Handicapabling Challenge: Rivalry Week

It's rivalry week, and for a USC alum like me living in Los Angeles, it means experiencing a tradition unlike any other. No other big time college football rivalry has two schools with campuses so close together. Families, offices, and friendships should all be put on hold for a week of barbs, taunts and zings.

At least that's how it should be. But for me, that never happens. No one at my office graduated from UCLA. Only a couple of people even watch football at all: one guy is from Texas, and the other is from Serbia or Crotia or some random Slavic country that didn't exist before the 1990s. Somehow, I don't think he's a Bruin either. I don't know anyone who graduated from UCLA well at all. A couple of friends from high school I talk to once or twice a year, maybe.

And I'm not seeing any support from the Bruin fans this year. No people wearing school colors, bumper stickers, or those flags you suction cup to your car. I suspect that they sort of know that last year was as good as it is going to get for a while, and that in about two weeks, the football team will be looking for a new full-time head coach while some assistant is leading them as interim coach at the Zircon.com Aluminum Bowl or some nonsense.

Plus, it's raining today pretty hard (by LA standards), so therefore LA is about as deserted as Random City X in Random Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Film. It's weird.

Anyway, on to the picks. I didn't make any last week, since I was in a strange land without the Internet (my sister's place near Fresno). Let's see if I can make up for lost time and somehow drop seven or eight picks when only making five. (For the record, I am 6-9 for the season. I will avoid making any juvenile jokes pertaining to a frankly overrated sexual act. I think you know I'm better than that.)

(Also, ball farts. Tee-hee.)

Fresno St. (-13) @ New Mexico St.: Fresno St. is a terrible, terrible team against the spread under Pat Hill - they are 7-18 in their past 25 games. This is a good indication of why a lot of people back in Fresno are unhappy with Coach Hill and have been for years: they always play to the level of their opponents, and never put away bad teams.

Now, I don't think NMSU is a very good team at all. But they are 4-2 at home this year, while the Bulldogs are just 2-3. Now that Fresno St. has a chance to go to a decent bowl game (probably the Hawaii Bowl) with a win, this is a perfect chance for them to screw that up with a loss and get demoted to some podunk bowl in the Midwest in mid-December. Bring gloves, kids!

The pick: New Mexico St. (+13)

UCLA @ USC (-20): The thought of laying 20 points with a team quarterbacked by John David Booty makes my skin crawl. However, the thought of UCLA being able to score any points on USC is also pretty daunting at this point. But looking outside, it is wet, and it's going to be wet tomorrow afternoon. And the Coliseum field is already pretty torn up from recent soccer games. The bottom line? It's going to be a slog, much like the USC/Cal game a few weeks ago. USC wins, but not by 20.

The pick: UCLA (+20)

(Note: That said, I'd gladly be wrong on this and have USC win by 100, just so the rare UCLA fan who has chirped up with "13-9" this week can go back to Pauly Pavilion and stay for the next nine months.)

Army vs. Navy (-14): As a true patriot, I refuse to say that one team or the other is going to win - picking against the Army or Navy is tantamount to picking against America. I predict that in defiance of the NCAA and their "overtime rules", this game is declared a tie, and both teams turn their attention to kicking some terrorist butt! Which I guess means Army will cover. (That and the fact that Navy are only 3-7 in their last 10 games against the spread, because they can't stop anyone enough to cover any spread.)

The pick: Army

Big 12 Title Game - Oklahoma (-3) vs. Missouri: It's very hard to beat a good team twice in one season. Especially when that team has the motivation of playing for a national title, and they are playing the return game with their leading rusher (who didn't play the first time). Plus, Oklahoma is turning into a lousy cover team (2-6 in their last eight ATS), and I'm beginning to have zero confidence in Bob Stoops' coaching abilities in big games. In fact, I've started to refer to a shot of a coach on the sidelines after his team makes a big, dumb play (where he has a look that's a combination of anger, disgust and confusion) as "The Bob Stoops Face".

