Memo from a fan: Non-football

To: Los Angeles Times sports department
From: Ian
Re: Thanks for the memories

You are awesome.

The "Where are they now?" photo gallery spotlighting the 1988 Dodgers sent chills down my spine. Now, if only they can pull out three straight wins, I'll be able to fully tap into that Dodger Blue that I once bled.

The questions you asked the members of the team (well, the ones you were able to reach) were perfect. What are you doing? What's your most memorable moment from that season? What went through your mind when Kirk Gibson hit that Game 1 homer? Where do you keep your World Series ring? They actually elicited some pretty smile-inducing responses.

These days, I feel little connection to the Dodgers. I blame the sale of the team to News Corp., which totally ruined the home game experience. Since then, the Dodgers lost their soul, as many could say about their own teams as the sport has tried to become more corporatized.

But back to 20 years ago. What a season that was. Orel Hershiser broke Don Drysdale's scoreless inning record. Vin Scully, Ross Porter and Drysdale were in their broadcasting prime. The O'Malley family still owned the team. Tommy Lasorda was all about the SlimFast.

And then there were the playoffs. Jay Howell gets suspended in the NLCS for the pine tar incident. Hershiser coming into Game 4 against the Mets to notch a save. Kirk Gibson's fist-pumping homer. Pitchers shutting down the Bash Brothers. Hershiser winning two against the all-powerful A's. Lasorda running onto the field, two fists in the air, just beaming.

Oh, the memories. Thank you.

The Agony Meter...

It's time to spell out the travails of our alma maters, as well as other things.

Heaping loads of agony: Ted Kim's stock portfolio. Let's just say there's a lot of red ink in there. We'll spare you the details, but trust us, it's agonizing.

Lots o' agony: Arizona State. Another loss, this time to USC, makes it four in a row. The running game is ailing. QB Rudy Carpenter is bruised and battered and looks like he's been through three UFC fights. At this point, the Sun Bowl is looking like a stretch.

Some agony: Southern Methodist. The 1-6 Mustangs fell agonizingly short of upsetting favorite Tulsa on Sunday. The team once again showed signs of offensive improvement. The defense, on the other hand, surrendered more than 600 yards. (Note to June Jones: Please brush up on tackling and gap fundamentals.)

A dash of agony: Boston College. The Eagles enjoyed a bye. The weekend was not without its little insults, however. B.C.'s prime time game with Virginia Tech on Saturday was bumped from ESPN to ESPN2. And its game the following week at North Carolina was relegated to Raycom Sports, which employs arguably the worst television analyst in the history of electronic media: Rick "Doc" Walker.

Lots of thoughts brewing about the Red Sox, the Cowboys, the Patriots and college football games to come. We'll get to it when we get to it.

On the tube: Weekday edition

Games are on just Thursday and Friday this week.

Florida State-NC State (6:30 p.m. Thursday, ESPN): Old Man Bowden's team on the upswing meets the bottom of the ACC.

BYU-TCU (7 p.m. Thursday, Versus): A hard-fought battle in Fort Worth. A Horned Frog victory would in all likelihood end Brigham Young's BCS hopes. TCU is a hungry but inconsistent team. Upset alert is at Code Red on this one.

Hawaii-Boise State (7 p.m. Friday, ESPN): Last year's WAC darling, Hawaii, has already knocked off a ranked team (Fresno State) on the road. But Boise State has won five in a row, four of those in blowout fashion.

Scoping out the BCS

It's the last week before we get to see what the computers think about this clustermess that is the Top 25. But here's how things stand...

Top from each major conference:
ACC -- Virginia Tech (No. 17 twice, plus No. 18)
Big East -- South Florida (No. 19 twice, plus No. 20)
Big 10 -- Penn State (No. 3 in all)
Big 12 -- Texas (No. 1 in all)
Pac 10 -- USC (No. 4, 5 and 6)
SEC -- Alabama (No. 2 in all)

A comment, then the discussion. I think I'm goofing by using the top-ranked team from each conference, not the standings leader. But I'm going to keep the list the way it is -- just two conference leaders fall into this category -- Big East (Pittsburgh) and Pac 10 (Cal). And I simply can't justify naming Cal as the top team in the Pac 10. (Though Pitt I can agree with.)

