Booty's back

You know it's an unusual season in the land of Troy when you go to usctrojans.com on the Friday afternoon before a football game -- the Homecoming football game, in fact -- and the top story is "USC BASKETBALL 2007: Five Questions For O.J. Mayo." Heh. (The Trojans are #18 in both preseason basketball polls -- one spot higher than their current BCS ranking.)

Anyway, John David Booty will start for USC against Oregon State tomorrow. It'll be his chance to avenge the loss that started his team's recent Pac-10 slide (the Trojans are 6-4 in their last 10 conference games, after winning a zillion in a row prior to last year's loss in Corvallis). But unless we go to a sports bar, Becky and I won't be able to watch it; we'll get Florida State-Boston College instead.

But that's okay, because honestly, I'm more interested in watching the big Pac-10 game of the week (nay, year!), #4 Arizona State at #5 Oregon, especially now that it's been announced that Rudy Carpenter will play for ASU despite a sprained thumb on his throwing hand. That's good news for Stewart Mandel, who wrote that "seven hours is a long way for me to fly to watch some backup," and also for ESPN, which rescued the game from Fox Sports Net oblivion by buying the rights to broadcast it nationally in those regions not served by the originally planned regional FSN telecast. (Sadly for the folks in Oregon and Arizona -- and Southern California, I think -- they still have to watch it on crappy FSN.)

If the Sun Devils, who are 7-point underdogs despite their higher ranking, manage to beat the Ducks this week, and follow it up with a win over UCLA next week (don't count out the worst-coached team in America; following up losses to Utah, Notre Dame and Wazzu with a win over 9-0 Arizona State would be totally in line with Karl Dorrell's baffling of neverending inconsistency), they'd be 10-0 when USC comes to town on Thanksgiving Day. I wonder, if that happens, which of her alma maters would Becky -- who went to ASU for grad school, remember -- root for? Normally she, like me, roots for the Trojans against all comers, but if a USC win would just mean the difference between Some Crappy Bowl and Some Other Crappy Bowl, whereas an ASU win would get the Sun Devils within one win (against Arizona) of the national championship game... I dunno what she'd do. Becky? (Yeah, I could just ask her in person, but asking her over the blog is more fun in this case. :)

Comments

[Marty West]

O.J. Mayo is going to light it up this year.

[David K.]

Sweet, we get the good ESPN coverage and not the crappy FSN coverage!!

[Sandy Underpants]

Petros rules. He's the John Madden of College Football, but less coherent. I'm still pulling for SC to win the Pac-10. All we need to do is to win all the rest of our games, and then ASU beats Oregon but loses to UCLA, and then Oregon loses to Oregon St. and UCLA, and then we're 6-time, 6-time, 6-time, 6-time, 6-time, 6-time Pac-10 champions. It's the most competitive division in college football. Afterall, there's only 1 SEC team ranked in the top 10, not that the SEC was ever comparable to the mighty Pac-10, but some people seem to think so.

Go Rainbow Warriors!!!!!!!!!

What a douche.

[Mike's brother Matt]

Sandy, Georgia's #10. You idiot.

That's an insult to idiots everywhere.

[Sandy Underpants]

I agree. Georgia completely shouldn't be in the top 10. OMG!!!! Although I don't know what that has to do with idiots. Coach Richt?

[Becky]

Hmmm...I think blog silence until the question is no longer relevant suits me. :) I'm happy that the Sun Devils are having a good season (though admittedly, I pay more attention to their women's bball team than their football team most years). It's nice to see a strong Pac-10.