The pick: Missouri (+3)

New York Jets @ Miami (-1): So wait...a team that is 0-11, and just lost perhaps the ugliest football game in history, (and is coming off of a short week because of said game, which is never good) is a favorite against anyone? I know the Jets are bad, but they aren't...Dolphins bad. This is a team on a date with their own brand of perfection - don't try to throw a game away to them - they'll find a way to lose. They always do.

The pick: New York Jets (+1)

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:10 PM 0 comments  

USC Mulls Move to Oakland Coliseum

LOS ANGELES - In a surprising twist to an ongoing saga, University of Southern California officials today announced that they are considering moving home games to Oakland beginning next season. The university had originally discussed moving to the nearby Rose Bowl after talks with the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum stalled. However, school officials are now considering a radical plan to play home games at the Oakland Coliseum.

"After evaluating our options, we think this provides us with the best solution going forward," said Todd R. Dickey, USC's senior vice president for administration. "Although it will add an additional commute for our alumni and students, we think that with the loyalty of our fan base, we'll have little trouble selling out most games. Plus, all of our letterhead already says 'The Coliseum' on it, so this is going to save us thousands of dollars a year."

Under a university plan, shuttle buses would take fans and students to and from campus and the Oakland Coliseum. This will mean that fans will need to arrive no later than 3 a.m. for a 12:30 p.m. kickoff. University officials said that studies showed this would be comparable to the wait times for parking at the Rose Bowl.

"The 'Weekender' trip for our fans to the Bay Area schools is always a highlight of the football season," said Dickey. "This plan brings the fun and excitement of a Weekender to every home USC football game."

USC head coach Pete Carroll briefly discussed the plan after today's practice in preparation for their Rivalry Week game against UCLA. He said he wouldn't treat the 1,000 round-trip distance of their home stadium as a disadvantage.

"If that's what happens, then it's a great opportunity for us to get out there and show what we can do to a new audience," Carroll said. "It's what we do as a program, take advantage of what's put in front of us. It's something to look forward to. We'll build on it and go from there. We're all excited about it."

Carroll then headed off to his Heritage Hall office, muttering positive mantras to himself the entire way.

Reaction in the Bay Area was mixed. Some fans thought that Bay Area sports fans would not embrace a team moving from Southern California.

"By great Lucifer's ghost, moving a team from Los Angeles to here would never work!," said A. Davis, an elderly man found eating a Senior Slam at an Oakland area Denny's. "Next, there will be flying automobiles, and phones that tell you the scores of football game. And toasters that can steal your soul! From Irwindale, that's where salvation is from these foul howler monkeys. Irwindale!!!"

Davis rambled for a few minutes, then fell asleep in his grits.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:04 PM 0 comments  

YFIASB's HotPulse America! 11/29 Edition

What is HotPulse America!, exactly? It's where, with the help of a random number generator and a list of the nation's top 100 media markets, I randomly check in on a few of our nation's cities to see what is pushing the buttons of their sports fans.

Champaign/Urbana/Springfield, IL (DMA #84):

East Central Illinois? We're talking Illini Country! And despite the football's improbable success, the news today was pretty grim, based on the early season struggles of the men's basketball team - highlighted by a listless 69-61 loss to Maryland last night. For a 4-2 team, people seem very glum about this season. When the message coming out of the game is "I don't want to be mediocre", and those words aren't coming from an ASU football fan (sorry McLane) but from your team's head coach, you are officially in trouble.

This is what happens when a non-traditional power in one sport gets really good at one thing while they start slipping at the thing they are usually good at - no one knows what to do. Palms get sweaty, fans get confused - it's like a bad Twilight Zone episode (like the new one, hosyed by Forrest Whitaker). I personally saw this when the USC basketball team made an Elite Eight run a few years ago right when Paul Hackett was killing the football team.

