Just a couple of things to get your day going.
Mark Sanchez finally opened up to the media after high-tailing it out of the locker room after Saturday's game against ASU.
Sanchez said he had put behind his four-turnover performance against Arizona State, a game that included a fumble and three interceptions on consecutive third-quarter possessions.
"It was wild and hard to stomach, but I'm glad it's over and I'm glad we get a chance to learn from it," Sanchez said.
I hope so. With WSU a whopping 41-point underdog this is a classic look-too-far-ahead game for USC, and we know how those always seem to turn out.
As I mentioned yesterday USC is right back in it when it comes to the BCS title chase.
Despite a sloppy performance against Arizona State, it was a terrific weekend for the Trojans, who moved up five places to No. 4 in the USA Today coaches' poll and three places to No. 5 in the Harris index.
Those two polls, along with a computer component, are used in the BCS standings formula. The top two teams in the final BCS release on Dec. 7 will play for the national championship.
Sam Chi, who operates an Internet site called BCS Guru, has enough raw data in hand to nail the BCS figures down nearly to the number.
His BCS top 10, in order: Texas, Alabama, Penn State, USC, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Florida, Georgia and Utah.
The only missing component in producing a completely accurate BCS formula is the data from Peter Wolfe, one of the six computer operators. Wolfe's first standings are released in conjunction with the official standings.
Unimportant if you ask me. There is way too much football left to be played and we will see a lot of movement in the polls before things really become clear. SC just needs to win....
Scott Wolf is being taken to task for another whack-job ballot. I could see where he was coming from earlier in the year but he is way off the deep end with his latest ballot.
Pollspeak welcomes Scott Wolf back to the radar. Wolf was a regular last year -- named worst voter of the week twice along with two dishonorable mentions. He received the most net bad votes this week, and fits Pollspeak's example for the week...so the choice is unanimous.
Wolf alienated much of the state of Oklahoma, voting the Sooners lowest at #3 and being one of two people to leave Oklahoma State off his ballot. He also voted Penn State lowest at #11. He wasn't completely alone on any of these, but the combination of the three must have earned him enough Bad votes to "win."
As for Pollspeak's Pick, see our article on SI.com for the reasoning. Wolf is the perfect counter-example to how Pittsburgh, USF and Kansas should be ranked. He ranks them: Kansas #10, USF #18, and Pittsburgh Unranked. They all have the same number of losses (one) and they are ranked the exact opposite of who beat whom in their head-to-head matchups. Not only that, the gap between the teams is one of the largest.
Is anyone really surprised? At this point it's all just for attention and he getting plenty of it.
Add Joe McKnight to the injured list and this one could be a problem. McKnight was injured on his final carry against ASU on Saturday.
USC tailback Joe McKnight, coming off a career game, missed practice Monday because of an injured right big toe.
McKnight wore a boot on his right foot. He said he would undergo X-rays Tuesday and would try to practice. If McKnight has turf toe, it could put his status in doubt for Saturday’s game at Washington State.
This would not surprise me if this is diagnosed as turf toe. If it is then it is unlikely that he will play on Saturday. Looks like I need to do another Injury Clinic write-up.
The rhythm method? After marching down the field on their first drive on Saturday things stalled out going forward Pete Carroll thinks it was because the of a number of dropped passes that took the offense out sync.
Coach Pete Carroll thinks maybe his USC football team would have gotten off to a better start on offense during its 28-0 rout of Arizona State on Saturday had quarterback Mark Sanchez's receivers not dropped a couple of early passes.
The drops, he said on his Sunday conference call, "messed with our rhythm."
And then there were those four turnovers in the third quarter.
"We just fell apart," Carroll said, adding that the Trojans have some things to work on as they head into preparations for Washington State (1-6, 0-4 Pac 10), a team some consider the worst in conference history. USC opens as a 42-point favorite.
It looked like the offense put this thing to bed after last seaon ut it appears to have raised its ugly head again. Let hope its just a passing thing.