is the walk across Exposition Boulevard to that crumbling, smelly old masoleum. The band, the beers, Tommy Trojan, the kicking of the light pole (a tradition born only after my graduation), the walk past the rose garden, the view of the field that once featured Gifford, Garrett, Davis, Bell, White, Lott, Allen, Keyshawn, Carson, Leinart, Bush--this is not nothing.
The solution (or solutions) seem simple: Either the CC upgrades its venue, or USC upgrades it by themselves, in exchange for a long-term lease and some say in management. Apparently the CC is content to agree to neither, and allow USC to follow everyone else out the door. This matter was covered first in The Irish Trojan; I wrote this comment:
The Coliseum Commission, in my lifetime, has driven off the Lakers, Kings, Rams, and Raiders, plus UCLA football and USC basketball (albeit that last one was a long time due).
It was said that when one high-ranking Laker official, feeling jerked around by a CC seat warmer, broached the possibility of moving the Lakers to a new venue, and got this as a response (and I quote): "Har dee har-har."
The result was the Forum, and ultimately Staples, a mere few miles from the Sports Center, and everything a rebuilt Sports Center could have been. Har dee har-har, indeed.
Granted, Al Davis is nobody's hero, and moving the Raiders from Oakland was a huge mistake. But the CC did lure Davis to LA with the promise of refurbishments and luxury boxes. It delivered on nothing, and when the Raiders complained, the response was, "Fine. Sue us. See you in court for the next ten years."
The result: your new Oakland Raiders.
The Coliseum is a venue of historic proportions. If the Commission won't do right by the place, it should hand the keys over to someone who will.
Further down, this from hero Mike Garrett, who won USC's first Heisman, and later helped return the Trojans to glory as AD:
November 28, 2007
Dear Fellow Alumni:
It gives me no pleasure to write a letter of this kind, but there are issues facing our university which you need to understand. The University of Southern California has been negotiating diligently for months, trying to renew USC's lease with the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and trying to get guarantees that USC's football team and fans can enjoy home games in a completely renovated and improved stadium.
Unfortunately, talks are at an impasse, and right now we have no lease for the Coliseum next year. As a precaution, USC has negotiated a lease with the Rose Bowl to ensure that we have an acceptable stadium in which to play our home football games for the foreseeable future. But this arrangement is not what we want. We want our football program to remain at the Coliseum. And we want the Coliseum Commission-our "landlords" who manage the stadium-to begin the long overdue rehabilitation of the Coliseum.
You all know the many things which need attention:
Complete replacement of concession facilities to afford modern food and beverage services like those offered at all major stadiums.
Replacement of, and additions to, the currently inadequate restroom facilities.
All new, state-of-the-art video and score boards.
Replacement of the grossly inadequate sound system.
Improved access through renovated and replaced stairs, elevators and escalators.
Repair of crumbling concrete stairs, walkways and infrastructure.
Replacement of all seats.
Reconfiguration of entry gates in order to move fans in and out of the stadium safely and efficiently.
This is not just about people's comfort and enjoyment; it's about the long-term viability of the structure. It's old and worn out. And it is not being used to its fullest potential by the wider community.
USC has been waiting-I believe patiently-ten years for the Commission to do this, but they have not taken the necessary steps, and they will not promise to do so anytime soon. For a decade the nine-member Coliseum Commission has hoped to attract an NFL franchise to the stadium. Their plan has been that the NFL would pay for renovations. There was a clear message from the NFL last summer stating that "notwithstanding all of our best efforts to identify a mutually acceptable solution, we have determined that the Coliseum renovation project, as currently contemplated, would create significant economic risks for the NFL such that we are not prepared to move forward with the project at this time."
The Coliseum Commission asked USC to submit a proposal. So we did. We made to them what I think is an amazing offer. USC offered to spend $100 million to repair and improve the stadium on a ten-year plan, phasing in renovations each year. In return, we requested a master lease that would allow us to play football in the Coliseum for many years. We asked to participate in making decisions regarding the Coliseum and to be given opportunities that would allow us to offset our outlay of money by controlling more of the stadium's revenues. And we'd help make sure the Coliseum has a full life all year round, with entertainment and sporting events, both large and small, not just the six home games for the USC football team.
But the Coliseum Commission rejected our offer.
Our team deserves a great stadium. So do our fans. So do the people of Los Angeles.
