Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September. Mr. BCS Goes To Washington -- Except I have a feeling Jimmy Stewart would find some way to rail against the BCS, however wrongheadedly. You see, the big word in the halls of Congress on Friday was "fair" but don't let that confuse you. While the Mountain West and certain members of Congress are using the fairness term to stoke public support, their real concern is about money.
When I was a kid, we woke up on cold winter mornings hoping that the weather man would tell us that schools were closed for the day on account of snow. Never once did I get to stay home from school because of a football game.
But, in three counties in Georgia, school is closed today because so many teachers took off and not enough substitutes could be found to replace them.
Last year 137 teachers called in saying they wouldn't be in class and the [Clarke County School District] was able to find only 113 substitute teachers.
Administrators studied the absences and found that almost twice as many teachers called in the Friday before the game – played 360 miles away in Jacksonville, Fla. – than on an average school day.
Perhaps looking to lock out some Cal fans and gain a modest home field advantage, Stanford has reduced the available number of "Big Game" tickets. This is partly due to Stanford's whole "who wants a big stadium anyway?" project that saw the demolition of their old 85,000 capacity butt splinter masterpiece and completion of a new 50,000 seat humble abode.
This of course puts the squeeze on Cal fans. Cal boosters can still get any of 15,011 allocated Big Game tickets through their ticket office if they have donated mad scrilla to the athletic department but after that? Well, read this:
Anyone can get a Big Game ticket by buying a Stanford season ticket, which ranges from $185 to $299. So far, Stanford season ticket sales are about the same as last year, and the school, which recently hired a new football coach, expects to sell 25,000 to 30,000, said Gary Migdol, senior assistant athletic director.
"We have no idea if Cal fans are buying Stanford season tickets," he said. "That question is not on the ticket application. But I can tell you that right now there are plenty of Big Game tickets available for anyone who wants to buy a Stanford season ticket."
That pill is too bitter for some Cal fans.
"I'm not giving them my money," said Bonnie Hazarabedian, who is such a Cal fan that she named her daughter Callie. "There has to be a better option."
I'd commiserate with Cal fans, but this is fairly standard practice nowadays.
Unfortunately Stanford built a smaller stadium and so long as their football team lags they need to find other ways to sell season tickets because their fans just aren't buying. The same thing happens every year down the road in Los Angeles with USC and UCLA as both school's fans must buy specific ticket packages in order to get single game tickets for the rivalry if they are shut out of the normal allocation process.
Court papers said one of the arrested, in a monitored phone conversation, rued a missed opportunity to strike at the Army-Navy football game at Lincoln Financial Field, only a few miles from the site of Wednesday's meeting.
"Hopefully they decided it's too hard of a target so we're not going to try it," said Leonard Bonacci, director of event services for the Philadelphia Eagles and who helps oversee security at the stadium.
Fortunately the appropriate authorities were alerted to the plotters before they staged their eventual planned attack on a New Jersey military base. News like this is a reminder that we live in an unsafe world and hopefully authorities can continue to provide appropriate security at college football games and all sporting events to deter such horrible events from ever happening.
In theory this should be a colossal in-state college football rivalry. Sadly, it's only in theory as years of excuse-making and squabbling have left us with this: no Pitt/PSU in near future.
There's a lengthy writeup about the various snags at The Daily Collegian. State senator John Wozniak is using his platform to gin up interest in renewing the rivalry but Penn State is pouring lots of cold water on the idea.
Steve MacCarthy, vice president for university relations at Penn State, wrote in an e-mail message that the university is interested in scheduling athletic contests with the University of Pittsburgh, but reinstating the rivalry is not possible at this time.
"Current discussions by the Big Ten regarding the possibility of adding another conference game to the football schedule would limit our ability to schedule out-of-conference games," he wrote.
Call me crazy but I think one solution would be for Penn State to join the Big East or go independent like before. The Big Ten would like to play a round-robin conference slate and the math isn't there with 11 institutions. If Penn State left, presto! problem solved. Besides, the Nittany Lions lack any true Big 10 rival to focus their anst and hatred towards. Let Pitt be that rival once again.
