Sunday, September 24, 2006

USC Post-Game: A Good Read

Checking out the Gray Lady this morning, and as usual, there are no surprises. Typical east coast bias coverage of the domers … a bunch of b.s. about the comeback versus Michigan State and purposeful, overt mention of how Brady Quinn held on to his Heisman hopes and how nd is still in the national title chase. What about how Michigan State simply choked?

As we all know, the USC Trojans played and won, but most people didn’t see it. We were on ABC’s regional coverage only, while the rest of the country got to see the domers on the same network in the same time slot.

In short, USC extended its streak of scoring 20 points or more to 55 games, its Pac-10 record winning streak to 24 games, its streak of road wins to 17 straight, and its streak of consecutive Pac-10 road games to 12. Much more importantly, the Trojan defense never allowed Arizona beyond the USC 20-yard line, limiting the Wildcats to 44 offensive plays. Next … Wazzu.

So, with the usual "journalism" out of the way, we see the New York Times actually published a worthwhile story, albeit not actually written by its staff … hmmm, that sounds familiar. In any case, it’s an excerpt from Michael Lewis’s new book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, which takes a Money Ball kind of look at the NFL and how the importance of the offensive left tackle became such an important and lucrative position for the physical freaks groomed to excel at that spot.

The piece tells a great story about a huge kid who ends up at Ole Miss, which is okay here because of our connection to Ed Orgeron, current head coach of Mississippi and former USC defensive line coach, assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator.

It’s all good.
east coast bias

No comments: