Trojan Hoarse

"This is like deja vu all over again." Yogi Berra

I'll go ahead and get this over with. The USC Trojans are laying another egg on national television against an unranked Oregon State team. Just like in 2006. It looked like the same game from almost the opening snap. While we have learned since 1974 never to turn off the TV on the Trojans, I am mighty tempted to do just that.

I can't even believe that I've come to expect this every year now. USC was down by 23 points in 2006 before coming back to lose by just two. Last year, they dropped a game at home against Stanford by one point that they were supposed to win by 42. And, now it's half-time up in Corvallis for the Deja Vu Bowl.

Unbelievable.

With a bye week, it's hard to know whether they took the tape of OSU's loss at Penn St. too seriously or if it's just another one of those ridiculous choke jobs they are becoming famous for in this embattled conference.

They sure picked a bad time to cough up this hairball. Except for USC, the league's out-of-conference results for the first three weeks are just horrendous.

Even if USC comes back to win this game -- and, I don't see any reason why they should -- they should not be ranked #1 for having pulled it out. The horrible strength-of-schedule results from all these teams will mean that USC will have no statistical chance of crawling back into the higher rankings. They'll be playing for a chance to go to the Rose Bowl, if they're lucky.

Since I try to live like a cockeyed optimist (although, in 2008, I find it increasingly challenging to do so), I see no other life lesson from this recurring nightmare except to tell young men that they must never take outcomes for granted. In your marriage, family, career, spiritual life, friends, neighbors -- you will be presented with daily challenges and uncertain results. You must "bring it" every day.

Just last weekend, the talented QB Mark Sanchez was asked by the ESPN GameDay Crew if USC was ready to not let these conference games slip up on them, unlike the past few years. Mark confidently said that they were going to "bring the juice" all the time and not let that happen to this edition. Sounds like he already believes in "bring it" and is preaching it to his teammates. Has anyone been listening?

Please pass the juice, I could sure use a swig. I need something to get through the remaining 30 minutes. Maybe a sleeping pill would be better. The painkiller certainly isn't working.

Cupcake Nation

noun:
small cake baked in a muffin tin

As a life-long cupcake connoisseur, it doesn't surprise me to see the little charmers hanging out on decks and porches across America. I'm not sure what they are thinking from those spots or their plans for the future. But, in the current world environment, what could be friendlier or more benign?

I live in a nice neighborhood, but I'd rather see chocolate cupcakes over the fence than those two yippy dogs next door. They've both been to obedience school -- individually and as a team -- but, based on the non-result results, the owner should demand a refund.

Cupcakes don't yell something about the Oklahoma Sooners at me on College Gameday or bark loudly every time I go out to water the tomatoes. One of them is named "Boomer." I'm hoping that a plan to add a "Sooner" isn't on the drawing board.

Cupcakes don't shoot off firecrackers leftover from July 4th past August 30 after 10 p.m. at night. Cupcakes don't have four vehicles plus a boat for three residents sticking out into the street in direct defiance of the Highlands Ranch Community Association bylaws.

If only everyone could be a cupcake.....

I have a lot of terrific friends on Facebook -- some I know and some I "know" from being a part of the world's biggest pen pal program. But, one of my friends on Facebook isn't even, well, human. I found my friend, Sprinkles Cupcakes, because of a favorite blog (see blog roll).

Said blog, "Cupcakes Take the Cake," has a Facebook group and "introduced" me to Sprinkles. I am not so fortunate to live in a market with a Sprinkles, although I know because of my friendship with Sprinkles that Palo Alto, CA has one now. I get all the memos.

For any fan of cupcakes, this blog is a daily orgy of Flicker-based photography, the likes of which has caused me to create a notebook just for cupcake decorating ideas. It seems like every cupcakery (a real word!) in the U.S. is linked to the blog.

Like most subjects, the cupcake has its detractors. Hard to believe, huh?! But some humorless folks - men and women - have tired of all the attention paid the mighty cupcake. Lately, the CTTC blog hosts themselves have begun to take issue with the "misuse" of the term cupcake.