Big changes after Weeding Out Weekend. LSU out. Oklahoma out. South Florida still slowly slipping -- and we could end up with an unranked Big East champion.

Texas and Alabama would now meet in an if-it-were-today BCS championship.

Non-majors: The Mountain West's BYU (No. 8 twice, plus No. 9) continues to break the Top 12, taking another automatic bid. They close out the season against Utah (No. 13 and No. 14 twice), which makes that a huge game. Boise State (WAC) is still potentially in the running, with two No. 15 and a No. 16 ranking.

Oklahoma and LSU are potential automatic qualifiers, if either ends up ranked No. 3 or 4. I'll be easy on the Sooners (No. 4 twice, plus No. 6) this week and give them No. 4 and an automatic berth.

So there are two at-large bids left. The contenders: Florida, Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Georgia, Ohio State, Missouri, LSU.

By my count, we'd see Florida and (ugh) Ohio State in BCS bowls. (None of the Big 12 teams would be eligible if Oklahoma gets an automatic bid.)

If they were played today:
(Automatic placements are not labeled; guessed placements are marked as such.)
BCS Championship: Texas-Alabama. Horns figure out a way.
Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech-South Florida (guess). Still a battle of the worst of the BCS automatic bids. Hokies win.
Sugar Bowl: Ohio State (guess)-Florida (guess). Yet again, Ohio State loses a BCS game.
Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma (guess)-BYU (guess). Sooners will have to watch out for another non-major surprise.
Rose Bowl: USC-Penn State. I'm going to flip-flop and say Penn State pulls one out.

Mediocrity hurts...

I hate football. Pro football, to be more precise. Watching other teams settle scores and tee off on my beloved New England Patriots without QB Tom Brady is a horrible thing. I admit it: I had grown accustomed to the dominance. The Dolphins? Puullease. San Diego? Target practice.

Those days appear long gone, at least until Mr. Brady's knee gets better. Imagine being a USC fan and watching your team struggle consistently to beat the Washington States and Stanfords of the world. It's bizarro world.

You're probably thinking: Cry me a river. Right? Just wait until your team tastes success and then declines (See: Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat, New York Yankees). It ain't fun.

Pigskin Potpourri, Week 7

Aerial view of the Red River Rivalry at the Cotton Bowl, 10/11/08

While the rest of you were watching UT's glorious smackdown of the Sooners in HD on Saturday, Tracy and I were hard at work producing an exclusive multimedia package for Three Fans. Let us pause for a real-time glimpse of the Red River Rivalry atmosphere just as the third quarter got underway at Fair Park:



I found it a somewhat surreal experience to try stay abreast of the game through text messages and sporadic outbursts from the Cotton Bowl crowd while also taking in all the fair had to offer -- Big Tex, corny dogs (with mustard, of course), the Texas Star, brazenly drunk OU and Texas coeds, Domino Man. A car dealer was showing the end of the game on a big screen near the African-American Museum, so during the latter half of the fourth quarter my dad and I beheld the greatness of Jordan Shipley's near-touchdown that clinched the game while Tracy and my stepmom checked out the 2009 Toyotas. (A Rav4 may be in our future.) The sheepish, skulking behavior of the dejected Okie fans rushing out of Fair Park was fun to behold in itself, as was the HD DVR recording of the game that awaited us when we returned home.

A few more pigskin tidbits:

Faux-hawks are an omen. Chase Daniel's half-assed version of Mr. T was bound to upset the karma gods at some point. Those deities came calling against OSU and Mike "I'm a Man! I'm 40!" Gundy. This Saturday, UT will remove all doubt in the Big 12 by steamrolling the overrated Tigers. Now that they have vanquished the Sooners, the only thing that stands between the Longhorns and the BCS title game is Mike Leach's offensive juggernaut in Lubbock. UT-Tech games are always shootouts. This year will be no different.

The SEC is too inconsistent to be a BCS factor this year. What, you think Alabama will run the table? Please. LSU showed its true colors in a blowout loss to Florida. The Sugar Bowl is as good as it gets this year for Les Miles, Tim Tebow, Nick Saban and Co.

