UCLA looking to Beat Trojans and go Bowling

UCLA deserves to play in a bowl game.

It might be tough to convince bowl representatives – since there wasn’t one in attendance at the Rose Bowl on Saturday.

The Bruins became bowl eligible, earning their sixth win in a 23-13 victory over Arizona State. The Bruins were terrific defensively as they forced six turnovers, including an interception and fumble return for touchdowns.

There’s only one thing left for the 6-5 Bruins to do to secure a bowl invitation. The crowd seemed to know just what it will take when it started chanting: “Beat ‘SC! Beat ‘SC!”

UCLA needs to beat its crosstown rival in order to play a December game.

Read more:  http://www.dailynews.com/sports/ci_13844481

Click here for The Dawgs of War…  Afterword by Rick Neuheisel

Top 10 Christmas Songs for your iPod

10. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree  – Brenda Lee

9.  Blue Christmas  — Elvis Presley

8. The First Noel  — Nat King Cole

7. Holly Jolly Christmas –  Burl Ives

6.  Ave Maria — Celine Dion

The Dawgs of War: a Remembrance…  By Derek Johnson… Afterword by Rick Neuheisel

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Santa Claus is Coming to Town  — Tony Bennett

4. Do you Hear what I Hear?  –  Whitney Houston

3. Feliz Navidad  -  José Feliciano

2.  White Christmas -  Bing Crosby

1. The Christmas Song – Frank Sinatra

 

History of Santa Claus The Americanized version of Saint Nicholas, originally from Dutch Sint(e) Klaas. The Dutch settlers in New York (known then as New Amsterdam) brought his group to America. This Santa has given the current myth its visual form: merry old man with red and white clothes, 8 flying reindeers, living on or near the North Pole, filling socks with presents, arriving through the chimney.

The most important single source for Santa was the Christmas poem of Moore from year 1823 which was transmuted to image by Thomas Nast. Actually the cult of Santa Claus incorporates many traditions Christian and pagan : Old Catholic, Scandinavian, Dutch, German, English.

 

Sexy Cheerleader Girls of the Pac-10 (Some Holiday Cheer)

The Dawgs of War: a Remembrance…  Afterword by Rick Neuheisel

 

 

Makes a great Xmas Gift: ***** CLICK HERE ***    The Dawgs of War…  Afterword by Rick Neuheisel

Coaching Legends Roundtable Discussion about USC

Did Pete Carroll’s assistants leaving for new jobs have an impact on the team?

Don James: I didn’t think so but maybe it’s true.  Pete Carroll is the defensive coordinator.  The offense hasn’t changed, the coaches have changed.  Maybe with them coming in from Denver, they had a difficult time with it.  They weren’t very dynamic.  They don’t like to run the ball.  They will very seldom run the ball twice in a row.  They’re a great offensive team when it’s going.  This is the first time the quarterback and the receivers (they lost their best receiver) didn’t get it going.  They didn’t have other people to come in there.  I think that probably made a difference, a combination of things.  Not a good year.

Read more:  http://www.legendschannel.com/2728

Okay Huskies, This isn’t Fun Anymore

Excuse the crudeness but it's apropos

Going into today’s game, I already knew a blowout was at hand.  I knew that Oregon State’s offensive and defensive lines were ten times better than the players we could send out there.  But from the game’s opening play, I was startled by just how pathetic the Washington Huskies looked.  There was no fire or confidence.  On passing plays, UW quarterback Jake Locker had an average of 0.0000023 seconds to throw the ball before being engulfed by Beaver defenders.

As the game progressed, the scoring margin between the two teams began to widen like the Grand Canyon.  And I began to wonder how it could ever come to pass that these two programs could be so disparate in their development.  The Beavs trounced the Dawgs 48-21 and it definitely fell under the category of “The Beavers could have scored 70 had they wanted to.”  The carnage left the Huskies with a 3-7 record and surrendering bowl eligibility for the 7th straight year.  Talk about shellshock- Husky Nation is reeling tonight.  The Beavers, meanwhile, still feel like the Rose Bowl is a possibility.  And good luck to them, I say.  Those guys play hard, and it’s a pleasure to watch a unit of different parts come together as a singularity and perform at a high level.

As for our beloved yet downtrodden Huskies…  Entering this  season nobody expected Washington to win the Pac-10 crown.  But the thought was that a great season would be 6 victories.  After the seemingly huge win over USC back in September, first year coach Steve Sarkisian could be heard repeatedly saying “it’s not going to take that long…  We’re not that far away from being an excellent football team.”

But that early season uplift of expectations has made this present slide all the more painful.  Washington has lost 4 games in a row, and 6 of its last 7.  Sarkisian is no longer talking with the swagger of September; instead he’s speaking in platitudes alarmingly similiar to his pathetic predecessor, Tyrone Willingham.