There it is -- that's the segue.

The CTTC doesn't know I'm guilty, but I am not afraid to admit it. I have definitely used the word "cupcake" in the past few weeks to describe a relatively weak college football opponent for a college football powerhouse. The context involved the reshuffling of rankings after the first week among the top ten teams due to cupcake vs. non-cupcake results.

I don't have anything against cupcakes. I just don't believe that a #1-ranked team that blows a cupcake out of a stadium in the first week should complain if the #3-ranked team plays a non-cupcake, gets the same result, and subsequently takes over their higher ranking. Because the #2-ranked team also sort of blows out a cupcake. ESPN, the AP poll, and the Coaches Poll agreed. So, it must be true :)

Dick Vitale is guiltier than me. He has his very own "Cupcake City" award, bestowed upon Division I basketball teams with many lesser opponents on their schedules. The colloquial use of cupcake logically extends to the phrase "loading up on cupcakes."

Yum.

If I was going to load up on cupcakes, I'd be torn among the Fighting Red Velvet Creamcheese Frostings, the Demon Dark Chocolate Vanilla Buttercreams, and the Mighty Devilsfood Mints.

I think ALL of my cupcakes would be VERY competitive.

Oh, Say Can You Sing?

My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth’s lamentation

I hear the sweet though far off hymn

That hails a new creation:

Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul—

How can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die?

The Lord my Savior liveth;

What though the darkness gather round!

Songs in the night He giveth:

No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of Heav’n and earth,

How can I keep from singing?

I lift mine eyes;

the cloud grows thin;

I see the blue above it;

And day by day this pathway smoothes

Since first I learned to love it:

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,

A fountain ever springing:

All things are mine since I am His—

How can I keep from singing?

Robert Wadsworth Lowry, 1860

Et tu, Brutus?

LOS ANGELES -- "Chris "Beanie" Wells wouldn't have mattered. The same goes for Warren Wells, Dawn Wells, Orson Welles or the Mineral Wells (Texas) High Rams." Ivan Maisel, ESPN.com, September 13, 2008.


I was too tired on Friday night not to set the alarm for Saturday morning. I had spent the day as a volunteer at a Presidential campaign headquarters trying to fit 6,000 units of people into a Monday morning event the size of a 2,000-unit bag. Ultimately, while people queued up by the hundreds, more tickets were printed and the venue was changed on a dime. If only it worked that way for the economy!

Anyway, with ESPN Game Day broadcasting from outside the Coliseum in Los Angeles for USC vs. Ohio State, I didn't want to miss a second of it. It was barely light there when the opening titles rolled at 8 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, but I could clearly see the sign already.

"Beanie is a Baby."

From the Ohio State side, we had heard nothing but Beanie, Beanie, Beanie for months. On the day he was injured in a meaningless home-opener against a cupcake, I was fairly irritated. I didn't want to hear the Buckeyes use the "if only we had had Beanie" excuse after they lost in Los Angeles -- all the way to the back end of the home-and-home next year in Columbus.

I smiled about the sign with it's cute, cuddly bear. For the previous week, the Beanie, Beanie, Beanie stuff had morphed to BEANIE, BEANIE, BEANIE. I was sick of Beanie, Beanies, Beanie Babies, Jelly Beans, Jelly Bellies....everything remotely Beanie-like.

But, honestly, the last thing I have ever believed about Beanie is that he is a baby. Chris Wells is an extremely gifted athlete who began the season as the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy and begged his coach up to game time to play him without regard to the good of his health. If he had played, I believe he would have given everything inside himself to help his team. Verbal leadership, hard-won rushing gains, the will to win.

But -- and it's a big but -- Beanie would not have been enough. I know that now, he knows that now. Everybody knows that now. The people who are paid to write about college football for a living wrote that now.

