USC Post-Game: Cal Fans are Idiots

Another college football Saturday brings another win for USC Football. Sure, some Trojan fans are concerned because the game came down to the last play. But everyone needs to relax. USC has had plenty of tight games throughout the Carroll era, and with a young team like the one we have now, these games are character builders. Just ask Pete.

It’s all part of what has become standard practice in our Trojan World of college football. Like recognizing that the New York Times comes through every Sunday after a domer win to perpetuate and serve the east coast bias of its readers. Again, it’s sad (and irritating) the way New York’s “subway” fans follow nd because there is no real Division I football in the Tri-State area – although Rutgers thinks its getting close.

It’s bad enough that both the “New York” Giants and Jets share a stadium in Jersey. But what if the State College of New Jersey became the definition of big time college football in New York? That might actually be more pathetic than rooting for a team in a different time zone. But I digress …

One of the standard elements of the college football scene to re-emerge today is the stupidity of Cal fans. Yes, the University of California is a very good school with a certain west coast liberal place in 20th century history … but its football fans are idiots. Some examples I discovered on my own:

Before the 1994 Cal-USC game at the Coliseum, a small group of Cal student punk drunks surrounded me and my girlfriend (who eventually became my wife) and shouted, while spattering a mixture of spit and beer on us, “We’re gonna kick your asses today, man! Trojans are going down. You f**kin’ rubbers!”

Of course, USC won the game 61-0.

After we lost in overtime at Berkeley in 2003 (one of only two loses in USC’s last 51 games, both by just three points) a bunch of Cal drunk punks serenaded us as we walked out of their cracked stadium built on an earthquake fault: “No more No. 3 ranking, Trojans! No chance for a national championship anymore! You guys f**kin’ suck!

Of course, we ended the season ranked No. 1 in both the AP and coaches’ polls, and claimed our first national title of the Pete Carroll era.

The next year, before a close game that came down to the last play (sound familiar), a Cal fan sitting next to one of my buddies in the Coliseum said repeatedly, “This is the year, man. We’re gonna get you this time! This is the year.” What was this idiot talking about? Cal actually beat USC the year before.

Of course, he could have somehow known that USC would win another national title by the end of that season.

The latest Cal idiot emerged today – on the school’s official Scout.com Web site, no less. His name is Chris Avery, and he wrote a piece titled “USC now rated over Cal by just 6.6 points.” I’ll let him embarrass himself:

With two or three Pac-10 conference games played, the computer rankings published by Sagarin in USA Today begin to take on more meaning - and to confirm trends seen earlier. Changes from last week include some big plusses: Cal up by 2.6, UCLA up by 11.3, Oregon up by 5.1, and Washington up by 5.2.

But there were ranking losses too, decreases that incorporate the results of this last weekend's games. Losers included Arizona, down 2.5 points after their loss to middlin' Washington, and USC - in the biggest drop of the week - down 4 points to a definitely unspectacular new rating of 94.45 points.

(For the uninitiated, these point rankings are computed on a national basis to find the set of numbers that "best explain" the wins and losses so far. Best doesn't mean accurate - it just means that no other set of numbers can do any better to explain the results.)

This idiot goes on (and on) attempting to use Sagarin’s rankings to make a case for Pac-10 supremacy, while taking a shot at Stanford and trying to boost the hopes of Cal fans by pointing out that Tennessee, which blew out Cal in its opener, is now ranked “7.1 points lower” than Cal.

What the hell is this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better (or worse) example of a nerd who follows a team with no tradition in college football trying to give some knowledge where there is none. I’ll take an overzealous SEC fan over this idiot any Saturday of the year.

As for Sagarin’s rankings, he’s had USC No. 1 in the nation since the beginning of the season, so we can’t give him too much grief, at least not at this point in the year.

We can however call out Mr. Avery and request that someone proverbially hang him up by his underwear in the locker room ... but perhaps that’s already been done.
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