The Coliseum Commission is made up of representatives from the city, the county, and the state. They need to know how you feel about this. I believe that our voices will be heard if we work through our elected officials. I urge you to e-mail, fax, or phone the appropriate official asking them to:
Let USC direct and fund the Coliseum's refurbishment in partnership with the city, the county, and the state.
Let USC, in collaboration with the Coliseum Commission, determine and perform vital repairs while ensuring steady income to offset expenses and upkeep.
Let USC be more than a tenant. (USC already brings in 60 percent of the Commission's revenue and that has been the only steady tenant for 80 years! ) We seek to be a key player in the preservation and enhancement of this great civic treasure and historic landmark. Remind them that for 80 years USC has stayed while other teams have gone, and that our home games spark spending in the neighborhood each fall to the tune of approximately $5 million. And that, in total, USC contributes $4 billion to the local economy each year.
If you'd like to join me in taking action, click here for the names of the people to contact.
Your support and commitment to the University of Southern California is invaluable. Together, let's continue to work hard to keep the USC football program in our beloved Coliseum.
Thank you for caring about this issue and for expressing your concerns.
Sincerely,
Michael L. Garrett '67
Director of Athletics
University of Southern California
Keeping USC would seem to be in the Coliseum Commission's best interests. But what do they care?
Santana update
With Joba untouchable, and Hughes-plus-Melky unlikely to get it done, the Yankees and Twins are at an impasse.
Reaction: ambivalence.
Going with Wang-plus-kids-plus-Moose may not be the worst thing in the world.
And Mely might be hard to replace.
Reaction: ambivalence.
Going with Wang-plus-kids-plus-Moose may not be the worst thing in the world.
And Mely might be hard to replace.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Swing and a Miss
My quest for 50,000-wor November novel will fall a bit short.
I stand at 34,356, and could make it working night and day, but finals loom.
Thanksgiving takes me down again. Oh well.
Always December.
I stand at 34,356, and could make it working night and day, but finals loom.
Thanksgiving takes me down again. Oh well.
Always December.
French "Youths"
So here's the latest from Paris, courtesy The New York Times:
Two suburban kids, by all accounts, steal a motor scooter, speed around without a helmet and collide with a police car, killing themselves.
(Oh, wait. The stealing part was left out of the Times, as was the top-speed part.)
The result: three days of riots, in which suburban French "youths" wreak havoc, not with rocks as with two years ago (when two other "youths" ran from police, hid in a power plant, and electrocuted themselves), but with shotguns.
Now, guess what two things the story does not mention.
Aww, you peeked:
*The boys' last names.
*The religion of the rioters, who are merely described as "unemployed, undereducated youths, mostly the offspring of Arab and African immigrants."
Umm, anything else they might have in common?
Two suburban kids, by all accounts, steal a motor scooter, speed around without a helmet and collide with a police car, killing themselves.
(Oh, wait. The stealing part was left out of the Times, as was the top-speed part.)
The result: three days of riots, in which suburban French "youths" wreak havoc, not with rocks as with two years ago (when two other "youths" ran from police, hid in a power plant, and electrocuted themselves), but with shotguns.
Now, guess what two things the story does not mention.
Aww, you peeked:
*The boys' last names.
*The religion of the rioters, who are merely described as "unemployed, undereducated youths, mostly the offspring of Arab and African immigrants."
Umm, anything else they might have in common?
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Missouri over Kansas
Kansas, by losing, may yet prosper via the "Nebraska Loophole."
2001: last regular-season game of the season, Thanksgiving Friday, undefeated #2 Nebraska loses to Colorado and falls out of the Big 12 Championship game.
With undefeated, #1 Miami waiting in the wings, new presumptive #2 Oklahoma loses to Oklahoma State. Then new presumptive #2 Tennessee loses.
The following weekend, in the Big 12 Championship game, new actual #2 Texas loses to Colorado. With Colorado eliminated from consideration with two losses, and with one-loss Oregon oddly never given much credit, the second slot in the title game goes to . . .
Nebraska. Who gets clobbered by Miami, by the way, but that's not really the point.
People talk about Ohio State being "in the clubhouse with one loss." Well, that's the same status for Kansas. In the clubhouse with one loss, able to sit and watch Mizzou and West Virginia beat their brains out and maybe hand them a bid to New Orleans.
