Flying Pigs(kin)

So, I only needed two posts to seamlessly seque from Flying Pigs to College Football. Clever, huh?!

The USC v. Virginia countdown on weareSC.com says we have 40 days and a couple of hours to go. 40 days and 40 nights, or maybe 39 nights. I don't know. Feels more like an eternity. My sister and her family in Virginia snagged tickets -- Fight ON!! -- and will probably be the only four people in the VA section wearing cardinal and gold. They're up for it. They outlasted the VA Tech abuse at Fed Ex Stadium at the beginning of a championship season a few years ago. Maybe they are the good-luck factor we need this year.

We'll take it. Last season's barrage of injuries to just about everybody playing on the offensive side of the Pig resulted in one of the most disgusting losses I've witnessed in 36 years of following the Trojans. Of course, I'm referring to the one-point difference AT HOME between SC and the 42-pt. underdog Stanford Indians, er Trees, er Cardinal, -- well, whoever they are (now I'm really showing my age) -- that knocked them out of any consideration for the BCS title game. Not because their record was any worse than the LSWho Tigers with two losses (those winners lost the last game of their season). Not because everyone west AND east of the Mississippi (except for the states of Ohio and Louisiana) wanted to see SC vs. Georgia.

No, it had more to do with the "how COULD you??!!" factor that we'll hear about every year until the end of college football for all time. It's likely the most publicity for Stanford football in history (OK, except for that one year with Jim Plunkett), and it will have more media traction going forward after Pete said it was his fault for leaving JD in the game with a broken finger. Duh. Separately, Fight ON! Minnesota Vikings. If JD breaks his finger under their watch, I'm guessing he'll go to the bench. That would just be my recommendation....

In December, I tried to console myself with the thought that, well -- at least we didn't lose to a service academy. Not that there's anything wrong in principal with a service academy. It's just that when your coach slobbers from a podium in South Bend about how you'll have a schematic advantage every time you take the field because his weight is complicated by those three Super Bowl rings, ya might think you could do better (at home) vs. Navy.

Can't wait to cheer for Navy again this season. A big "Semper Fi" to Mark C. Schickner, missing somewhere over Atlanta. (Is Katie married yet???????) We won't argue about Georgia and SC this year, will we, since the all-knowing college football pundits think that tOSU has already won next season's national championship game here in July.....Yeah, I see it -- based on their two blow-out losses in two consecutive BCS title games, there is every reason to think they are nothing less than ALL WORLD at every position NOW. Right, since all of those same guys who belched up two trophies are coming back and will definitely figure it out the third time. That's RIGHT -- SC doesn't have any chance at the sold-out Coliseum, with their seven guys on defense projected for the NFL first round next spring. Right.

But back to Indiana -- I can't ever think of anything nice to say about the Irish, so I should stop now. Oh, I forgot --"pretty campus." My husband's mother's family was Irish, our oldest daughter has red hair and is named Shannon. She and her sister seem to kiss a Blarney Stone just about every day. But, I have a button that says "I'rish I was a Trojan." And, last year, they fer sure iRished they was something else. Which makes it all the more amusing that one of the bRUINs highly touted recruits just decommitted in favor of Notre Dame. Really makes ya wonder, huh??! Or, just laugh out loud. Either way, good stuff.

Speaking of good stuff, their *other* MORE highly touted recruit took about 10 seconds after the most recent Nike Rising Star Camp at SC to tell Pete that he was also decommitting from UCLA. To go to SC. For school. To play football. Slick Rick N. is losing recruits faster than (former Notre Dame coach) Ty Willingham at Washington. Oh wait -- Ty doesn't have ANY commitments yet. Luck of the Irish. Not.

I know that Mark Sanchez can make the Pig fly. The only question is who wants to catch the Pig. Please -- somebody catch the Pig. In a cardinal and gold jersey. I don't care if it's short yardage, Da Bomb, wheel route, reverse quarterback throw-back. Just, somebody, please catch the Pig. It would make the playcalling so much more effective. Or, so help me.....

....something might fly through the flat screen here in Highlands Ranch. And, it won't be a Pig.