As much as I believed the Trojans would prevail in this game, I worried when I heard pundits declaring all last week that they would bury the Buckeyes. Thanks to Stanford University, I will never again try to predict a game outcome. I figure, if your team loses a home game to a team that they were supposed to defeat by 41 points or more, it's really important to wait until they actually play the game now to get too excited.

I wasn't always so inclined. But, now I need a halftime score greater than 21-3 to declare "game over." So, after USC held their opponent to a couple of yards in the entire third quarter, I began to breathe. And eat. And smile.

Of course, the rest of the Pac-10 really pulled a no-show and coughed up collective hairballs in their non-conference games. It's incredible to even say it, but I don't know whether USC will emerge through this rag tag bunch without a stupid loss, unlike last year. Thankfully, the Strength-of-Schedule component in the BCS won't matter IF they can hold onto the #1 spot.

That's a good thing, because they certainly can't count on the likes of Cal, UCLA, Washington, Wazzu, Arizona -- or EVEN Arizona State -- to win when they should. Cal went all the way across the country to play Maryland in similar fashion to USC's travel back to Virginia two weeks ago and choked from the opening whistle. They act like they think they can do anything USC can do because they were competitive for one game in 2004. After that egg they laid at Tennessee two years ago and this outcome in Maryland (and DeSean "Mesean" Johnson's stupid play in the NFL that cost his team for all of national TV to see), I don't want to hear another word about how great Jeff Tedford is....'well, at least it's not as bad as it USED to be....' to justify his $3 million a year salary.

During Carroll's time at USC, it's consistently been true that the Trojans can't count on Cal and UCLA for anything. But, Arizona State losing to UNLV?

Et tu, Sparky???

Sparky is a Baby.

YEAH, what HE said.....

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling hot--And whether pigs have wings." Lewis Carroll, The Walrus and The Carpenter" 1872

Bill Plaschke's column in the Los Angeles Times surprised me a bit....he's a Notre Dame honk and uses his national television presence on ESPN to periodically take shots at USC. I guess he has more in common with Carson Palmer than I thought. Even Bill couldn't take it anymore.

About four weeks ago, every pundit in the country had picked tOSU to beat USC in this Saturday's big college game. But, now Vegas says USC by 10.5. Uh-oh.

I guess that's why they're going to play the game.

"To a man, Trojans should be motivated for this one"

Incendiary comments by Ohio State receiver Ray Small are sure to resonate at USC leading up to Saturday's game, which will answer a simple question: Who's the man?

Bill Plaschke September 10, 2008

The leader of the Ohio State program fell all over his sweater vest spouting admiration for the USC program Tuesday, Coach Jim Tressel claiming he believed that the Trojans played football "the right way."We know better.

We know what the Buckeyes really think.

We know, because a few days ago, one of their players told us.

His name is Ray Small.

He is a junior wide receiver in his third season with the program. He leads the team in receptions, and has scored a touchdown on a punt return.

He has a reputation for being a bit of a flake, but he is not some wide-eyed freshman or bitter benchwarmer.

He is an Ohio State veteran who, in a locked-down program where everyone seems to look and sound the same, is probably not speaking only for himself.

In an interview with ESPN.com last weekend, Small said he believed USC lacked class, discipline and integrity."I took my visit to USC, I'm like, 'How are they successful? They're not even serious about the game,' " Small said.

"Before the game, they're all going crazy. Me and [defensive end] Rob Rose was on the visit and I'm looking like, 'Wow.'"And then the coach said, 'You better get out of here. It's 'bout to get hectic.' "

He compared that to his recruiting visit to Ohio State."And then I come on the [Columbus] visit and before the game, it's all quiet, everybody getting taped, coaches talking, it's the total opposite," he said.

Then he gave his evaluation:It's "a class thing. Here at Ohio State, they teach you to be a better man. There, it's just all about football."

A better man, perhaps, unless you are Ohio inmate Maurice Clarett.

Don't get me started.

I'm still furious at the Buckeyes for ruining the last two national championship games by failing to show up in either.