Now Washington football sits wondering what has befallen it.  We’re still a laughingstock that has been obliterated by two of its Northwest rivals.  The questions persist as to whether Sarkisian was a panic hire by the inexperienced athletic director Scott Woodward.  Should Woodward have gone after successful coaches with proven records like Gary Patterson of Texas Christian, Brian Kelly at Cincinnati or some other successful coach at a lower division school?

But Sarkisian is our guy and the jury’s still out.  Looking at the appallingly weak line play, one has to give Sarkisian some sort of pass until he can bring in some legitimate Pac-10 talent to man the trenches.  But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that this team is getting worse as the season wears on.  Indeed, things are unraveling in a manner not dissimiliar to a Tyrone Willingham team.

Considering Washington’s 12-57 record since 2004, more and more fans just don’t care anymore.  The prevailing feeling is that the University of Washington has de-emphasized football.  Can Sarkisian revive the tradition?  Or is it too late?  Only one thing’s certain– this ain’t fun anymore.

Stanford should now be Ranked ahead of USC

The Cardinal destroyed the Trojans 55-21 last night.  The Trojans were #9 and the Cardinal were #25.  Both teams have three losses now.  Stanford deserves to leapfrog USC in the national rankings.

Remembering Stanford’s colossal upset of USC in 2007

This time nobody is saying that a Stanford victory at USC is impossible. Coach Jim Harbaugh hasn’t remarked that some people think his team could lose 1,000 to zero. The Las Vegas oddsmakers haven’t ridiculed the matchup by making USC a 40-point favorite.

Nobody is laughing at Stanford anymore.

But that was the mood two years ago, on Oct. 6, 2007, when the Cardinal last ventured to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

USC had won 35 consecutive home games. Stanford, 1-11 the year before, was coming off a 38-point loss and starting a quarterback who had thrown three passes in his college career.

“They absolutely seemed to have no chance,” said Tony Sinisi, odds director for the Las Vegas Sports Consultants. “Stanford looked like a zero shot to win.”

But the “zero shot” won, shocking USC and 85,125 spectators on a 10-yard touchdown pass from Tavita Pritchard to Mark Bradford with 49 seconds to play. The final score was 24-23.

Read more:  http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13768108?nclick_check=1

The last time Iowa went to the Rose Bowl….

 

January 1, 1991…..   The Washington Huskies of Don James (9-2) defeat Hayden Fry’s Iowa Hawkeyes (8-3) in the Rose Bowl’s highest scoring Rose Bowl ever 46-34.  UW Quarterback Mark Brunell passes for two touchdowns and runs for two more. Iowa never quits after trailing 33-7 at halftime. Greg Lewis rushes 128 yards in 19 carries for the Huskies. In the 20-point fourth quarter “never say die” Iowa resurgence, quarterback Matt Rodgers runs for two scores and passes for one.

WASHINGTON 46, IOWA 34

Read about other Rose Bowls:    http://www.tournamentofroses.com/photogallery/RBGtimeline/1990s.htm

Derek Johnson’s new book:  The Dawgs of War, Afterword by Rick Neuheisel

For the Trojans, the ASU game was “Like the Washington Game”

How bad was USC on third downs at Arizona State?

Try Washington-bad, says Freedomblogging.com.  

So said Trojans coach Pete Carroll, who compared his team’s 2-of-13 effort vs. the Sun Devils to its infamous 0-of-10 vs. the Huskies on Sept. 19.

“It was like the Washington game in a sense,” Carroll said. “You don’t convert on third down, you don’t get your chances. It became a very conservative game for us. We just played off the defense.”

USC seemed to be getting better on third downs. But in the past two weeks, the Trojans are 6 of 27. They rank 106th in the nation at 32.41 percent, one spot behind … gulp … UCLA.

“We had 3-4 weeks where we improved,” Carroll said. “We have not been consistent at all.

“Third downs and the red zone are always the hardest for new quarterbacks. It’s been that way for years.”

So wait, this is a Matt Barkley thing?

Read more:  http://usc.freedomblogging.com/

Did Neanderthals Have Sex with Modern Humans?

We are currently the only human species alive, but as recently as 24,000 years ago another one walked the earth — the Neanderthals.

These extinct humans were the closest relatives we had, and tantalizing new hints from researchers suggest that we might have been intimately close indeed. The mystery of whether Neanderthals and us had sex might be solved if the entire Neanderthal genome is reported soon as expected. The matter of why they died and we succeeded, however, remains an open question.

Maybe not nasty and brutish, but still short

First recognized in the Neander Valley in Germany in 1856, Neanderthals revealed that modern humans possess a rich and complex family tree that includes now-extinct relatives.

Read more:  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,572575,00.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g4:r4:c0.000000:b28773781:z10