Had they lost (badly, say) to Oklahoma last week, Kansas may have been surpassed by a two-losser (LSU?) dominating in its conference championship. As it is, by losing a week earlier than all the conference championships, end-of-year showdowns and so forth, Kansas may have done itself a favor in the long run.
This year is so screwy that, as in 2001, keeping your team off the field may be the best strategy.
2001: last regular-season game of the season, Thanksgiving Friday, undefeated #2 Nebraska loses to Colorado and falls out of the Big 12 Championship game.
With undefeated, #1 Miami waiting in the wings, new presumptive #2 Oklahoma loses to Oklahoma State. Then new presumptive #2 Tennessee loses.
The following weekend, in the Big 12 Championship game, new actual #2 Texas loses to Colorado. With Colorado eliminated from consideration with two losses, and with one-loss Oregon oddly never given much credit, the second slot in the title game goes to . . .
Nebraska. Who gets clobbered by Miami, by the way, but that's not really the point.
People talk about Ohio State being "in the clubhouse with one loss." Well, that's the same status for Kansas. In the clubhouse with one loss, able to sit and watch Mizzou and West Virginia beat their brains out and maybe hand them a bid to New Orleans.
Had they lost (badly, say) to Oklahoma last week, Kansas may have been surpassed by a two-losser (LSU?) dominating in its conference championship. As it is, by losing a week earlier than all the conference championships, end-of-year showdowns and so forth, Kansas may have done itself a favor in the long run.
This year is so screwy that, as in 2001, keeping your team off the field may be the best strategy.
(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.
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.
Of course it is
Alec Baldwin: "Go see No Country for Old Men. It's a metaphor for Iraq and the post-9/11 world."
(Here.)
(Here.)
Friday, November 23, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
USC v. ASU: one day to go
It is, at this moment, well to remember the first meeting between the same schools as Pac-10 rivals, 29 years ago this fall. USC had come in the 1978 season off what, for the Trojans at the time, was a dreadful '77 campaign, an 8-4 season salvaged only by a thrilling victory over UCLA (this pushed UCLA from the Rose Bowl all the way out of the bowl picture altogether, while sending Washington--featuring quarterback Warren Moon--to the Rose Bowl, in which they defeated Michigan in a wild New Year's Day that sent number five Notre Dame, led by quarterback Joe Montana, all the way to number one); followed by a victory in something called the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, a tilt not long for this world.
Arizona State's status, at that moment, was best appreciated by taking in their previous three years. In 1975 they had pulled off the sort of season that followers of college teams wait 25 years for: an undefeated regular season (featuring a classic victory over a hated archrival--how'd JJ's catch taste, Bear Downers?), followed by a bowl victory over a heavily favored, historically powerful power (a 17-14 thriller over Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, a game that ranks among a half-dozen in influencing the course of college football in the 20th century). Sun Devil Stadium (then the host of the Fiesta Bowl) was only a single deck in those days, and held a mere 52,000 or so fans, the Fiesta Bowl had been a sellout, of course (one Phoenix sports anchor memorably described the attending faithful thus: "52,000 fans paid for seats they didn't use much today"), and the rabid nature of the Sun Devil faithful attracted the attention of the nation generally, and the Pac-8 (as was) specifically. This was the game that led to the invitation of Arizona State and Arizona (keeping things even, keeping rivalries intact, etc.) to the Pac, making it the Pac-10.
Understand: this was the first major invite of its kind involving football since the major conferences were formed. The Big 10 had ten teams; the Big 8, eight. The SWC, nine teams from Texas, plus Arkansas. The SEC, Bear Bryant and a bunch of pretenders.
So: this invite was a major thing. To take effect in 1978.
Okay. In 1976, off their Fiesta Bowl win, ASU enters the season number three in the country (the highest pre-season ranking ever, I'm assuming), loses to UCLA 28-10 in a game that deflates the whole season in a way that defies explanation, and finishes 4-7.
1977: In its last year as a Western Athletic Conference (WAC) representative, ASU wins the conference championship, only to meet up with Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. Penn State pulls off a number of special teams plays and wins 42-30.
Which brings us to 1978. Arizona State is now part of the Pac-10. They have suffered one loss, that to Washington State (Jack Thompson, the Throwin' Samoan), and therefore are 4-1.
USC is undefeated and number two in the country.
