USC Chooses Football Tradition over a Timeout Against UCLA
It’s “Rivalry Week” here in Los Angeles and the subplot in the USC v. UCLA football game this weekend is the story of how the #5 ranked Trojans will sacrifice a timeout to wear their home cardinal jerseys at the Bruins’ home in the Rose Bowl. In a very classy move, UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel agreed to sacrifice one of his first half timeouts as well in support of bringing back the tradition of having both teams wear their home jerseys.
So all this ruckus about USC losing two timeouts (just one) and giving UCLA an unfair advantage (even USC players sounded less than thrilled with the idea, according to the Daily News) really turned out to be nothing. Neuheisel leveled the playing field and unless the rules change, chances are Coach Carroll will do the same thing next year. The news about Neuheisel’s offer to choose tradition over a free advantage was a great move on the part of the UCLA coach. While he easily, easily could have taken the free timeout advantage, both teams now go into the game with no excuses in case an upset happens – and they do happen .
All this jersey talk comes on the same day as USC wide receiver Vidal Hazelton being granted his release to transfer
. For those unfamiliar with USC’s #2 receiver in 2007, Hazelton was one of the top recruits in the whole country and one of the biggest “gets” for USC on offense, but has been really outshined by Arkansas transfer Damian Williams this season – who has really outshined everyone this side of Patrick Turner this season.
In the end, it’s rivalry week – where people get to sit and argue about just about anything related to the two school – like who has the bigger party school (vote USC, just because it’d be nice not to lose this week). I’ll say that the Westwood campus is better, neighborhood is clearly better. USC still has the prettiest girls in the Pac-10 (I’ve been to 8 of the schools). And on education? Let’s just give that a push. If you got into either school, you’re probably pretty smart and half of college is about just being able to wake up and stay awake anyways because SAT scores stop mattering once you step on campus.
Good luck to both teams this weekend!
