Continuing on with the final few Pac-10 roundtable discussions, here is USC.

TwistNHook: Yknow, my hatred for USC has really gotten to a pathetic level.  I’m starting to hate my brother-in-law, who is a freshman at University of South Carolina.  When I went to the DeYoung opening a few years ago (after that EPICALLY DISASTROUS Oregon State game in 05), I saw a girl wearing a USC sweatshirt.  I have no idea if she went to USC or if she was just wearing a random sweatshirt.  But in my mind I started screaming a word over and over again that is best known as the word the Vagina Monologues is trying to reclaim.

Yes, I’m not proud of that.  But they bring it on themselves with their incomprehensibly arrogant attitudes.  When I was at Cal, it was not justified.  Now, unfortunately, it is in every way justified.  And there is NOTHING more frustrating than dealing with justified arrogance. Except for perhaps the unreasonably passionate.  I thought last year was our chance, because half their offense turned over.  Now, this year, they do lose two of the best WRs in the nation and have an ever changing situation at RB.  But still, their D looks to be as sick as ever. Thankfully, the game is at home this year.  Gives us the advantage.

And, to that end, I am going to go back to the archives and wear the exact same outfit as I did at USC 2003.  In 04, I wore the exact same outfit and we were SO close!  In 2005, I went with this whole scarf-oriented thing and we all saw how that turned out.  I’m not going to take all the blame for the loss in 2005.  After all, I didn’t put the team in a situation where we had to run for the first 20 straight plays.  And I didn’t throw an interception on my very first pass from scrimmage!  But, I gotta go back to the basics.  That outfit worked in 03, came so close in 04, yknow what, I think it’ll work in 07!  VICTORY BE TO SUPERSTITION!

YellowFever: I think we all know the team is going to be good, so there’s not much point going into the details.  A lineup of RBs deeper than the average LAPD lineup, a superstar collection of LBs, and a JDB at quarterback.  So they’ll probably stomp everyone in the Pac-10 this year (besides our Bears, of course) and hold the no. 1 spot in both polls for most of the year.  What’s new?

But I like this theme of how much we hate USC.  I’ll be walking through Penn Station or Times Square and see some random investment banker who probably attended Dartmouth, never seen a college football game, couldn’t pick Reggie Bush out of the average LAPD lineup, wearing a USC hat crowing about "his Trojans".  Makes you want to punch a sucker in the face, you know what I mean?

TwistNHook: Doesn’t Jeff Foxworthy have a whole bit about that.  You know you hate USC with every iota of your soul if…..

…….you refuse to use the letters U, S, or C in every day speak (i.e. Go Al Bear!)

…….you hate Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt, and every other person employed in the movie "Troy," including the 2nd gaffer.

…….you’ll never vacation to Greece.

…….you pay extra to have Okamoto condoms shipped in from Japan, so you don’t have to buy Magnums.

…….you refuse to see "Firecrackers:  The Silent Killer" or any other of Troy McClures movies.

Goddamn, I hate USC.  This might be a controversial thesis, but I hope Cal defeats them in the upcoming football season!

YellowFever: I’ve gotta be honest though.  I’ve got conference pride.  When USC makes it to the national championship game or plays another overrated scrub from the Big 10 in the Rose Bowl, I can’t help but pull for them.  It’s like rooting for whatever team that bounced you in the playoffs in any other sport - you want whatever team that beat you to prove itself to be the best so you can say hey, we’re not that bad.  No one else can beat them either, and at least we proved we’re pretty good as well in defeat.  Of course I’d rather our Bears actually beat them like they did in 2003, but our time is coming.  I think it’s going to be this year.

HydroTech: I’ll have to agree that there isn’t too much to say about USC football.  They have a bagillion blue chip recruits at every position and even at the ballboy positions.  Their 6th stringers could start for 90% of other NCAA teams and their defense is so good it’s supposedly verging on the lines of illegal.  The only weakness is on the offensive side of the ball.  And that weakness is inexperience in their WR corps.  We certainly can’t say that they don’t have talented WRs because they do.  It’s just that they lack a lot of playing time.  Anyways, moving on.

I am ashamed to say that I almost went to U$C.  I basically chose between U$C and Cal.  Private versus public.  Red versus blue.  Arrogance versus humility.  Despite the fun I would have experienced amid the success of U$C’s football program in the past 5 years, I think I made the right decision.  While winning is always fun.  I think it’s more meaningful and special to be a part of a team on the rise.  And that last statement is mainly the reason why I hate U$C.

I hate them because the majority of their fans take the team and its wins for granted.  Success has always come fairly easy for them.  They have tons of money, are located in Los Angeles, have tons of publicity, tons of celebrity connections, they have a huge history to back them up, but yet they still act like a bunch of self-righteous douche bags.  And while they have been through some hard times and worked hard to get back on top, there is no need to take your success and rub it in the face of other teams and fans.  It’s just amazing how such a large majority of their fans compared to other schools act like complete assholes.  Money and power corrupts, and I think U$C’s fan base is a perfect example.

Speaking of $C’s fan base, a lot of them are also just Los Angeles football fans who are looking for a local team to support and some games to attend.  As we all know, Los Angeles does not have a pro football team.  So all those football fans in LA just choose the next best thing: college football.  And when choosing between U$C and UCLA, it’s always more fun to be a winner so the majority of them just turn into bandwagon $C fans.  Of the 90,000 fans or whatever that attend every $C home game, I bet only 20,000 of them or so are actually $C alumni. 

Unfortunately, just like YellowFever, I do find myself rooting for $C when they play their OOC schedule and in bowl games.  Not because I like $C, but in the bigger picture regarding conference strength, it’s always best for teams in your conference to win their OOC games.  But I also find much joy in watching them lose too.  In fact, watching $C play an OOC opponent is like a win-win situation for me.  I’m happy for the Pac if U$C wins, and then I’m also happy as a U$C hater if U$C loses. 

The Ballots

In the order of: HydroTech, Ragnarok, TwistNHook, Yellow Fever
1.  ?????????????????????
2.  ?????????????????????
3.  OSU,  UCLA, OSU, UO
4.  UCLA, OSU, WSU, UCLA
5.  OU,  ASU, UCLA, ASU
6.  WSU, OU,  OU, UW
7.  ASU, UA,  UA, OSU
8.  AU,  WSU, ASU, AU
9.  UW,  UW, UW, WSU
10.  SU, SU,  SU, SU