It’s move-in weekend at UC Berkeley, the world’s greatest university . . . Saul Perlmutter, who just won the Nobel Prize in Physics, is teaching an undergraduate seminar on physics and music this year. How many schools even have Nobel Laureates on the faculty? Of those that do, how many of them teach small classes for freshmen and sophomores? Ivy League schools, with the exception of Harvard, are coasting on their reputations. When’s the last time you heard of an enterpreneur from Dartmouth or Brown or Yale? Stanford is great in engineering and business but limited in other areas. Also, top professors at private schools would rather piss on a spark plug than traffic with undergrads. That said, the University of Southern California football season starts Sept. 1 against Hawaii. The Men of Troy! FIGHT ON FOR OLD ‘SC! OUR MEN FIGHT ON TO VICTORY! Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Football
Penn State Death Penalty?
College football — Penn State Nittany Lions earned wrath of NCAA — ESPN Forget the NCAA death penalty . . . Penn State University should be burnt to the ground, plowed under and sown with salt. Read more →
Illusions of Patterns and Patterns of Illusion
In 1978, [Leonard] Koppett revealed a system that he claimed could determine, by the end of January every year, whether the stock market would go up or down in that calendar year. [Koppett’s system] worked for eleven straight years, from 1979 through 1989, got it wrong in 1990, and was correct again every year until 1998. But although Koppett’s predictions were correct for a streak of eighteen out of nineteen years, I feel confident in asserting that his streak involved no skill whatsoever. Why? Because Leonard Koppett was a columnist for Sporting News, and his system was based on the results of the Super Bowl, the championship game of professional football. Whenever the team from the (original) National Football League won, the stock market, he predicted, would rise. Whenever the team from the (original) American Football League won, he predicted the market would go down. Given that information, few people would argue that Koppett was anything but… Read more →
Another Reason Notre Dame Has a Terrible Football Team
Officers reported that several people began jumping over a fence when they arrived and, specifically, they observed a group of five men attempting to jump over a fence and ordered them to stop, said Capt. Phil Trent, South Bend police spokesman. — Notre Dame quarterback, linebacker arrested Thursday morning – wsbt.com Police arrive to break up a party, five guys jump over a fence and the only two who get caught are Notre Dame football players. Read more →
Backup Quarterbacks
Oakland Raiders sign Matt Leinart to back up Carson Palmer — ESPN Deja vu! Here’s a picture of Matt Leinart backing up Carson Palmer 10 years ago. Backing up both of these guys was Matt Cassel (#10), who has so far had a better NFL career than Leinart, despite a college career in which he threw zero touchdown passes and never started a game. I don’t know who the other two kids are. The coaches are current Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian and current Hawaii head coach Norm Chow. Read more →
Junior Seau, 1969-2012
Junior Seau Dead in Apparent Suicide — ABC News Seau was a legend in San Diego, where he lived and played most of his career. He was also a legendary member of the USC Trojan Family. The number 55 is now synonymous at USC with great Trojan linebackers, but Seau was the player who made the number famous. It has since been worn by Willie McGinest, Chris Claiborne and Keith Rivers and is only assigned at the head coach’s discretion. This picture was taken just a couple of weeks ago at the USC Spring Football game. He doesn’t look like someone ready to end his own life, but you never really know what someone’s life looks like from the inside. R.I.P. Junior Seau #55 Read more →
World Record Paper Airplane Throw
Footnote: The “pilot” (the guy throwing the plane) is Joe Ayoob, who replaced Aaron Rodgers as the quarterback at Cal in 2005. Read more →
Stating the Obvious
“I’ve got to say we out-physicaled them today,” Alabama linebacker Courtney Upshaw said. — Alabama 21, LSU 0 (final) – latimes.com You attend the University of Alabama. You’re not going to out-mental anybody . . . Read more →
UCLA Hires Jim Mora
ROSE Bowl?! Are you kiddin’ me? ROSE Bowl? We’re just trying to win a GAME! Okay, I know it’s not that Jim Mora. First I want to say for the record that the firing of Rick Neuheisel was a bad move. Despite the naysayers, he had the program moving in the right direction. Pac-12 Southern Division champions. He closed the gap with USC. Yeah, I know they lost to USC 50-0 but just imagine what the score would have been if he hadn’t closed the gap. I heard Coach Mora on the radio this afternoon. I wasn’t impressed. I’m not as elated as I was about the Neuheisel or Karl Dorrell hirings, but I just don’t think UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero has any idea about how to hire a football coach. He’s tried to copy the Pete Carroll model, first by hiring Carroll assistants as coordinators, and now by… Read more →
Aside
How will the recent Virginia Tech shooting deaths affect football recruiting, ESPN?
Charlie Weis to Coach Kansas
DAMMIT! I was hoping UCLA would be able to land him. No whale pun intended. I’m Charlie Weis and I’m taking my “talents” to Westwood. FIGHT ON! Read more →
USC Football – UNFILTERED – UCLA
UCLA Fires Rick Neuheisel
UCLA Fires Rick Neuheisel — latimes.com NOOOOOO! Ignore the naysayers! The program is headed in the right direction! Great things are on the horizon! The gap is closing! Read more →
Closing the Gap: USC 50, UCLA 0
We have closed the gap more with SC. We got a chance to win a championship this week. That’s closing the gap. We haven’t had that chance in the past. We’ll see where the gap is after the ball game, but the gap is closed. — UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel, before the game Tonight they were clearly the superior team. I don’t think that’s the case all the time. I believe we can close the gap, and we will. We weren’t good enough to play a marquee team like USC. — UCLA Coach Rick Neuheisel, after the game The gap was really close. You can tell by the score. — USC offensive tackle Matt Kalil Maybe Neuheisel meant that the gap has been closed since 1929, when USC won the inaugural crosstown showdown 76-0. Using any more recent date as a starting point for gap measurement, it looks wider than… Read more →
USC Football – UNFILTERED – Oregon
It’s Rivalry Week!
Passion
The theory of evolution claims that only the strong shall survive. But the theory of competition says that just because they’re the strong doesn’t mean they can’t get their asses kicked . . . Read more →
USC 38, Oregon 35
We’re here to ruin your season. — Matt Kalil The Ducks were 15-point favorites at home — 21-game home winning streak, 19-game conference winning streak . . . the Men of Troy haven’t had the speed to play with these guys the last couple of years but this year they do. It looked like the Trojans had fumbled the game away with 2:54 left, up 3 on the Duck 15-yard line — a blown handoff between a fifth-year senior (Marc Tyler) and a Heisman Trophy candidate (Matt Barkley). Oregon had already scored two fourth quarter touchdowns and the Trojan defense was tired. Ironically, the up-tempo Duck offense ran out of time. They never called timeout — they had all three available — as the clock ticked down between every play and they wound up having to send out their lousy kicker (60 percent, career long 40 yards) to try a… Read more →
JoePa Shielding the Assets
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Joe Paterno transferred full ownership of his house to his wife, Sue, for $1 in July, less than four months before a sexual abuse scandal engulfed his Penn State football program and the university. — nytimes.com Read more →