In other local news: the Eli Manning/Rex Grossman QB match-up in this week's Giants/Bears game might be harmful or fatal if viewed. Just like the arc from Indiana Jones, DON'T LOOK DIRECTLY AT IT!

Houston, TX (DMA #10):

It was going to take something pretty huge for Houston sports fans to realize that they had a college team in their city, one that even is going to bowl games on a regular basis. Apparently, that something would be the head coach leaving to take the same job at Baylor, because that is actually the lead story in the Houston Chronicle, ahead of the Rockets, Texans, or a preview of some upcoming Class 4-D high school title game.

Baylor is a bad, bad athletic program right now, still tainted with the stink of the scandal involving the men's basketball team. (You might remember them. Dirty coaches. Players murdering other players. Just ugly,) And the football team? Well, they've just plain stunk for years. They haven't finished above .500 since 1995, and they are 11-85 in the Big XII since joining the conference.

I know this is an "under-the-radar" hire with all of the other college football coaching carousel news, but I think it's a great hire. Art Briles knows Texas, which is a big plus when it comes to recruiting. Butas much as anything else, he knows how to turn around bad programs. Before coming to Houston in 2003, the Cougars had been languishing. Under previous head coach Dana "Dismal" Dimal, they had been 8-26.

Since Briles has gotten to Houston, he's compiled a 34-28 record, including bowl games three of those four years. And Houston has lousy facilities and really bad support - their season-ending home victory against Texas Southern drew 12,139. I know that it was against a lower-division patsy, but still - this is an 8-4 team, and this is Texas: high school games regularly draw much more than that.

If anyone can turn things around at Baylor, it's Art Briles. If he can't, maybe they should just pull a Long Beach State and shudder the program for good. Except without the dumping Gatorade on their old head coach during a cold day, causing him to catch pneumonia and die.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:29 PM 0 comments  

USC to the Rose Bowl...permanently?

On Tuesday, USC made the startling announcement that it had begun negotiations with the Rose Bowl to move from the Coliseum and begin playing home football games there starting next season. You can read the story for the full details, but the gist of the situation is this: USC wants control over running the Coliseum (and scheduling), and wants renovations to be made. They are willing to kick in $100 million over the next 10 years towards the renovations. However, the Coliseum Commission has been putting this issue on the back burner and hoping it goes away, mainly because they are still committed to the pipe dream that the NFL is going to be back in the Coliseum someday.

Bill Plaschke's column in the LA Times on Wednesday does a fairly good job of summarizing how I feel about this. This is clearly a lot of political posturing and muscle-flexing being done by USC to let the Coliseum Commission know that "it means business". It's almost inconceivable that USC would anger so many of its alumni by destroying 80+ years of tradition by forcing them to move from their home just off-campus to a new site 20 miles away with lousy parking and freeway access (and would be second tenant to their arch rivals).

However, this is the Coliseum Commission we're talking about, and if anyone can screw something up royally, it's them. Plaschke's column gets into it in a little more detail, but the Commission has directly or indirectly lead to the Rams and Raiders leaving Los Angeles and the O'Malley family selling the Dodgers.

The indirect good news in all of this is that the brouhaha has forced LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to stop sucking face with news anchors long enough to finally, publicly state that he's given up on the NFL ever returning to the Coliseum and that the Commission should too. And the general outrage this has caused has pretty much put the Coliseum Commission into such a bad spot than even they seem to be forced to admit defeat at this point. (Well, except for exceptionally stubborn Commission members like current City Councilman and former really lousy LA Police Chief Bernard Parks, who "must keep the door open for a professional team."

And just who is the Coliseum Commission? As you can guess, a bunch of bureaucrats! More specifically, a nine-person panel made up of: four politicians (the afore-mentioned Parks and three LA County Supervisors) and five "private citizens", including the widow of Aaron Spelling and the wife of City Councilman Herb Wesson. (Apparently, being married to old, white guys is excellent training for deciding the fate of one of LA's major landmarks.)

