I spent more than a few plays last night bitching about the strange offensive play-calling. Either it was more obtuse than usual, or the echoes of the 2007 UCLA game weren't my imagination and the coaches were trying to avoid entirely eviscerating the opposition.

On offense.

The SC defense gave up four 1st downs to Notre Dame, the first of which came at the death of the third quarter, and the fourth of which was a late present from Malik Jackson's personal foul (which he followed up by getting himself ejected - learn a lesson from that, young man!)

If you take a look at the summary stats for the game, you can understand why some portion of the Notre Dame fanbase would like to seek their decided schematic advantage elsewhere:

Next time I complain about SC under-achieving on offense, I'll take a look at this.

Surely this has to be testing the patience of the Irish fans; this has been a good rivalry where even most streaks weren't built on blowouts and beatdowns. I may live to regret this post when Notre Dame lays a fifth consecutive beatdown under Brian Kelly, of course.

Does this really need any introduction? If I say 4th-and-9 and Bush Push, you know:

USC vs. Notre Dame 2005 Final Drive (via syphic)

If you're feeling like getting your schadenfreude on, visit this page on Brendan Loy's old Irish Trojan blog to get a view of several thousand students going from adrenaline victory screams to an emotional core dump.

Today's entry into the SC - Notre Dame highlight reel is the 1974 game in the Coliseum. Down 24 - 0 with less than a minute to go in the first half, USC started a frenetic comeback on both sides of the ball that resulted in a final score of 55 - 24.

Anthony Davis sparked the turnaround with a touchdown catch in the last seconds of the second quarter, and by returning the second half kickoff for a touchdown... and the rest, as they say...

USC-ND '74 - The Anthony Davis Game (via sckego)

And on that note, a happy and safe Thanksgiving to all of you.

With John David Booty lost to injury and several iffy games, there was some question about how Mark Sanchez would hold up playing against Notre Dame in South Bend - the newbie quarterback providing some hope for a Notre Dame team that wasn't setting the world on fire.

Unfortunately for the Fighting Irish, hope was elusive, much as was Joe McKnight on his first career touchdown. Once again, the green shirts proved to be no help as Notre Dame lost, 38 - 0, the worst home loss since 1956, and a ticket to a 1 - 7 record.

In the aftermath, ESPN edited the highlights very much at Notre Dame's expense. One can only imagine that perhaps Mark May greased a few palms in the editing room to get this gem worked up:

2007 USC vs Notre Dame (38:0 shut out game summary) (via MonkeyBoyVlog)

I thought that this week we might as well dip into the video archives and see if there were any interesting clips of past USC - Notre Dame games.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the 13 year streak that Notre Dame had running, there are lots and lots of clips of USC being on the wrong end of a result. But there are a few that may catch your fancy.

Today's clips come from the 2006 game in the Coliseum, and they are short but sweet. The first, chosen to complement today's story in the LA Times, is of Brian Cushing returning an onside kick for a garbage time touchdown - a good-looking play regardless of when it happened:

USC/Dome : TD The Bergen Flash!! (via ronhir)

The second video... well, here's the thing. I never had much of an opinion of Brady Quinn before this game, but if one player could have won a game on grit and determination, he would have been it. IIRC, he had the longest run of the night for Notre Dame, among other big plays.

But... the price of big plays is big hits, as we are reminded here:

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Just a quick note: the USC women's soccer team lost to UCLA this past weekend, 1 - 0. UCLA has absolutely been on fire this season, and showed that form with an early goal, smothering defense, and more aggressive play in search of an elusive second goal.

This was more than just the usual rivalry game - as you may remember, USC beat UCLA last year, 2 - 1, in the semi-finals en route to their national championship. UCLA were focused on getting past USC this year, and it showed.

The fact that each side can field an Olympic gold-medal winner and both teams were in the playoffs again gives some demonstration of the strength of women's soccer in Los Angeles.

