My brother and I went to yesterday's USC v. Nebraska game. We took the 91 across to the 110, which we planned to take north to the Coliseum. The 110 looked like a parking lot, however, and we only left about three hours and fifteen minutes before game time, which, for the home opener, is kind of late. Fearing one of those 45-60 minute drives up the 110, we chose to take surface streets through the 'hood. Vermont ended up being a pretty quick alternative, and within 15 minutes, we were parking in our usual spot in the structure on 39th Street for $40. It's funny how it's more expensive to park for a Notre Dame or UCLA or Nebraska or Florida State game, and less when the Coliseum is sold out for a less interesting draw. Hey, a crowd of 92,000 is a crowd of 92,000. Demand for those spots is the same whether 92,000 are there for a top game, or 92,000 show up to see Oregon State.
Anyhow, we got to our usual tailgating spot around 3:00 p.m. Sadly, the Thundering Herd had already started to scatter, and all the good food was gone, so we decided to hoof it over to campus for a bite. After a little shopping spree in the USC bookstore, we bought lunch at Carl's Jr. on campus, and threw back some rum inside our refillable cola cups.
Once the band was on the move, we headed back toward the Coliseum, just ahead of them. We kicked the flagpoles, as always, and crossed along the Rose Garden toward the stadium. Along the way, I sold my extra pair, for face value, to a father and his kid. We skipped the GameDay setup as well as the FanFest area on the peristyle end, in part because we wanted to be in the stadium early, and in part because we had no desire to walk through the student gate area, which was a complete madhouse.
We bought a program and went inside, where we watched the ending of the Oregon v. Oklahoma game on the TV monitors outside the food lines. All the red people were rooting for the Sooners. The cardinal people were rooting for the Ducks. The cardinal people got their wish.
The Nebraska fans were plentiful, but nothing like they had for the game at Notre Dame a couple of years back. Mostly, they were polite, too. And they knew their shit. We had a few very good conversations with members of the Big Red contingent. Though their knowledge of the game impressed me, the Nebraskan ideal of game day apparel was less impressive. Thin plastic white hard hats were popular, as were overalls and long yellow corn cob hats about three footballs long. The girls were not that pretty, either. No big 12 school can compete with USC or certain other Pac 10 schools -- most notably, Arizona State -- in the pretty co-ed department, but Oklahoma and Texas came respectably close. Not Nebraska. In the row in front of me, there were two women in their late 40s or worse, wearing Nebraska halter tops that they had no business wearing, and to the left of them was a 350 pound pile of corn-fed Nebraska goodness wearing a too-tight pair of shorts. She was sporting a cameltoe brontosaurus toe. Sadly, we left our eye bleach at home and couldn't unsee it. Luckily, she wasn't in the seat next to us.
We were in the cheap seats, and therefore, we had a lot of Nebraska fans mixed in with our crowd. The shouts of "Go Big Red" and "Husker ... Power" were long and strong for the first half hour or so. They weakened as the game wore on.
That injury to Ryan Powdrell looked bad, even from the top of the Coliseum. What troubled us was seeing the Nebraska trainers sprinting over to give aid before the pile even dissipated. Obviously, the injury was severe enough that they could tell, immediately, that they shouldn't wait for the USC trainers to get there was all the way across the field. When I heard it was his ankle, it made my own ankle hurt for more than an hour. I don't know if this showed on TV, but Powdrell gave the victory sign on his way off the field and his last act -- perhaps in his whole football career -- was pumping up the crowd.
The Notre Dame/Michigan score got a big cheer, even though 91,000 of the 92,000 in attendance already knew what had happened.
From where we were sitting, it looked like the Trojans got robbed on two fumbles. One was probably legitimate. Rarely do penalties get called without justification, so the defensive holding call that nullified the quarterback fumble near the USC goal line was probably right. The replay on the fumble that came from the sack around midfield looked like it robbed us of a great fumble recovery and touchdown. I wonder how they looked on TV and in slow motion.
The injury will be a costly one. USC's wealth of talent at tailback might need to be tapped to make up for their loss of the first and second team fullbacks. The other three FBs on the roster include a true freshman who is progressing more slowly that his friends at tailback, and two guys who were once walk-ons (I'm certain that at least one of them was a walk-on). If I had to guess, I would speculate that Allen Bradford might be shifted to fullback next week.
The way Bill Callahan kept going with his totally ineffective running game against USC, even in the 4th quarter with 11 and 18 point deficits, baffled me. It was almost as if he had bet his house on the under.
The final margin was pretty close to the bookmakers' lines. If you bet on USC early in the week, you probably wanted the Trojans to run one more play at the end, rather than running out the clock from the Nebraska two-yard line. I didn't care, although it would have been cool to see the Trojans lay 35 on the Huskers like I predicted. They came two yards short of my expectations again. This time didn't hurt as bad.
After the game, we took off straight away, rather than hanging out by the GameDay set. We did quickly check to see if the 2006 football schedule posters would be available, but as always, they gave those out by setting boxes of them on the ground outside four of the gates, and as a result, a small number of people went in and took 20 apiece and left none for those of us who actually stayed until the end of the game. Maybe one of these years, they will give those out on the way in, or at least distribute them inside the gate so that interested fans can actually get one. So far, that is my only complaint about the 2006 season.
We made great time coming home, and had plenty of time to see Sports Center. I also TiVo'd the Game Day Final. Before the game, Lee Corso said "USC has an excellent chance of running the table all the way to that Notre Dame game." He then muttered some crap about Cal having a chance. After the game, Corso was asked: "Will USC run the table?" And he said, "No, I don't think so. I think somebody's going to beat 'em, and the team I think's going to beat 'em is California ... That's my team." Now that Corso knows that Notre Dame is a fraud, suddenly Cal is his champion? Cal? The Cal team that can't tacklet a Tennessee receiver? The Cal team that can't throw the ball? The Cal team that couldn't get an impressive win without playing a Division I-AA team?" If Cal is the best team that will face USC this year, I might as well make plans to keep the kids out of school on January 8, because we'll be in Phoenix.
Comments