A Bullish Prediction

Peter Dudley, over at the Bear Insider, forecasts Cal will upset USC tomorrow:

USC has been on the verge a couple of times this year. I am predicting an upset based on the fact that the Bear will not quit and the Bear will not die. I am predicting that Cal's players and coaches will not be in awe of their opponent this week. I am predicting that this, like the game two years ago, will become an "instant classic" and will feature the best offensive line play by the Bears this year. I'm predicting that this game will not go into overtime. I'm predicting that the Bears will emerge triumphant and will knock the Trojans out of the national championship picture.

Final score: Cal 34, Southern Cal 33.

Sorry, Peter, the Trojans already played in one "instant classic" this season, and they came out on top.

My prediction is somewhat more bearish on the Bears' chances. I am predicting Peter's prediction will be proven nonsense.

USC 42, Cal 21.

What about this season?

This season is an exceptional case. With the expectation level so high after winning the 2004 national championship and returning virtually the entire offense, including the Heisman Trophy winner and another Heisman Trophy finalist (Bush), anything less than winning the 2005 national championship would be a disappointment. However, I would still consider the season successful if USC made it to the Rose Bowl, regardless of the outcome. Of course, my confidence in USC’s chances of if they go to the Rose Bowl is high given Carroll’s track record in BCS bowls, the coaching staff’s proven ability to construct excellent game plans when given extended time to prepare, and the team’s tendency to steadily improve over the course of the season until peaking for the bowl game.

Therefore, even though the team is 9-0 and has already beaten Notre Dame in possibly the best college football game of the year, it is too early to say that USC has had a successful season. In fact, should the team lose one of its last three games, the season would be a disappointment based on this season’s exceptionally high expectation level, and will probably even be a disappointment based on the standard criteria I outlined in the preceding post.

Of course, all I’m thinking about this week is beating Cal. Beat the Bears!

What are the criteria for a successful season?

When I was an undergraduate, I decided that the Trojans must accomplish two of three objectives before I would consider a football season successful: beat Notre Dame; beat UCLA; and go to the Rose Bowl. Incidentally, by these criteria USC never had a successful season while I was an undergraduate due to the unfortunate coincidence of two devastating streaks: eight straight losses to UCLA from 1991 to 1998 (the four that I saw were all very painful, but USC is making up for it now with a six-game winning streak starting in 1999) and Notre Dame’s 13-game unbeaten streak against USC from 1983 to 1995 (the 1994 game was a tie). I was at the last game of the ND streak.

In my mind the criteria has shifted. The Trojans must accomplish two objectives in order to have what I would consider a successful season: 1) go to a BCS bowl game; and 2) beat either Notre Dame, UCLA, or both. USC could finish with an 11-2 record and win a BCS bowl, but if they were to lose to Notre Dame and UCLA, it would not be completely happy about the season. Obviously, the likelihood of losing to both rivals and still going to a BCS game is very low, so I expect that scenario to be rare.

I would be interested to know what fans of other major programs believe are the criteria for a successful season at their schools.

Don't Panic

I finally added a subtitle to the blog. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference will immediately be clear to fans of Douglas Adams. No, you won’t see me at a Hitchhiker’s Guide convention with a prosthetic second head and a fish stuffed in my ear, but I am a big fan of the books. I read them (the first four, anyway) during elementary school, and they surely influenced my sense of humor and contributed to my appreciation of British comedy.

Click this link to play the BBC’s 20th Anniversary Edition of Infocom’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – The Adventure Game. I remember playing the original version of this game on my family’s Apple IIe.

In case you were wondering, I usually know where my towel is.

Very amusing . . .

video. Even Gators fans in the crowd are "Gettin' Jiggy wit' It". (finder's credit to EDSBS)

League Champs!

My soccer team, Postgame FC, clinched first place in the CCSL Premier Division yesterday morning with a 3 - 1 win over Booters FC. We will be the #1 seed in the play-offs, which begin in two weeks against a semifinal opponent TBD. This was a significant achievement for our team, which has never finished this high in Premier Div. league play. I've only been with the team for two years, but according to the old-timers, Postgame FC started out five or six years ago at the bottom of the bottom division in the league (hence the team name; post-game apparently being the only time the team could post impressive performances).