USC holds a number of All-Americans at several positions. Anthony Munoz, at left tackle, future NFL Hall-of-Famer. Charles White, tailback, who was just (at this moment) awarded the Heisman. Paul McDonald, quraterback, on his way to a good payday.
And. And. A true freshman named Ronnie Lott is at safety.
And my brothers and I are high in section 219, row 17, seats 1, 2 and 3--the first season my father sprung for season tickets for the entire family.
And? And. Improbably, ASU wins 20-7, in the biggest upset of the season. This would be only loss that USC would suffer in a two-season span, during which time it would go 21-1-1 and get only half of one national championship that year, 1978.
ASU would go on to something called the Garden State Bowl and defeat Rutgers.
And all this I was thinking about today, as we head into maybe the most consequential ASU-USC meeting of all.
Arizona State's status, at that moment, was best appreciated by taking in their previous three years. In 1975 they had pulled off the sort of season that followers of college teams wait 25 years for: an undefeated regular season (featuring a classic victory over a hated archrival--how'd JJ's catch taste, Bear Downers?), followed by a bowl victory over a heavily favored, historically powerful power (a 17-14 thriller over Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, a game that ranks among a half-dozen in influencing the course of college football in the 20th century). Sun Devil Stadium (then the host of the Fiesta Bowl) was only a single deck in those days, and held a mere 52,000 or so fans, the Fiesta Bowl had been a sellout, of course (one Phoenix sports anchor memorably described the attending faithful thus: "52,000 fans paid for seats they didn't use much today"), and the rabid nature of the Sun Devil faithful attracted the attention of the nation generally, and the Pac-8 (as was) specifically. This was the game that led to the invitation of Arizona State and Arizona (keeping things even, keeping rivalries intact, etc.) to the Pac, making it the Pac-10.
Understand: this was the first major invite of its kind involving football since the major conferences were formed. The Big 10 had ten teams; the Big 8, eight. The SWC, nine teams from Texas, plus Arkansas. The SEC, Bear Bryant and a bunch of pretenders.
So: this invite was a major thing. To take effect in 1978.
Okay. In 1976, off their Fiesta Bowl win, ASU enters the season number three in the country (the highest pre-season ranking ever, I'm assuming), loses to UCLA 28-10 in a game that deflates the whole season in a way that defies explanation, and finishes 4-7.
1977: In its last year as a Western Athletic Conference (WAC) representative, ASU wins the conference championship, only to meet up with Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl. Penn State pulls off a number of special teams plays and wins 42-30.
Which brings us to 1978. Arizona State is now part of the Pac-10. They have suffered one loss, that to Washington State (Jack Thompson, the Throwin' Samoan), and therefore are 4-1.
USC is undefeated and number two in the country.
USC holds a number of All-Americans at several positions. Anthony Munoz, at left tackle, future NFL Hall-of-Famer. Charles White, tailback, who was just (at this moment) awarded the Heisman. Paul McDonald, quraterback, on his way to a good payday.
And. And. A true freshman named Ronnie Lott is at safety.
And my brothers and I are high in section 219, row 17, seats 1, 2 and 3--the first season my father sprung for season tickets for the entire family.
And? And. Improbably, ASU wins 20-7, in the biggest upset of the season. This would be only loss that USC would suffer in a two-season span, during which time it would go 21-1-1 and get only half of one national championship that year, 1978.
ASU would go on to something called the Garden State Bowl and defeat Rutgers.
And all this I was thinking about today, as we head into maybe the most consequential ASU-USC meeting of all.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
National Write a Novel in One Month
The Final push!
31,004 words.
2,000 words today, the last 900 of which were written on this laptop as I sat in an overstuffed chair in the lobby of the Arizona Biltmore.
31,004 words.
2,000 words today, the last 900 of which were written on this laptop as I sat in an overstuffed chair in the lobby of the Arizona Biltmore.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Mo Rivera, back in pinstripes
Three years, 45 mil.
Details here.
So?
The Yankees kept all their non-retiring free agents.
And if Andy Pettitte comes back . . .
. . . and Mike Lowell is lured to first base . . .
Okay then.
Details here.
So?
The Yankees kept all their non-retiring free agents.
And if Andy Pettitte comes back . . .
. . . and Mike Lowell is lured to first base . . .
Okay then.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
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.
I think.
College football is the only venue in which the team ahead of you losing is potentially bad news.
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