Ignatius

I might make a couple of observations here. . . . First, USC takes second place to no one in the out of conference games they play in the regular season. I will admit that Notre Dame probably plays more D-1 powers across the nation than USC, but Notre Dame doesn't have any conference commitments either. Since I have been following USC football, USC has played, either on a home and home basis or at a neutral site, the following out of conference teams: Arkansas, Auburn, Alabama, LSU, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida, Florida State, Ohio State, Penn State, Syracuse, Minnesota, Michigan State, Illinois, Purdue, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Kansas State, Colorado, Colorado State, Texas, Texas Tech, Missouri, BYU, Hawaii, and Virginia Tech -- and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Oh yeah. . . .there is a school from the midwest that USC plays on a home and home basis, and has done every year for the past 70 or so. And, I might add, USC has never played any non-Division 1 schools (at least since there has been Division 1 schools -- there were a few high school opponents about 100 years ago). Michigan now wishes that they had never played a non-Division 1 school too!! (Applachian State was the first for them). Second -- Nebraska hasn't been playing Oklahoma and Texas every year. NU didn't play Texas regularly until the 90's, and even now NU doesn't necessarily play either Oklahoma or Texas every year. Third -- the PAC 10 is a tough conference. In the last 10 years every one of the ten teams has been ranked in the top ten. When was the last time that Kansas, Oklahoma State, Baylor or Iowa State were in the top ten? Fourth, I might point out that while USC didn't win any national championships in the 80's and 90's, they did win national championships in the 60's (1963 and 1967) and the 70's (74 and 78). And they were in the running for national championships several times in the 80's and 90's, winding up in the top five nationally. And in overall national championships, USC arguably leads the pack with 11. Fifth, USC has had a few players earn post season laurels -- such as Mike Garrett, OJ Simpson, CHarles White, Marcus Allen, Carson Palmer, Matt Leinert, and Reggie Bush all won the Heisman trophy. Sixth, USC has had some success in sending players to the next level -- in fact, more players from USC have played in the Superbowl then any other school. And so my question remains; if USC isn't a football dynasty, who is? Okay, here we go. I think it was my post that indicated USC's horrible record in the `80's and `90's. So lets go back and clear up a few things. First, before we go any further, 11 National Championships? Yeah, I know, that's what USC claims in their media hype. But lets get real. There have really only been two organizations that have crowned LEGITIMATE college football national champions (I know, I know, there is no playoff, but it's all we got). The two are the Coaches poll and the Associated Press. So go back and see how many times USC has won either of those and you will find that it is several short of the 11 you stated earlier. I believe it is something like six. USC is one of those schools like Ohio State, and Notre Dame, who claim a National Championship every time some insignificant hack puts out a poll with them on top. Are you seriously going to claim the Dunkel, Sagarin, and Mathew's Championship in 2002? You see, that is the year that Ohio State beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl and was voted National Champion by the AP and Coaches, and anyone else with a brain. But good `ol USC adds THAT into their "11 National Championships." They also claim one in 1979 from the "Football Research Poll" whatever that is. If Nebraska was to claim every off-the-wall poll we would have many more titles than the 5 legitimate ones we claim. For instance: 1993 - National Championship Foundation 1984 - Litkenhouse 1983 - Berryman, DeVold, FACT*, Litkenhous, Matthews, Poling, Sagarin 1982 - Berryman 1981 - National Championship Foundation* 1980 - FACT*, Sagarin 1915 - Billingsley That's right, we went we went back-to-back-to-back in 1993-1995, and we won five straight between 1980 and 1984. A total of 12 National Championships. The difference here is that Nebraska would never be as cheesy as USC and actually claim those as real titles in our media guide. As for my saying that "USC went 22 years without a national title", that is a miss-quote. What I said was that USC sucked for 22 years! I will re-print their record below from 1980-2001. 1980 USC Trojans 8-2-1 .773 1981 USC Trojans 9-3 .750 1982 USC Trojans 8-3 .727 1983 USC Trojans 4-6-1 .409 1984 USC Trojans 9-3 .750 1985 USC Trojans 6-6 .500 1986 USC Trojans 7-5 .583 1987 USC Trojans 8-4 .667 1988 USC Trojans 10-2 .833 1989 USC Trojans 9-2-1 .792 1990 USC Trojans 8-4-1 .654 1991 USC Trojans 3-8 .273 1992 USC Trojans 6-5-1 .542 1993 USC Trojans 8-5 .615 1994 USC Trojans 8-3-1 .708 1995 USC Trojans 9-2-1 .792 1996 USC Trojans 6-6 .500 1997 USC Trojans 6-5 .545 1998 USC Trojans 8-5 .615 1999 USC Trojans 6-6 .500 2000 USC Trojans 5-7 .417 2001 USC Trojans 6-6 .500 Damn! Only one ten win season? Three losing seasons? Another four non-winning seasons? And two more where you broke .500 but only won six games. An overall winning percentage of .613? Exactly which season in that stretch was USC a championship contender? Wow, that must have sucked to be an SC fan during that stretch. Oh, never mind, everyone out here in LA just becomes UCLA fans when SC is sucking. SC fans are so myopic! Yeah, and take a look at their attendance up until 4 years ago, consistently 55K or so...

This guy lives on his knees in front of the Trojans, it makes me sick...BTW, what are they going for now, their 5th national title in a row, or is it 6??

Guess I'd pretty much already stopped watching SNL by then...I only remember seeing him do a cheer leader skit. Did he do any other characters? He did a bang-up Harry Carey: "Hey Norm, if you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself? I know I would..."

I think we have a winner...

Hey Husker fans, good luck with the upcoming season, especially against the condoms in 3 weeks... Have two tickets for sale to our game in October in Austin in Section 2, Row 50, which is at about the 5 yard line on the lower west side. Additionally, I'll throw in a parking pass for the Brazos parking garage, which has the benefit of being (1) the closest parking garage to these seats (equivalent of about 3 blocks) and (2) directly across the street from surface parking lots hosting large tailgate parties. As Husker fans, you guys will be welcome there (and anywhere in town, for that matter). FYI, if you're looking for tickets realize that the upper west side in our stadium is akin to watching a game from the moon; upper east side is much better, but the lowers are the way to go, even if they're in the end zone... Hate to gouge, but I'm asking $500 for the package, just trying to offset the cost of my parking pass (UT created a fiasco in this area 2 weeks ago, but that's another story). Send me a PM/email if you're interested, and we can work out the details. I'm in Austin and travel to Houston weekly for work; additionally, my in-laws live in Dallas and we'll be up there prior to the game. If you live/know anyone who lives in these cities and would prefer not to deal with shipping we can do that, we can ship, or we can meet up here prior to the game (I won't flake out on you). Good luck this weekend, see ya' in Austin in a couple of months... Iggy ousucks@austin.rr.com