It started earlier today with Maisel examining how PSU is carrying the Big Ten banner. Should the Lions lose it means not only the loss of a football game but also the banishment of the Big Ten from competitive football forever. So, kind of a lot is riding on this game. Look, we know that the Big Ten has not been terribly successful in the Rose Bowl but simply riding the story line of "The Big Ten is Crappy" isn't interesting. What is odd is that if USC loses the Pac 10 won't be labeled as "horrible" and nobody will say the Trojans should be banished from title games for playing in the worst conference of all time. Despite the fact that they grew fat on the slugs of the Pac 10. Which will transition nicely to Ivan's next column.
Next, Ivan muses on whether USC's defense is the greatest defense of all time. Ivan lovingly strokes the fur of his pet-Trojans in this column. He does address the fact that the defense piled up a lot of these stats against terrible squads but he does it in the form of a reward rather than a context to USC's admittedly staggering statistics.
The dominance became so commonplace that the defenders had to remind themselves to focus. All-American free safety Taylor Mays said Sunday that he would envision getting beat deep. "If I gave up that play," Mays said, "it would mess up my whole week." Linebacker Brian Cushing said Sunday that the defense adjusted its goal from keeping a team scoreless to preventing it from crossing midfield.
Great. USC beat a lot of terrible teams by a large margin. Congratulations. USC is certainly a good team but to continue to talk about them as the greatest defense of all time when they bested a Pac 10 whose next best team was Sister Mary Magdalene's School for Blind Girls. In this context, suggesting that USC has the greatest defense of all time is simply irresponsible.
I seem to remember when ESPN was ready to annoint USC as the greatest team of all time, it was just before the 2006 Rose Bowl. After ESPN was heaping praise upon USC as the greatest team ever to step onto a college football field Vince Young took out his cock and slapped around Pete Carroll for sixty minutes. I know it is ESPN's job to slobber USC's collective knob in order to hype the game but let's just take a step back for a minute and take a breath.
I think both teams will play great defense on January first. Neither team will break 20 points. Sure, USC can win but it certainly is far from set in stone.
GO STATE! BEAT THE TROJANS!