A hearty well-done to the Trojans for a solid season, and best of luck to the Bruins against Duke - although frankly, with their current form, I'm not sure they'll need it.

This is the open game thread for the Trojans' game against the Chattanooga Mocs at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, PR in the second round of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.

USC is off to a 2-1 start for the third consecutive season but coming off a late loss to Seton Hall, and the Mocs are 0-3 this season with losses at Tennessee (114-75), at Missouri (103-75) and here last night vs. Memphis (83-71).

Fight on!

This week's Pac 10 Roundtable has been turned into an anarcho-syndicalist effort by California Golden Blogs, inasmuch as it isn't hosted in one spot but is controlled by the vanguard of the elite of each participating blog.

Or, if you don't like the quasi-revolutionary turn, we've moved from mainframe to distributed computing. Or something.

In any case, CBG's answers and links to the other participants can be found here, and my stab at answers can be found after the jump.

(Just in case you needed any further proof that Paragon and I are slightly busy with this tedious "earning a living" business...)

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In honor of Cal week, we've done a Q&A with California Golden Blogs, SBN's fine Cal blog. They'll be posting our reponses to them sometime today; in the meantime, here are their thoughts on Saturday's game. Thanks guys, and good luck (most of the time) on Saturday!

Although Jeff Tedford has a 56-28 record coaching at California, some fans have suggested that he is not the coach to take Cal to the next level. Is there a coach out there that would take the coaching job at Berkeley that could take Cal to new  heights, or should Bears fans be happy with the relative success they've enjoyed under Tedford?

Of course there's a coach that would take the coaching job at Berkeley that would take Cal to new heights, somewhere out there.  After all, isn't it the duty of every fan to remind everyone within earshot that their favorite team's current coach is incompetent, inadequate, and just can't plain get the job done?  Just don't ask these same fans to name a potential replacement, because God knows they don't have one.  They're just sure the incumbent is a fool and anyone off the street can do better.  That is, until that guy off the street comes in and does worse.

Probably the strongest argument for Longshore over Riley is that we don't want Riley to die.  He suffered a concussion apparently against Oregon and had to come out of the game.  It looks likely that he might not be able to play against USC.

Which is unfortunate, because Longshore's road numbers aren't as good as his home numbers.  And he has a nasty habit of throwing rough second half interceptions. However, Nate has shown some good things against USC.  In 2006, we were right in it until the tail end of the game.  I believe we led at half and were tied going into the 4th quarter.  Last year, things were incredibly close up until the Longshore Classic 4th Quarter interception.

This is a fierce USC defense Cal is going up against, so I do not have high hopes for Longshore and the offense.  Some might say that "veteran leadership" is the #1 reason to go with Longshore.  But for right now, it's "Don't Kill Kevin."

Probably not.  Best is an amazing athlete and might (might!) be a better athlete than either Marshawn Lynch or Justin Forsett.  But Lynch and Forsett had a more clear role as #1 RB.  When Lynch was here, he got the bulk of the carries with Forsett spelling him.  Then, Forsett got the bulk of the carries with Best spelling him.

Now, Best is the main man, right?  But look at the rushing stats on the season. Best has 108 carries.  Shane Vereen the ostensible #2 has 101.  They even have the  exact same amount of receptions (21).  Now, to be fair, Best missed a game (ASU).  Nonetheless, Vereen is right there shouldering the offensive load.  So, while Best  might have better skills than Forsett or Marshawn (well, certainly not Marshawn!),  Best won't have the better career, because we have a lot of depth at RB now.  There is Tracy Slocum waiting in the wings, too.  And that doesn't count our superstud  redshirt RB Covaughn Deboskie.

This is either going to be a MASSIVE USC blowout (which would suck) or a tight Cal victory (which would rock).  Both teams seem to have better Ds than Os.  Both teams have concerns at QB.  Both teams have loads of RB talent.  Either bad Longshore and Road Cal D show up and we lose like 33-14.  Or good Longshore and Home Cal D show up and we win like 4-0 on two 4th quarter safeties.