Michael Freiberg (freshman-biochemistry and molecular biology) said it is "important to have a rival."
See! Penn State fans know that it's time to get this thing restarted. Call the marriage counselor or something already, let's patch this up good people of Pennsylvania.
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?
Often in baseball, time dulls the effect of old battles. I was curious if Jose Guillen's return to the A.L. West would rekindle a rivalry started when Mike Scioscia hastened Guillen's release from the Angels right before the 2004 playoffs, or whether time had healed that old wound.
New Mariners outfielder Jose Guillen, who had a tumultuous end to his stay with the Angels in 2004, is looking forward to playing against his former club in A.L. West competition. He even made sure manager Mike Hargrove had him in the lineup against the Angels for a recent Cactus League game. The teams will meet 19 times in the regular season. "And you know those are going to be 19 good ones," Guillen says, smiling.
Oh yeah, baby! There's a reason to stay up late and watch those Angels/Mariners games! Woo boy! Now I'm definitely going to get the MLB package on my cable system and circle those dates on my calendar.
Back in the day when the NCAA wasn't so rule happy and quasi-repressive, competing teams were allowed to wear similar uniforms. Certain teams could wear their Saturday finest home uniforms, and their opponent could do the same. This was aesthetically pleasing and created something of a tradition between cross-town rivals USC and UCLA.
Players of opposint teams shall wear jerseys of contrasting colors, and the visiting team shall wear white jerseys.
White jerseys per Rule I, Article 3 (b) are defined as follows:
A white jersey is one with only contrasting playing numbers, player's name, school name, NCAA Football logo, school insignia, conference insignia, mascot insignia, game insignia, memorial insignia or the American flag attached.
In other words if I'm home you're wearing the road uniforms or one of us is getting docked a timeout. To put it kindly, this is lame.
I guess the reasoning was that back in the day with people still owning black and white televisions it was difficult to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Times have changed and the dinosaurs who before owned black and white TV's are now the ones who have yet to hop on HD train. With technology and the great American wealth machine doing the sport a favor, it's time to put the kibosh on this rule and restore a particular tradition within one of the game's great rivalries.
There's a famous painting of the 1967 USC/UCLA game well known to fans of both schools. In it, Trojan tailback O.J. Simpson is seen near the goal line amid a pile of football bodies. His home cardinal and gold complements the powder keg blue and gold of UCLA's players attempting to prevent a touchdown run. It's a beautiful scene and for a while was representative of the rivalry until the rule came into use some years later.
There's been talk in recent years of reviving this tradition, but neither Trojan coach Pete Carroll nor UCLA coach Karl Dorrell has been willing to part with timeouts to make it happen. This is tragic - but hopefully the NCAA can get around to either giving these teams an exemption or modifying the rule somehow to add just a little more tradition and prestige to this great game.
I've added the YouTube video of Simpson's famous 64-yard touchdown run below. The 1967 game was actually one of the better college football games ever played, matching number one UCLA against number two USC. The stars were UCLA's eventual Heisman trophy winner quarterback Gary Beban and USC's Heisman runner-up and 1968 winner tailback O.J. Simpson. USC would win 21-20 thanks to Simpson's run, catapulting them to the national championship. Sorry, No Photos
Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September.
When I was a kid, we woke up on cold winter mornings hoping that the weather man would tell us that schools were closed for the day on account of snow. Never once did I get to stay home from school because of a football game. 
Often in baseball, time dulls the effect of old battles. I was curious if Jose Guillen's return to the A.L. West would 
Back in the day when the NCAA wasn't so rule happy and quasi-repressive, competing teams were allowed to wear similar uniforms. Certain teams could wear their Saturday finest home uniforms, and their opponent could do the same. This was aesthetically pleasing and created something of a tradition between cross-town rivals USC and UCLA.
