If it seems to y’all that the biggest games in college football involve a lot of coaches and players with drawls and odd names (lookin’ at you Dabo Swinney) … well, you are not just whistling Dixie. Victories by Alabama and Georgia tonight put two Southeastern Conference (SEC) teams in the College Football Playoff championship […]

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This is not an exercise in academic rigor. I did not have someone sitting with a note pad writing down literally the first 10 facts I could recall pertaining to sports in 2017. But … it is a fairly accurate recreation of a fairly quick trip through my brain to see what stuck from the […]

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Two of the top quarterbacks potentially available for the 2018 NFL draft attend Los Angeles schools. UCLA’s Josh Rosen and USC’s Sam Darnold. Each has college eligibility remaining — one year for Rosen, two for Darnold. Each is mulling whether to make himself available for the draft or to stay in school for another year. […]

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Scott Wolf has been covering USC athletics seemingly forever. He writes for the L.A. Daily News/Los Angeles News Group, and in an era where nearly everyone else lost their jobs, Wolf kept his. Mostly because he generally breaks all significant news coming out of his alma mater’s athletic department. Readers, and editors, have picked up […]

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Elite college football programs are allowed one pratfall in the national-championship chase. USC’s Trojans just took theirs. Heisman Trophy candidates can maybe — maybe —  get away with one stinker and still aspire to pick up that famous trophy in New York. USC quarterback Sam Darnold just had his forgettable game. It was already Saturday […]

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After leaving the U.S. for Abu Dhabi, in 2009, my interest in college basketball waned. As I noted in blog posts from recent years, while living in the UAE, it requires work to follow the college game from the other side of the world. Too many teams, too many games, too big a time gap […]

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Ah, memories. This collection seeped into my consciousness when prompted by the discovery that the Oakland Raiders are playing at Houston on Sunday … and remembering I had covered an NFL game in Houston. At the Astrodome. While covering the Los Angeles Rams. In 1978. A long, long time ago. And I was pretty sure […]

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Wow. It had been that long? I covered at least 15 Rose Bowl games, maybe 20, and  should have known this. But I may have mentioned I’ve been away. What I know for sure is that USC is supposed to 1) be in the Rose Bowl more often than this and 2) win the Rose […]

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If it were not already time for this, it certainly is now: We no longer can consider USC a “football” school. Not after what Alabama did to the Trojans in their open tonight … a 52-6 blowout, nationally televised, that made the Trojans look like chumps. Not after compiling a overall record of 57-28 since […]

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Wow. What a mess. USC football may be at a low ebb, at least in this century. The coaches and players who contrived to lose to Wisconsin in the Holiday Bowl tonight constitute a program that is in trouble. The Trojans, over decades, have too often embraced the dim-witted arrogance of the biggest and most […]

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