One of the most frustrating cliches trotted out by college football's BCS defenders is this banal line: Every game counts. I hate this three-word cliche with the fury of a thousand blazing suns. I hate the smugness with which it's delivered, I hate the fact that no one points out the obvious -- name a sport where the games don't actually count-- but I hate the fact that it isn't even true the most.
In fact, this phrase is positively Orwellian because it leaves off the final part of the sentence. Every game counts ... except some games count more than others. How else to explain the fact that everyone can brush off Boise State's win over Oregon because it happened the first game of the season?
I understand we're dealing with a broken system, but right now Boise State is continuing to plummet as they win. I wrote about the glass ceiling that Boise had reached a couple of weeks ago, but has it really reached the point where we just ignore the first week of the season?
Halloween in Eugene began with Oregon coach Chip Kelly disguised as the Duck mascot and ended with USC masquerading as Cal. Pete Carroll's Trojans are not exactly immune from defeat in the Beaver State (0-4 since 2006) but they never lose to a fellow highly ranked Pac-10 foe and they most certainly never get waxed.
That's Jeff Tedford's domain.
Hands continue to wring in the Southland -- the Orange County Register declared that "USC's complete dominance of the league, a dominance unmatched in conference history, is over" -- but I believe that Pete Carroll, much like Michael Myers, will haunt the Pac-10 for many Halloweens to come.
Also, I'd like to suggest a more salient reason for Troy's desultory play of late, one that has nothing to do with the freshman QB, the eight defensive starters lost, or the two new coordinators: jet lag (and that's not a Mark Sanchez reference).
There's no other way to put it. Oregon's football program unequivocally demolished longtime Pac-10 overlord USC 47 to 20 on Saturday, effectively putting the brakes on two major, likely never to be repeated feats the Trojans had accomplished.
USC's record streak of seven Pac-10 championships is likely done, as is its even more impressive run of never losing by more than 11 points in the Pete Carroll era (and never by more than seven points once things really got rolling in 2002).
The Ducks finished with a 27-point winning margin and it easily could have been more. It was a two-sided wholesale destruction few outside of Autzen could have reasonably anticipated given the nature of USC's run these last few years. As a USC guy I knew it had to happen eventually, but I was thinking something like a 14-point loss, something reasonable.
EUGENE, Ore.(AP) -- Jeremiah Masoli threw for 222 yards and a touchdown and ran for 164 more yards with another score and the No. 10 Oregon Ducks ran past No. 4 USC 47-20 for the Trojans' worst loss since 1997.
Redshirt freshman LaMichael James ran for 184 yards and a score as the Ducks (7-1, 5-0 Pacific-10) racked up 391 yards on the ground against the Trojans, who came into the game with the fifth-best rush defense in the nation, allowing an average of just 79.9 yards a game.
Southern California (6-2, 3-2) had not lost a game by more than a touchdown since a 27-16 loss to Notre Dame in 2001, Pete Carroll's first season as Trojans coach. It was USC's worst lost since a 35-7 defeat to Arizona State on Oct. 11, 1997 and the most points allowed by the Trojans in Carroll's tenure.
EUGENE, Ore. -- Greetings from Autzen Stadium, where just moments ago I was "looking live at Brent Musberger" as we rode up the elevator together. Brent is 70 years young and he hasn't lost an ounce of energy. It's funny. Earlier today ESPN Classic aired a replay of the 1983 NCAA basketball final (Houston-N.C. State), for which Musberger did the play-by-play (on CBS).
That was 26 years ago. And Brent is still getting the primetime gigs. I am an unabashed, unapologetic Musberger fan.
EUGENE, Ore. -- Those football coaches who at least make an attempt at opening a book whose primary letters are not X and O often reach for biographies. Famous military leaders are popular.
Earlier this season Chip Kelly was reading, even committing to memory, a children's book. On the coffee table in his office here, the first-year Oregon coach kept a copy of "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."
Certainly Kelly can relate. In his sideline debut Kelly, 45, had a terrible, horrible, no good, cable-news-channel-attention-getting, very, very bad day.
And he has not had one since. But we are getting ahead of the story.
PERRY, Fla. -- As LeGarrette Blount follows the corrective measures that may signal his return to the Oregon football team next month, residents in this small, coastal city off Highway 27 still don't understand what triggered The Punch. Mark Southerland, a local businessman, School Board member and Taylor County High School resident historian, waited two days after Blount's meltdown on national television before he telephoned.
Blount recognized the 850 area code and number and immediately answered. Southerland didn't want to know why. Never asked, in fact. Instead, Southerland, who played football with Blount's father Gary at Taylor County in the mid-1970s and considers himself a family friend, offered advice and support. A remorseful Blount, 2,357 miles from his Florida safety net in Eugene, Ore., quietly listened.
"I told him three things," Southerland, 49, said in an interview with FanHouse.
Oregon coach Chip Kelly has had a change of heart, saying today that he might allow running back LeGarrette Blount to play this season even though he previously announced that Blount was suspended for the entire year for punching a Boise State player following the season opener.
LeGarrette Blount, the Oregon running back who became the talk of college football when he punched a Boise State player on the field after the Ducks' season-opening loss, apologized today for that punch in an open letter published by Oregon's student newspaper. Blount accepted full responsibility, and he said nothing said by Boise State's Byron Hout justified Blount punching him.
Take a big thick red marker and draw a line through California on the list of top Pac-10 football teams looking to gain some national respect this season.
Isn't that what you do to fraudulent programs that fail to show up in statement games?
Well, that's what happened to Cal, who entered the weekend undefeated and ranked sixth in the AP poll but got hammered by unranked Oregon, 42-3, in a game that wasn't even that close at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore.
NCAA Football 
One of the most frustrating cliches trotted out by college football's BCS defenders is this banal line: Every game counts. I hate this three-word cliche with the fury of a thousand blazing suns. I hate the smugness with which it's delivered, I hate the fact that no one points out the obvious -- name a sport where the games don't actually count-- but I hate the fact that it isn't even true the most. 
Halloween in Eugene began with Oregon coach Chip Kelly disguised as the Duck mascot and ended with USC masquerading as Cal. Pete Carroll's 
There's no other way to put it. Oregon's football program unequivocally demolished longtime Pac-10 overlord USC 47 to 20 on Saturday, effectively putting the brakes on two major, likely never to be repeated feats the Trojans had accomplished.
EUGENE, Ore.(AP) -- 
EUGENE, Ore. -- Greetings from Autzen Stadium, where just moments ago I was "looking live at Brent Musberger" as we rode up the elevator together. Brent is 70 years young and he hasn't lost an ounce of energy. It's funny. Earlier today ESPN Classic aired a replay of the 1983 NCAA basketball final (Houston-N.C. State), for which Musberger did the play-by-play (on CBS). 
EUGENE, Ore. -- Those football coaches who at least make an attempt at opening a book whose primary letters are not X and O often reach for biographies. Famous military leaders are popular.
PERRY, Fla. -- As LeGarrette Blount follows the corrective measures that may signal his return to the Oregon football team next month, residents in this small, coastal city off Highway 27 still don't understand what triggered The Punch. Mark Southerland, a local businessman, School Board member and Taylor County High School resident historian, waited two days after Blount's meltdown on national television before he telephoned. 
Oregon coach Chip Kelly has had a change of heart, saying today that he might allow running back LeGarrette Blount to play this season even though he previously announced that Blount was suspended for the entire year for punching a Boise State player following the season opener.
Take a big thick red marker and draw a line through California on the list of top Pac-10 football teams looking to gain some national respect this season.