And just how effective is the Coliseum Commission? I'll let a current City Council member tell you:

"There is nothing that that commission has [accomplished] in the 30 or 40 years that I know of," said L.A. City Councilman Greig Smith, who offered a list of teams that have left the Coliseum and neighboring Sports Arena. "One government agency can screw up. Three government agencies can screw up a lot."

I'll leave with an interesting article from the LA Times' architecture critic about the situation. I think it's a good overview of the challenges faced in maintaining the Coliseum, and LA's older stadium structures in general. I'm going to let my USC alum bias show here for a second in response. I've been to both the Rose Bowl and the Coliseum, and frankly, in terms of "watching the game" aesthetics, I prefer the Coliseum. The site lines are better and the seats are wider. I always have a sense of being more "on top" of things at the Coliseum from the upper deck, versus being lower and further away at the Rose Bowl. And I can still find free street parking at the Coliseum (and never had any issues with break-ins, etc.) on game days, even on sell-outs. At the Rose Bowl? Not so much.

But the Rose Bowl does have a pretty view of the mountains...I guess that counts for something.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:26 AM 0 comments  

Playing Guitar Hero Makes Tony Romo Look Like a Giant Dork

Photo Credit: Jensen Walker/Getty Images for Guitar Hero

So CNN/SI has a photo gallery up right now of "Male Athletes Off the Field" (which is a weird title - aren't 90 percent of athletes that people know male?), and the picture above is the first picture you see. The cheese-eating goofball front and center with the Janet Jackson Rhythm Nationa 1814 headset is Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo, playing Guitar Hero III at a promotional event with teammates Terrance Newman, Marc Colombo and Cory Procter.

First off, does anyone look like they less want to be somewhere than Terrance Newman? And take a look at the "guitar" they gave Marc Colombo - could they find a larger model for the giant, hulking NFL player. It looks like he's playing Mandolin Hero.

But really, the star here is Romo. From the too-high position on the guitar to the "yuck yuck" grin on his face, everything about him screams "yokel". This picture alone is going to cause me to lay serious scratch on the Packers next week against the Cowboys - no way Brett Favre would ever look this dorky.

But here's my main bone of contention - what the hell is he doing wearing that headset? I don't own Guitar Hero, but I've played it several times. At no point do I remember signing being a part of it. I don't even know if the headset is plugged in (it might just trail off into nothingness, like watching a band "perform" on American Bandstand back in the day when none of the electric instruments were attached to anything).

My theory: he's so used to getting play calls from the booth that he cannot function without assistance 100 percent of the time. In this case, his possible girlfriend/maybe just friends/whatever Carrie Underwood is in another room telling him which buttons on the "gee-tar" to push.

I'd also recommend checking out photo #4, of NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson trying for the Jim Halpert casual cool look at a fashion event and failing. Miserably. He looks like a 6 year-old dressing up in dad's clothes.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:44 AM 2 comments  

My 2007 Bowl Game Projections

So, I'm sick. Very sick. How sick? When your doctor calls in the nurse specifically so she can look through into your ear to get a sense of "what a really, really bad ear infection" looks like, you're in bad shape.

So instead of, you know, working at work today, I kept myself preoccupied from the screaming pain in my left ear (which I had attributed before to listening to Steve Lavin call the USC/Southern Illinois basketball game last night) by doing some projections for the upcoming bowl season. Not just the BCS bowls, but all of them.

This is all preliminary, and although I did some research to get a sense of what the rumor mill is saying about destinations, I also used some gut instincts. The big thing you'll notice is that I have Oklahoma upsetting Missouri and knocking them out of the BCS Title game this weekend. Which would be totally appropriate - instead of getting a really exciting match-up with lots of offense, we'd be stuck with Ohio State lumbering in to get taken to the woodshed again (this time by West Virginia). I'm also assuming that if Ohio State plays for the national title, the Rose Bowl would select Illinois to take its place - they are all gooey and nostalgic for the Big 10/Pac 10 match-ups.