This result definitely made up for having to get up at 6:30 on a Sunday morning for our 8:00 game.

Bad Analysis

I came across an example of exceptionally bad analysis in Matthew Zemek's "Weekly Affirmation" at College Football News.com:

When Cal lost to Oregon in a sloppy football game, USC’s strength of schedule dipped appreciably. A team that had been 5-0 and leading UCLA by 12 points with nine minutes left in regulation had suddenly spiraled to 6-3 before the showdown with the Trojans next weekend. When the Canes and Hokies kicked it off in Blacksburg, I was thinking to myself, “If USC doesn’t blast Cal out of the water—really crush them—on Nov. 12, one has no choice to dock the Trojans for their strength of schedule, just as I docked Texas for its strength of schedule.” I didn’t expect Cal to take this kind of a nosedive, but it happened, and that’s part of the larger body of evidence I have to deal with. My mind has to remain open when new evidence presents itself.

He continues:

Later in the day, the landscape changed even more against USC. When UCLA—a team supposedly worthy of contending for the Pac-10 title as USC’s final regular-season opponent—lost so decisively and pathetically to Arizona, I had no choice but to internally downgrade USC’s schedule strength still more.

Huh?

Objectively speaking, these two games have absolutely no net effect on USC's strength of schedule because USC plays all four teams. The loss by Cal, USC's Nov. 12 opponent, was a win for Oregon, USC's Sept. 24 opponent; just as UCLA's loss was a win for Arizona, who USC beat on Oct. 8. Therefore, the results of these two games for these four teams cancel each other out in USC's final schedule strength.

Subjectively speaking, the results of these two games should also be a wash. Whereas presumed USC victories over Cal and UCLA will now be less impressive, the past victories over 8-1 Oregon (in Eugene) and Arizona should now appear more impressive. If anything, the results of these two games bolster the evidence supporting USC's current reputation because USC has already beaten the victors of the Cal-Oregon and Arizona-UCLA games, but has not yet played the losers of those two contests.

In addition to Zemek's poor interpretation of the results of those games, he also makes the erroneous assumption that a team's strength is partly determined by its strength of schedule. I'm not saying that strength of schedule is not a legitimate factor of a team's BCS ranking (I'm not saying it is, either, but that's a separate issue). However, for those who believe the Pac-10 is a weak conference (myself not included), one only has to look at USC's non-conference performance over the past 3 years for proof that this assumption about schedule strength is suspect.

Zemek prides himself on his sound analysis of college football. Elsewhere in this piece, he writes, "good college football journalism concerns the process of making sense of events after they happen," and, "it’s making sense of events as they occur, and especially after they occur, that counts." I couldn't resist calling him out.

USC-Stanford

What kind of numbers would Leinart, Bush, White, Jarrett, Smith & Co. have if they actually played more than 2 1/2 quarters per game? The pundits would have to apply a factor greater than one to the 3000/2 x 1000/2 x 1000 milestone that everyone's talking about.

This game was virtually over halfway through the first quarter. The second half was so boring I fell asleep during the third quarter (it was a late game on the east coast). If the offense clicks like this for the rest of the season, Cal, Fresno State, and UCLA are going to have very bad days.

How about UCLA?!! Yeah, it would have been nice to be responsible for ruining their undefeated season on Dec. 3, but man it was great to see them go down like that.

Homecoming Photos

Here are some pictures from last week's Homecoming game against Wazzu.


First stop was my cousin's tailgate. Her husband is the one in the Leinart jersey (lucky bugger is a current student at USC).

Pre-game festivities. (photo courtesy of Boomer)

Update: EDSBS was impressed, too.


This band rocks!


Awesome!




My boys, post-game and post-sober.

Best ever?

This is the most persuasive argument I've seen so far regarding USC's standing among the greatest offenses of all time. Take this path to the article if you prefer.