Not upset

As the VBA knows (and somewhat tolerates), RCVman sometimes ventures into the wild, wacky, weird and wonderful world of "things other than triathlon". Case in point is tomorrow's Pac 10 football game pitting the underdawg University of Washington Huskies (the good guys) versus the arrogant, spoiled by success, haughty, snobbish and altogether ridiculously talented and tanned private school thugs from USC (the bad guys). These two have dueled 79 times since 1923. Series stands in favor of SC at 49-26-4, with our last victory coming in 2001. Eight long and painful years ago.

I have been watching these two teams go after it since I was barely old enough to shave. The first time I ever watched a college football game live it was in the Colosseum, home of the Trojans. It was 1956. I was four. Paul Hornung was the QB for Notre Dame that rainy day in LA. Future Ram Jon Arnett was the QB for USC who eventually won the game 28-20. Hornung would go on the win the Heisman that year (still the only player on a team with a losing record to do so). I remember being miserable under a yellow umbrella trying to eat a foot-long soggy hot dog, hearing the roar of the crowd amid the smell of cigars. For the record, I have known many fine people who went to USC. But in LA there is no middle ground, you either LOVE the Trojans or you LOATHE them. And as Mom was the textbook coordinator at UCLA and I was being scouted and groomed to one day play shortstop for the Bruins, my LOATHE factor for the men from Troy was, well, off the charts. It only deepened once I escaped from LA and landed in Seattle. That was 1974 and I will never forget the crackling radio hiss of the Huskies playing SC from LA that year as I drove my pick up over Blewett Pass. I was a college fan reborn, with a new home team. And they played on a road called Montlake, wore purple and gold and were called the Huskies.

Naturally, then I would like to see them treat the visitors rudely. As in kick their asses. As in humiliate, annihilate and dominate. Expose them as frauds. They have been atop not only the PAC 10 standings, but national rankings as well for most of the last decade. And it is about time that ended.

I can think of no better time and place for this to happen than tomorrow afternoon at Husky Stadium.

It has been an often painful (0-12 wasn't a pretty 2008) ramp-down from the glory years of the Nineties. In 1990 we singlehandedly started the fall of Todd Marinovich, the infamous, "All I saw was Purple" dismantling on almost this same day nineteen years ago. Yeah, we're hungry. The Dawgs are out of Ty's doghouse and have a lot to prove. I think they are ready. I think they are primed. I think they will upset Number 3 ranked USC tomorrow (starting at 12:30 on regional ABC). I will even go so far as to predict the score (based on all that you have just read and all that it represents as both data and innuendo):

UW 38 USC 13

And I will not be upset if they win 14-13 either!




http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/

And it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks so. Watch for the twosome featured above, Jake and Johri, to have break out days.