Agree with them or disagree, here are my bowl projections:

	Game	Match Up			Teams
	BCS Title	BCS #1	vs.	BCS #2	West Virginia	vs.	Ohio St.
	Rose Bowl	Pac-10 Champ	vs.	Big 10 Champ	USC	vs.	Illinois
	Fiesta Bowl	Big 12 Champ	vs.	At-Large	Oklahoma	vs.	Georgia
	Orange Bowl	ACC Champ	vs.	At-Large	Virginia Tech	vs.	Missouri
	Sugar Bowl	SEC Champ	vs.	At-Large	LSU	vs.	Hawaii
	Capital One Bowl	SEC #2	vs.	Big 10 #2	Florida	vs.	Wisconsin
	Gator Bowl	ACC #3	vs.	Big 12 #4/Big East #2	Virginia	vs.	Texas Tech
	Cotton Bowl	Big 12 #2	vs.	SEC #3/4/5	Kansas	vs.	Arkansas
	Outback Bowl	SEC #3/4/5	vs.	Big Ten #3	Tennessee	vs.	Michigan
	International Bowl	MAC #3	vs.	Big East	Ball St.	vs.	Rutgers
	Liberty Bowl	C-USA #1	vs.	SEC #6/7	UCF	vs.	Mississippi St.
	Mieneke Car Care Bowl	ACC #5	vs.	Big East	Wake Forest	vs.	Connecticut
	Chick-fil-A Bowl	ACC #2	vs.	SEC #3/4/5	Clemson	vs.	Auburn
	Independence Bowl	Big 12 #6	vs.	SEC #8	Colorado	vs.	Alabama
	Sun Bowl	Pac-10 #3	vs.	Big 12 #5/Big East	Oregon St.	vs.	South Florida
	Music City Bowl	ACC #5/6	vs.	SEC #6/7	Florida St.	vs.	Kentucky
	Holiday Bowl	Pac-10 #2	vs.	Big 12 #3	Arizona St.	vs.	Texas
	Emerald Bowl	Pac-10 #4/5	vs.	ACC #5/6/7	California	vs.	Georgia Tech

	Alamo Bowl	Big 12 #4/5	vs.	Big Ten #4	Texas A&M	vs.	Penn State
	Texas Bowl	Big 12 #7	vs.	C-USA #3/4	TCU	vs.	Houston
	Humanitarian Bowl	WAC #1	vs.	ACC #8	Boise St.	vs.	Maryland
	Insight Bowl	Big 12 #5	vs.	Big Ten #6	Oklahoma St.	vs.	Purdue
	Champs Sports Bowl	Big Ten #5	vs.	ACC #4	Indiana	vs.	Boston College
	Motor City Bowl	MAC #1/2	vs.	Big Ten #7	Central Michigan	vs.	Michigan St.
	Hawai'I Bowl	C-USA	vs.	WAC #2	East Carolina	vs.	Fresno St.
	Armed Forces Bowl	MWC	vs.	Pac-10	Air Force	vs.	UCLA
	Las Vegas Bowl	Pac-10 #4/5	vs.	MWC #1	Oregon	vs.	BYU
	Poinsettia Bowl	MWC	vs.	At-Large/Navy	Utah	vs.	Navy
	GMAC Bowl	MAC #1/2	vs.	C-USA #2	Bowling Green	vs.	Tulsa
	New Orleans Bowl	Sun Belt #1	vs.	C-USA #5	Troy	vs.	Memphis
	PapaJohns.com Bowl	C-USA #3/4	vs.	Big East/MAC	Southern Miss	vs.	Cincinnati
	New Mexico Bowl	WAC #3	vs.	MWC	Nevada/Louisiana Tech	vs.	New Mexico

A few interesting possible games here:

- I love the idea of Kansas playing Arkansas. Somehow it should be like a "loser leaves town" match from the old-time wrestling days. Maybe the loser should have to change their name to "Lesser Kansas" for the next year.
- USC vs. Illinois in the Rose Bowl would be fabulous, just because the pre-game hype would turn into a contest to see which coach gets the most "don't let the laid-back approach fool you" stories written about him. Plus, plenty of opportunities for Ron Zook to go water-skiing!
- Any battle between Troy and Memphis might turn into an actual historical war!
- Colorado vs. Alabama: Dan Hawkins vs. Nick Saban. Something has to give. I'm not sure what, but something...

