All right back to game week. Lots of great football action all day yesterday. I will have some of my thoughts on the all happenings, when I put up the blogpoll ballot draft later. One guy who took in a lot of the great action from yesterday was Ben Olson. Jill Painter from the Daily News on BO being a football couch potato:
He was particularly interested in watching USC's game against Nebraska and Washington's game against Fresno State. UCLA will play Washington on Saturday.
"I'm going to get away as much as I can," Olson said. "I'm going to sit on the couch and let my body rest as much as I can. I'll TiVo some of the games and eat a lot of potato chips. I've got to try to gain some weight back. I've lost 10 pounds since camp."
Olson, who is listed at 6-foot-5, 225pounds, is 2-0 as UCLA's starting quarterback, with wins over Utah and Rice. The bye week gives Olson a chance to add some more pounds.
"I've been working like a dog and the more I do, I don't eat as much," Olson said. "The less active I am, the more I eat. It's weird."
Olson, the former Thousand Oaks High star, had the opportunity to digest plenty of sweets over the weekend. His dad, Rick, celebrated his 50th birthday Friday, and his brother-in-law's and nephew's birthdays were Saturday.
Well I sure hope the Olsons were watching the Nebraska game last night and took note of what Herbstreit said about UCLA. Look I understand we don't deserve the respect given the results of last seven seasons, and especially last year. Southern Cal fans have earned the right to talk smack based on the results on the field, but that doesn't give Herbie the right to sound so idiotic on national TV, especially since earlier in the day he said something like that the winner of the ND-Southern Cal game later in the year would play for the National Championship, totally dissing the Wolverines. Wolverines got it done on the field and made Herbie look like the Ohio trailer trash idiot that he is. Hope Dorrell, Olson and co. can remember those words from last night, and do the something to him in December.
Anyways, Olson also presumably took in the Washington game. Huskies narrowly beat Fresno State. Zach over at U Dub Dish is pretty stoked and had some early reactions:
Stanback showed senior leadership and a key blocked extra point may suggest things are changing for the better down on Montlake.
Here are some thoughts from a splendid Saturday:
-Get the ball to Marcel Reece. He's a big body and a playmaker. Stanback should be looking for him more often.
-The secondary was vastly improved Saturday (or Tom Brandstater is a terrible quarterback). FSU only had 140 yards in the air which is virtually nothing.
-Though the Huskies have got to tackle better. Dwayne Wright dragged UW defenders on multiple occasions. That has got to change by the time Washington meets some good Pac-10 running backs like Oregon State's Yvenson Bernard and Cal's Marshawn Lynch.
-Where was the UW ground game? Junior Louis Rankin and senior Kenny James were solid in the first two games, but rushed for a combined 26 yards Saturday. WTF?
Hmmm. Again I would love to hear thoughts from anyone who watched this game last night. Interesting to see Fresno State bottling up the Husky ground game after they had so much success in their first two games. If Walker can get his front-7 to do the same next Saturday, that will bode well for us. Stanback with his mobility could present some problems for us. Taylor, Whittington, and Carter will have to be ready for a lot of action next Saturday. This is not a Rice team (who by the way got pummeled by Texas) we are going to face off on Saturday. Much more on this game through this week.
Now speaking of Washington Huskies an interesting note from Simers in the LA Times today. Apparently former Washington DL D'Marco Farr, who apparently now has a radio show on the station that broadcast Southern Cal games, was whining to Simers about reporters breaking the story on Reggie Bush fiasco at Southern Cal. Here is Simers reaction (emphasis mine):
From what I could gather, Farr was suggesting reporters shouldn't do their jobs, and while it's an interesting argument whether players should be paid for what income they generate for a university, at issue right now is whether Bush and USC broke existing rules.
"If I was the guy who found out something sneaky about Bush, I don't think I'd break that story," said Farr, who is working for the radio station that broadcasts USC games. "Why bring the story out? What's the point, it goes on every day at every major college."
If that's the case, Farr just broke a huge story.
I didn't know it when we were chatting, but I can understand his point of view now after doing a Google search. I learned Farr had been suspended while playing at Washington after an NCAA investigation revealed some players had been accused of being paid for doing work they never did.
I wonder if that was the fault of reporters?
This is why I like Simers a lot. He is not like rest of the traditional media morons in LA, who will do whatever it takes to gobble up the press releases/spin coming out of Heritage Hall to give Southern Cal cover. And it is just a matter of time, I suspect that you will hear about one UCLA player doing a summer internship at the same agent's office, who allegedly paid thousands of dollars to Bush and his family in extra benefits. I am sure the traditional media morons will come up with one name from UCLA, so they can write up their neat little "everyone does it" BS, and create the perfect smoke screen for Pom Pom's crew. And again for those of you who are think we spend too much time writing about the stuff reported in the paper, you are a little naïve. If you only knew about that chatter going on in the background, you'd know all these stories/allegations around Reggie, and the agents hanging out in Southern California locker room -are just the tip of a very dirty iceberg.
Anyways karma will catch up Southern Cal sooner or later. I just don't think the NCAA or the Pac-10 will not have the guts to take any credible action, and I am certainly not holding my breath over whether the traditional media morons (that's an accurate description for the toadies who have been fellating Pom Pom in the mainstream press for last few years) will get the story out on Southern Cal. Here was Plaschke in spring of this year when the Bush story initially broke (sorry the link for article dated April 26, 2006 doesn't work any more):
And this from August:
"We're cutting edge on this stuff, we're working it and working it," Carroll said.
"I'm disappointed we have to deal with these questions, but we're working hard to do this better than anyone's ever done it before."
That has long been Carroll's mantra here, doing it better than anyone's done it before.
Yes. Carroll is working that locker room so hard that he (allegedly) forgets about agents roaming it after the games. Got it Bill. Anyways.
Like I said if someone cheats karma will catch up with him/her sooner or later. And if there is any truth to all the flood of rumors now circulating around Southern Cal, karma will catch up with them. And it is going to happen on the field. Yes, the burning of Troy will have to happen on the field. And they certainly don't look invincible any more given the energy they had to spend on beating clueless Callahan's bumbling, stumbling Bugeaters. Any coach with a good game plan and right schemes (I am looking at you Dorrell, Svoboda, and Walker) will be able to beat these thugs. And UCLA needs to keep building this season so that we can have our day of REDEMPTION (just like Michigan did yesterday) in 75 days.
We will move on for now and think about Washington. It's a big game for us. Huskies are the first test on our way to a 5-0 record. Let's hope Dorrell and the coaches get our guys ready.
GO BRUINS.