Victory

So... who starts at QB for the Trojans next week at Oregon?

And, um, will Navy beat Notre Dame?

P.S. Brian Grummell echoes my thoughts:

I have to be frank here: USC just isn't a very good football team right now. In fact, many of their problems all year manifested themselves in the first half against Notre Dame today. Fortunately for the Trojans, Notre Dame is that much worse of a football team that at one point in the third quarter USC had as many touchdowns as the Irish had first downs. ...

The fact that a shaky USC was able to so easily dismantle a Notre Dame team that was competitive against a highly ranked Boston College team just last week has me concerned about the Eagles. Maybe they are the next to suffer the fate of #2 that slayed USF Thursday night.

Coincidentally enough, BC next week, like USF this week, is on the road... on Thursday night... on ESPN... against a quality opponent (Virginia Tech). I foresee a Hokies "upset."

Comments

[BK]

ND looks like the worst offense in the history of college football. At least ND's defense continues to be somewhat solid, until the offense goes 3 and out for the 5th time or so, which usually happens late in the second quarter.

I honestly wasn't impressed by USC. If they start their next five games like they started today, they could easily find themselves at 7-5.

[BK]

Make that 6-6.

[Anonymous]

I'm of the understanding that BC are frauds and am hoping they will get beat savagely by the Hokies.

What a heartbreaker for Cal tonight. Karl Dorrell is inexplicable, just inexplicable.

Feel sorry for the Irish. Trojans did well tonight but with games like Oregon, Arizona State, UCLA and OSU ahead... watch out.

Excited to see if Illinois can beat Michigan, hoping to see an awesome game between Auburn and LSU with Auburn winning.

By the way, was rooting all the way for Kentucky vs. the Gators. Oh well.

Thesis: There is no transitive law in football.

Proof by example: Stanford beat USC by one point. USC beat Notre Dame by 38 points. But it does not follow that Stanford could beat Notre Dame by 39 points.

Ergo, I have no idea why Brian Grummel is worried about BC.

[Jim Hu]

Of course there is no transitive law. ND beat UCLA and UCLA beat Stanford, which beat USC, which beat ND.

[Brendan]

While it's true that there's no transitive law in football, it's also true that you can sometimes learn something from comparing teams' comparative performances against one another. You just have to realize it isn't an exact science.

(If every game was treated as a completely isolated incident unto itself, unrelated to anything else that's occurred, then it would be impossible to rank teams in college football. Yet we do it, or attempt to do it, every week.)

I think there's ample reason to be worried about BC. They've built up a gaudy record by playing nobody, and they struggled against UMass -- UMass, for heaven's sake! -- and didn't look great against an abysmal Notre Dame team. They display all the classic warning signs of a pretender.

BC is one of two things: a genuinely good/great team that sometimes plays down to the level of its opposition, but will rise up and play well when a big performance is needed (see: Ohio State, 2002), or a fraudulent pretender that's only undefeated because of its weak schedule to date (see: Ohio State, 2006). Next week, we'll begin to find out which it is.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

I really, really hope Navy beats Notre Dame. The Weis apologists would have absolutely no excuses left at that point.

[Jim Hu]

If ND loses to Navy, I'm sure that the hardcore will still blame it on Ty... whose Washington team is tied with Oregon in the 3rd quarter.

[Brendan]

That's simply not true, Max. "Brutal schedule" is only one of the excuses that's been offered, and it's been largely deflated by the various subsequent games in which several teams who spanked ND have been exposed as overrated frauds. Losing to Navy would be the final nail in that coffin, but it wouldn't affect the other excuses (youth, inexperience, poor recruiting in 2004 and 2005 leading to an extremely thin junior & senior class, "Weis made mistakes in the offseason and he's learned from them but he's paying for them right now," etc.).

It's abudantly clear that Weis will not be fired this season even if the Irish finish 1-11. On the other hand, if he doesn't show very significant improvement next year, that will be a different story. Because THEN all the excuses really WOULD be gone, and there will be precious few "apologists" left.

But save your energy till then.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

One can dream.

[kcatnd]

What would do it for you, Max? Weis gets fired? No? His house burns down? Ty punches him in the face? Seriously, get a life man.

[Texasyank]

Hard to gauge this team.

I'm reminded that, years ago, during the baseball season, the Yankees and Mets would play an exhibition called the Mayor's Trophy Game. This was eventually cancelled when Steinbrenner--who was obsessed with beating the Mets anyway possible--would be furious at the Yankee manager for not starting a frontline pitcher, or for benching a starter or two.

Anyway, the game I'm thinking of was in 1978, which threatened to go into extra innings, at which point Yankee third baseman Graig Nettles announced to the dugout that, if it were the case, he would start heaving any grounder hit to him into the stands, just to get the damn thing over with.

Understand: these were the late-70s Mets, a team that would challenge their '62 forbears for title of worst team ever.

Anyway, that game was won by the Yankees, due to heroics by a rookie infielder Brian Doyle (who, come October, would have his moment in the Sun in place of regular second baseman Willie Randolph).

After the game, Sparky Lyle, who was writing a book about the season ("The Bronx Zoo," consult Amazon.com) remarked, "I guess we played well. But the Mets are so bad, who can say?"

Thought about that quote today.

[Andrew]

I am very happy about our performance today. Notre Dame has a decent defense, and when our offense wasn't shooting itself in the foot, it did alright moving the ball in the first half, and it really played well in the second half as the Irish defense started getting tired from being on the field so much. The offense finally started clicking around Mark Sanchez. The defensive performance against the Fighting Irish was a gimme, given how atrocious that offensive line is. I am continually dismayed, however, by the performance of our special teams -- we can't seem to get that straightened out, and it's been an Achilles heel the entirety of the Pete Carroll era.

[Mad Max, Esquire]

kcatnd-

Weis getting fired should do it. Thanks for asking.

[Sandy Underpants]

No Trojans want to see Charlie Weis get fired. This has been the greatest ND season in history and what makes it even better is that Irish fans still think Charlie is the best. He took a struggling and embarrassing team from Ty Willingham 3 years ago and made them even worse, nobody thought that was possible. As Mike Tyson once said, "I have to take my hand off to you".