Given that it is on the road, that could bode poorly.  We shall see, shall we not?

On offense, it is tough to say, because it has sort of gone worse than expected.  Probably Shane Vereen.  He was expected to be the backup to Best.  But in some ways, he has surpassed Best.  When Best missed a game, there was minimal drop off.  He doesn't have the speed of Best, but he is still a speedster.  He is very agile and nearly leads the in receptions.  I wish I could say it is a WR or QB, but unfortunately nobody there has really surprised us with positive play.  So, Vereen it is!

As for the D, probably Darian Hagan.  People knew corner SydQuan Thompson
would be great.  We knew that the LBs would be great.  We knew that would put a LOT of pressure on the new corner Hagan, opposite Thompson.  In the first game (against MSU), MSU threw against Hagan repeatedly.  They racked up some big gains against him, but Hagan had some great plays.  He nearly picked off 5 different passes. Back then, it was "nearly" picking off passes.  Now, he has developed incredibly well and puts opposing QBs in a major quandary.  You can't throw aganst Syd'Quan.  You can't throw low middle, because of all our swarming LBs.

But now you can't throw against Hagan, either!  So, probably his play would be the biggest surprise.  He has put the final nail in our pass defense shield.  A pass defense that gave up 44 yards against Oregon's major QB Masoli just last week.  Of course, the Oregon passing game isn't exactly the same as the USC passing game.  So, this will be a strong test for Hagan.  We shall see, shall we not?

Honestly, it's hard to say which position group(s) Cal has an advantage over SC in.  I think any reasonable observer would trade the Riley/Longshore combo platter for Mark Sanchez or even Mitch Mustain, Cal's wide receivers are inexperienced and inconsistent, the offensive line is epically injured, and USC sports one of the best defenses in the nation across the board.

I suppose an argument could be made for running back, where Cal's gotten great production out of both Jahvid Best and Shane Vereen, as well as an awesome YouTube clip of Best puking up some CytoMax.  (A great way to start your Saturday morning!)  But USC's running back corps is insanely deep.  I would call this a push, but we feel good about our backfield.

In addition we like our secondary quite a bit as well, between Syd'Quan "Syd'God" Thompson (or Syd'Boner, because that's what he gives many of our fans), Darian "D-Hag" Hagan, Sean "Whorehouse" Cattouse, and Marcus "Duck Killer" Ezeff.  They're the biggest reason that our Bears are tied with North Carolina for the most interceptions in the country with 17.

As for which position group has to step up, doesn't it always come down to the guys in the trenches?  I'm confident that the secondary can hold up in obvious passing situations.  If our defensive line is able to get pressure on Sanchez and force him into the kind of day he had against Arizona, I like our chances.

Of course, we also need to make sure the team doesn't allow any more Pete Alamar specials, which is what we call epic failures on special teams in LA road games.  See: Reggie Bush 2004, Maurice Jones-Drew 2005.

A quiet day thus far on the college football front, and there's always the task of dancing around politics... on the wires, so to speak:

• The LA Times has Pete Carroll encouraging players to vote
• ...and before you get riled up upon reading the conclusion of that story*, bear in mind that Senator Obama went on Monday night football last night and endorsed a playoff to select college football's national championship. Is this a pander that he wouldn't be able to deliver? Sure, but it's a no-cost pander, and that's change we can believe in, my friends
• Kevin EIlison has had surgery to tidy up the cartilage in his knee and has backed off initial mutterings about coming back against Cal. That seemed improbable, to say the least.

And that, thanks to the small matter of mad work schedules, may be that for the day. Whatever your views on politics - and the authors of this blog represent a broad church of opinions, to say the least - get out there and vote. Exercising the franchise is the crux of citizenship, IMHO, so don't miss the opportunity.

* I've borrowed Orson Swindle's cattle-gun-of-political-shut-down here, so if things get too frisky, I will exercise bi-partisan editorial interventions - and at no cost to you, it's cheaper than shoring up the banks.