ASU's best hope is the Sun Bowl. USC handed the Devils their first shutout in four years in LA on Saturday. I still think ASU has a decent shot to upend perennially overrated Oregon at home on Saturday, and the schedule gets much easier after that. Sneaking into a bowl game this year will help ASU set the stage for the Jack Elway era, which begins next year. Hey, Rudy Carpenter: Thanks for the memories, and best of luck in your future endeavors with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

What we learned on television...

...I'd say that we, ahem, learned quite a bit this weekend.

We learned that sports, like life, is unpredictable and runs its natural course no matter how you try to push it and prod it and fit it neatly into a box. Thus was the case in college football this weekend -- a weekend when many games defied all forecasts.

Who could have predicted that Missouri and Oklahoma State, two of the game's most prolific offenses, would become locked in a defensive struggle? Who would have thought the Tiger's first-team offense, which did not have a three-and-out all season and had put up 52 the week before at Nebraska, would turn into a pumpkin? (Missouri ended up scoring fewer points against Okie State than Houston and Texas A&M did.)

Who could have foreseen Penn State's 48-7 thumping at Wisconsin or Florida's 51-21 dismantling of defending national champion LSU? Who would have believed that Texas, which had yet to establish a consistent rushing attack all season, would run roughshod over Oklahoma's vaunted defense?

As much as we'd all like to think we know the secrets to sports, politics, finances or life, the truth is there's no substitute for real life, which to paraphrase columnist Thomas L. Friedman, "always bats last and always bats a thousand."

We should have given this weekend a theme: Weeding Out the Pretenders Weekend. These games in October and November separate the wheat from the chaff. We're starting to see which teams belong where.

The Wheat:

Texas. All of that game experience is starting to pay off for QB Colt McCoy, who served as a steady hand for the Longhorns in a game that was buffeted by roller-coaster-like momentum swings.

Penn State. What an impressive team. After last week's 20-6 sleepwalk against Purdue, I was ready to write them off. But on Saturday, the Nittany Lions pummeled Wisconsin in Madison. It takes talent and desire to do that.

Oklahoma State. The Cowboys won this weekend's most improbable game. They accomplished the impossible mission: Shutting down Missouri's juggernaut of an offense. And they did it on the road, too. That feat alone is enough to sell me.

Florida. I would argue there's no team that's faster than the Gators, including USC. I still believe LSU has a solid defense. But you can't tackle what you can't catch.

Notre Dame. Yes, they lost to North Carolina. But QB Jimmy Clausen, just a sophomore, continues to grow on me. His poise and accuracy under pressure is remarkable. Sure, Notre Dame will struggle at times the rest of this season. But, as commentator Bob Griese put it on Saturday, the taste of last season's 3-9 debacle is long gone.

The Chaff:

Oklahoma. What happened when the Sooners ran up against adversity for the first time this season? They crumpled. This team is so used to first-half blowouts that it did not know how to react to a pressurized fourth-quarter battle. The talent is there, but the emotional leadership is lacking.

Missouri. It finally happened. Missouri's offense let the team down. That's a scary thought given that the offense is what makes the Tigers an elite team. Without the O, Mizzou is little more than a pretender.

Texas Tech. It is only a matter of time before the Red Raiders, presently ranked No. 7, start to lose games. Both the offense and defense struggled at home against a mediocre Nebraska team. With the Big 12's heavyweights looming on Tech's schedule, the team's days in the Top Ten are numbered.

Crystal Ball report card:

The Crystal Ball had arguably its worst week ever: Wrong on Oklahoma, wrong on Vanderbilt, wrong on Kentucky and dead wrong on Missouri. The Ball also predicted two other games correctly, but incorrectly described how those contests would unfold. Wins by Florida and Penn State were absolute blowouts, not hard-fought close calls. Still, a few predictions actually came to fruition: The Ball foresaw victories by North Carolina, Kansas and USC to a tee. The Ball also had a good feeling about Toledo upsetting Michigan, but the prediction ended up on the cutting room floor.

Overrated: Texas Tech, Brigham Young

Underrated: Notre Dame, Michigan State, Boise State

Fine Nine: Texas, Penn State, USC, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma State, Georgia, Missouri