FanHouse Pac 10

Welcome back, USC's national title hopes. Enjoy the pretzels. Try the dip. But don't get too comfortable.

Yes, as the Trojans paraded Penn State's corpse from end to end of the Rose Bowl Thursday night, Pete Carroll's team again entered the national title picture. Not in the BCS system, which will award its title to either Oklahoma or Florida even if the Sooners let Charles Barkley drive the bus to the game and the Gators put Matt Millen in charge of their personnel.

But AP voters are free to vote for any team and with the kind of no apologies beating the Beijing police for might be proud of, Troy roared yet again.

So exactly how many votes should USC's Rose Bowl victory account for?

Think the same number of votes Brett Favre will get for teammate of the year, the number of suits in Al Davis' wardrobe that don't require the adjective "jogging" or the same number of pairs of underwear women have ever hurled at Randy Johnson.

Think zero.

Or something close to it as we probably shouldn't rule anything out yet.

Maybe Florida and Oklahoma will play a game so horribly ugly in the BCS title tilt that if they made a movie of it, it'd have to start Kirsten Dunst and Amy Winehouse with a special guest appearance by Danny DeVito. And maybe Texas will pull a Buckeye of its own against Ohio State. But let's just say if the BCS title game plays out remotely within the realm of expectations, what the Trojans did against Penn State doesn't qualify as a national championship performance.

You beat a Big Ten team in a virtual home game in a BCS bowl. It isn't exactly curing the common cold and, statistically speaking, beating a Big Ten team in a BCS bowl game is exactly as likely as eventually catching a cold.

This is to take nothing away from the men of Troy. The Trojans had an excellent season, were champions of a solid league, became the first back-to-back-to-back Rose Bowl champions (and that there is Tom Emanski rarified air). They had a defense that could stand between John Daly and a Hooters or Pacman Jones and the opportunity to make a fool of himself, and were downright biblical in the way they went about business.

Heck, Joe Paterno called them them one of the best defensive teams he's ever seen and Paterno would know. It says here the man once recruited Moses to play middle linebacker.

But that's the beauty of college football. Its title is awarded for a season accomplishment, not the team that played best in the last game that was nationally televised.

Have they lost their mind?

Last year's 13-9 victory was exciting and finally ended USC's 7-year victory streak (average score 35-18) over the Bruins. I can understand UCLA feeling good about themselves - they have a ton of guys coming back, It's the offseason when hope springs eternal, they've scored a few recruiting victories ...

But this is just stupid. Take it away, Dennis Dodd.

This is an issue because the Bruins got, uh, well, somehow left out of my first 2007 Top 25 in January. Being the good [Sports Information Director] that he is, Mr. [Marc] Dellins quickly shipped me the galleys of the spring guide. He apologized in advance for the typos (the bound version is coming). I didn't notice any except the bold prediction on Page 3 about beating USC. Again. By 20. To win the Pac-10. Now that's a good [SID].

No, that's an insane SID.

USC didn't need any extra motivation after dropping their championship hopes on the Rose Bowl turf last December, but now they've got it. I can only imagine Pete Carroll hearing about this (and he will), sitting in his office telling anyone within earshot: "For Realz? They aren't this stupid, are they?" with that confused look ironically last seen in last year's game against UCLA.

Anyway, at least we now know in advance - if it wasn't already a given - UCLA's confirmed a woodshed beating heading its way ETA 12/1/07 at the Coliseum. Sadly, there is no novelty in USC maulings of UCLA. See: 66-19, 47-22, 52-21 and 27-0.

Pete Carroll's biggest loss to date was by 11 points against Notre Dame his first year at Troy. That was a rebuilding team. Since then nobody's gotten the Trojans by anything more than seven points. I really just don't see where UCLA comes off not only calling their shot, but by 20 points. Cal might have something to say about their Pac-10 championship talk as well. If UCLA were to have that kind of season it would have made more sense not to draw a huge target on their chest, no? Let everyone gun for USC and stealthily claim the crown.

At least this once again confirms that UCLA defines itself by how it does against USC instead of more contemporary measures like "wins" and "championships". Because really, who would want to be defined by those things?