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 4:28 PM 4 comments  

Ricardo Mayorga is a People Person

Nicaraguans love their sports heroes. And perhaps no native son has had more success on the world sports stage than three-time world boxing champion Ricardo Mayorga. So, he should be the people's champion, right? Wrong. Why? Because he's a really, really tremendous asshole.

Nicaraguans are so ashamed of Mayorga's boorish behavior (smoking and eating friend chicken at weigh-ins, arrogance, being a foul-mouthed punk and starting fights at press conferences, etc.) that they celebrated in the streets of Managua and set of rockets after he lost to Oscar de la Hoya. To repeat to hammer home the point, they were celebrating a victory by Oscar de la Hoya - no Hispanic person that I'm aware of in the US has ever done this before.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:03 AM 0 comments  

Stay Classy, Jets Fans

If there was going to be a story about football fans sexual harassing, spitting on and otherwise abusing female fans at the game, it makes sense it was going to be Jets fans. In their own way, they are just as boorish and obnoxious as Raider fans. But while Raider fans spend their time stabbing fans of opposing teams, Jets fans occupy themselves with chanting for women in the concession area to expose themselves.

My favorite quote in the story is about the one woman who did flash the crowd during last week's game:

Denisse Rivera, a 23-year-old from the Bronx, was on a first date Sunday. When she arrived at the crowd at Gate D, several men pointed at her, signaling men at all levels to chant in her direction. After a brief moment of hesitation, she flashed them. Then she took a bow.

“I don’t care,” Rivera said when told that video clips of previous incidents, taken on cellphones, ended up online. “I love my body and I like what I have, so let everybody share it.”

Two security guards soon approached Rivera. The guards warned her about indecent exposure laws, she said, and let her go.

That, my friends, is an interesting first date. Of course, if you're the guy whose first date flashed hundreds of guys at the Jets game, you had better get lucky that night. Otherwise, I'd recommend that you quit dating altogether - you've officially lost at dating and suck at life.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 9:50 AM 2 comments  

Handicapabling Challenge Week 4: All-NFL Edition

I wish I could say I was doing this because I had five particularly great NFL picks. The honest truth is that there has been a bad virus running through The Duke's family, and this is my first chance to make picks. No explanations, just picks...

- Cincinnati (-3) vs. Arizona
- Oakland (+4.5) at Minnesota
- Tampa Bay (-3) at Atlanta
- Detroit (-2.5) vs. NY Giants
- Buffalo (+16) vs. New England

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 4:00 PM 0 comments  

Breaking News: Bonds Provides Nation with Collective Moment of Schadenfreude

If you haven't heard yet, Barry Bonds has been indicted by a federal grand jury on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in jail.

I haven't had time to digest this yet, so bear with me before I give you my ill-informed hard-hitting opinions on everything. Although I would like to point out that I find it interesting that President Bush issued a statement that he was "very disappointed to hear this". This from the same guy whose Texas Rangers, while he was managing partner, traded for Jose Canseco, and also had Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro on the roster.

Mainly this is friendly warning to avoid ESPN for at least the next 48 hours as I'm sure they are on "BREAKING NEWS RED ALERT CRITICAL MASS" level with their coverage right about now.

Note: Maybe Bonds should take a closer look at that contract offer from the Washington Wild Things of the independent Frontier League. It might be as good as it gets next season.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:28 PM 1 comments