Well, boys and girls Uncle Bill is back with another story to tell but this time it's not a tale of woe...this one is from Fantasyland. The Christmas party season must have started early over at the L.A. Times because with all the Egg Nog flowing I am not sure what game Uncle Bill was actually watching.
In a game that will be remembered for the return of the crosstown colors Saturday, USC scored most of the points, but UCLA applied all the welts.
The Trojans outplayed, outclassed and outscored, by a count of 28-7.
The Bruins, however, outfought.
"Man, from start to finish, we did fight them," said Bruins linebacker Reggie Carter, still sweating in a T-shirt and uniform pants nearly an hour after the game.
The Bruins outworked.
"We were huge underdogs, but that didn't matter to us, we never stopped playing," said cornerback Michael Norris, his eyes still wide.
Out Fought? Out Worked?
What's the old saying...the definition of insanity is doing something over and over while expecting different results.
What Plaschke seems to miss that's right under his nose is that this is a RIVALRY and no matter how good one team is within the rivalry, even when its by leaps and bounds, the other team gets up for the game. Remember 2004 when SC, on its way to to the Orange Bowl for the MNC, was almost tripped up at the Rose Bowl by ucla? People seem to think 66-19 is the norm...that was moment in time with the greatest offensive machine in the history of college football. They were a year older and more experienced and they were playing at home so the stars aligned perfectly for SC to unload on ucla in 2004.
It looks like Uncle Bill is giddy because he can go back to sunshine pumping the bruins like he did after SC hired Pete Carroll. Remember this gem...
This is a Bruin football town, and has been a Bruin football town, and will continue to be a Bruin football town...
Anyone who cares about college football in L.A. would agree that ucla needs to get better. In time they will, no question but they still have a long way to go and no level of sunshine pumping can make that happen.
Plaschke is delusional to think that ucla "out fought" or "out worked" USC yesterday. Norm Chow wasn't what I was worried about DeWayne Walker was what I was worried about. He has always schemed USC well, he is a great coach and he always finds the little things to work with but without an outside rush to Mark Sanchez had more than enough time to what he needed to do. Sanchez didn't always succeed but he did enough.
Here is some more drivel...
But they kept peppering, with Trojans quarterback Mark Sanchez knocked down so much, he actually had to leave the game for a play.
"We could all see how slow he got up," Norris said. "Slower every time."
They peppered the receivers so much that in the second half, they caught only four passes, with Sanchez completing only 10 of 24 after the first quarter, with USC held scoreless after the first three minutes of the third quarter.
"They weren't going to back down for nothing," said the Trojans' Patrick Turner, who caught a touchdown pass.
They sometimes peppered so much, they got salty, committing 11 penalties for 117 yards, some of which led to USC scores.
Wow...all that education and years of writing and the only word Uncle Bill could come up with is salty? How about Cheap Shot? What about Personal Foul! In the one area that SC usually has trouble it was ucla that actually had difficulty with penalties.
Sanchez wasn't going to let those clowns keep him down...They didn't get him for a single sack NOT ONE! Sure, they got some pressure on Sanchez and yes they knocked him down a number of times but Sanchez, experiencing his first taste of the rivalry as a starter rose to the occasion and threw caution to the wind. The argument can be made that one or two of those personal foul calls on ucla were borderline...maybe so but they were called and that's all I needed to see. Of course there will be some that will point to Rey Rey's hit on Cowan in 2006 (not called) and his hit on Craft yesterday (called) as the standard retort but you could see that that was the only statement that they wanted or could make...that they were going to try and make hits because there wasn't anything else they could do.
If it was SC that was committing those cheap shops you would hear a completely different story out of Uncle Bill. 13-9 defined ucla in 2006, it was their "moral victory" and because they are so bad this year, coming in as huge underdogs, Plascke essentially says that its OK to cheap shot and commit personal fouls. So much for that so-called ucla sportsmanship.
It is now clear that Plaschke is so in the can for ucla that he will say or write anything to try and make them relevant again.
Anything for readership right Bill?