Previously at the FanHouse:
Cross-Town Rivals Cross in Town
UCLA Wins Battle in Local Recruiting War
It's Time to Let USC and UCLA Party Like its 1969
Top CFB Moments of 2003 #3: Tip, Pick, Chaos
USC vs. UCLA to Rematch December 1, 2007
Video: Rey Maualuga Delivers THE Hit of 2006
UCLA Fans Are Eye-Popping, Violent Fools
Aaaaah! Last Eight Minutes of USC-UCLA Liveblog! Aaah!
Sorry, No Photos

I don't think UCLA is in any serious danger of losing a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, despite this loss. It would have to take several things to possibly push them to the #2 seed. Wisconsin and Ohio State would have to meet in the Big 10 Championship, Florida would have to get to the SEC Championship, Kansas would need to roll in the Big XII and UNC would have to win the ACC Tournament. Then, UCLA could find itself being pushed down a seed.

Cal is still not going to the NCAA Tournament, unless they win the PAC-10 Tournament. They are now only 16-16 overall.

Still Cal pulled a huge overtime 76-69 upset of UCLA. If the Bruins don't get a #1 seed, this will be the reason.

The Golden Bears raced out early on UCLA and then tried to hang on. They couldn't, as a 16-point lead in the first half disappeared over a 15 minutes, and the game was tied half way through the second half. It went back and forth. The overtime was all Cal, as Aaron Affalo's nightmare game was even worse in the five minute period.

I know, totally unfair stereotyping of the students in Morgantown. Besides, these days, any couch fires are strictly utilitarian -- for the heat. Still, it's not like the students have shown great originality or class.

UCLA came into the road game with two things working against them. To them, this game started at 10 am Pacific Time and PG Nick Darren Collison did not play because of an injured left shoulder. Call it a hunch, but it seemed that not having Collison was the bigger issue as WVU beat UCLA 70-65.

The first half was tight, but in the final 4+ minutes, West Virginia went on a vital 10-0 run. The run continued into the first 5-6 minutes of the second half as WVU went on a 15-6 run to lead 47-28 with 14:17 left in the game. UCLA finally clamped down on defense and got it going with a 15-0 run over the next 5 minutes to get within 4. That was as close as UCLA could get until 28 seconds left when the score was again worked down to a 4 point difference, 64-60. Aaron Affolo did all he could to keep the Bruins in the game with 27 points and 9 rebounds

The final shooting numbers look very even as WVU was 25-61 (8-24 on 3s) for an eFG% of 47.5% and 12-15 on FTs. UCLA was 24-62 (6-23 on 3s) to have an eFG% of 43.5% and 11-14 FT. UCLA held a 41-31 rebounding advantage but WVU was +9 on turnovers.

The noticeable loss of Collison came on the assists. The Bruins only had 12 assists on their 24 baskets. Collison has averaged 5.7 assists/game and not having him made it difficult to get the ball inside more to Mbah a Moute (only 6 shot attempts in 38 minutes) and beat the 1-3-1 zone.

The Big Ten leads all college football conference in number of Super Bowl players with 19. That's right, SEC fans, you don't rock the house - at least for this year's Super Bowl.

Perhaps this reflects the necessary cold-weather taste of Chicago and Indianapolis general managers who knew they'd need a few extra cold weather guys to survive icy playoff battles.

Whatever the reason, there she is with 19 participants among players on either the active roster, injured reserve or non-football injury/illness list.

The ACC came in second with 15 participants, the Big 12 third with 14, the SEC fourth with 12 the Pac-10 fifth at 11 and the Big East sixth at eight participants.

Reflecting the reality that football talent is not confined to D-IA schools (nor America, for that matter), 16 players arrive at the Super Bowl from someplace other than D-IA schools.

The rest of the data:

Independents placed six player representatives in Super Bowl XLI, the Mountain West six, the Western Athletic Conference five, the Sun Belt four, the Mid-America Conference two and one from Conference USA.

So there's your college football angle to this whole Super Bowl excitement. Signing Day is just a few days away at which point we can return to some normalcy with talk of Spring, Summer and Fall football practices and workouts and head into the 2007-2008 college football season.