I'm sick of annually watching them awkwardly slog their way to the top of the polls by winning a conference that has become college football's version of the International League.

And, yeah, at the end of that 2002 national championship game against Miami? Bad call. That was not pass interference. Period.

It's not that slow, boring, overrated football bothers me. Hey, during the Pete Carroll era, I've sat through entire bowl games featuring Iowa, Michigan and Illinois.Sumo football, I can handle.

But when those wrestlers and their fans show up with the attitude that this is the right way to play football? That this is the only way to play football? That's another story.

And when it comes to Saturday's game in the Coliseum, that's the story.

In varying forms, I've been hearing Small's comments since Tressel and Carroll were both hired eight years ago.

It's as if Ohio State folks believe they invented the game, while USC has only exploited it.

Ohio State plays football, USC entertains with it.

Ohio State teaches football, USC taunts with it.Blah, blah, blah.

This condescending attitude is so prevalent in Ohio that this summer, even former Trojan Carson Palmer, who works in Cincinnati and never criticizes anybody, couldn't help himself."I cannot stand the Buckeyes," he said in an interview on 570-KLAC.The words of Palmer and Small echo the perceptions of thousands.

This game is about those perceptions.It's more than a football clash, it's a culture clash.It's about a Buckeye nation not used to giving respect against a Trojan nation that cannot stand to be disrespected.

"They'll come out here on Saturday and find out who we are," said defensive tackle Fili Moala.

It's about a button-down program that feels entitled against an open-collar program that eats entitlement.

"We don't care what anybody thinks," said USC safety Kevin Ellison. "We're gonna play football against them on Saturday."

Carroll refused to enter the Small scrum, saying, "He's just one kid, what does he know?"

Tressel, in his conference call with USC reporters, also downplayed it Tuesday, saying, "Obviously it wasn't a good thing, but he's a good kid."

But this will not be forgotten.

The Trojans won't talk much about it, but they also won't forget it.

Just ask Nebraska defensive back Andre Jones, who ripped USC before the 2006 game, and was promptly challenged on the field by Dwayne Jarrett, who beat him for a touchdown in a 28-10 Trojans win.Or just ask Cal receiver DeSean Jackson, who ripped USC or its players in consecutive years, and was manhandled both years, seven catches total.

The Trojans will take this personally.

Ohio State will see.

Small will see.

What that unnamed Trojans coach told him on his recruiting trip three years ago, it will be true again Saturday.

It's 'bout to get hectic.

Tell Me Something

"I mean, look...." 2008 Presidential Candidate

Comes now the blogger....

After the events of the past week, the last thing I want to be now is a blogger.

In other news, is debate -- and it's cousin, extemporaneous speaking -- dead?

I thought I had safely emerged from the Beijing Olympics smorgasbord of "I mean" openers to every interview. Then, I waded through two weeks of political conventions -- I watched all of it, both sides. I finally stopped counting the number of times media pundits and political talking heads dragged out "Look" and "Listen" to avoid answering a question against their interests.

No doubt, vitriol spewing and spitting greatly interferes with good sentence structure.

I was trying to listen to a Saturday morning financial panel this morning while I wait for college football to begin. I was holding steady emotionally until a "consultant" appeared in a segment and yelled "Let me tell you what" at me --four times in three sentences. She didn't answer the question and began a personal attack on a political figure that wasn't even part of the subject. I'm left to believe that she only took the airtime to wear her candidate on her sleeve.

When I was a student at USC, I watched the Trojan Debate Squad "practice." My future husband was on the team, and I was intrigued to observe the construction of arguments and rebuttals. Their time limits didn't leave much room for clock-eating parenthetical phrases, colloquial jargon, or anything else that would deter their responsibility to frame an issue and cleanly communicate it.

I wonder if the people who would be willing to agree to disagree have been wrung from our current process by a diminished, hyperbolic, sound bite-limited media environment. I know....no, I hope....they're out there somewhere.