Prepare for a Chilly Reception
It’s been two weeks since the college football bowl season ended and the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins disgraced themselves on national TV. I thought by now they would have reversed their plans to defect from the PAC 12 and join the Big Ten where the big bucks beckon.
Still going to make the move? Really? After the Bruins lost to an unranked Pittsburgh Panther squad in the Sun Bowl? And the mighty Trojans, arguably with the best quarterback college football has seen, were whipped by the Tulane Green Wave in the Cotton Bowl? Tulane?!
In view of the pair’s ignominious performance, you’d think they’re better off staying at home where it’s safe. I am no pigskin know-it-all, having played only one season of high school JV football, and played my position of split end very poorly, but what I saw of the two bowl games tells me that both teams have a lot upon which to improve before they join the burly boys of the Midwest. First, they must give up on arm tackles—they are even more useless against the brawny bruisers of the Big Ten than they were against Pittsburgh and Tulane. Even more importantly, both teams must learn what to do with kickoffs or punts received between their goal line and their twenty-yard line. Don’t stare at the ball as though it were a meteorite dropped from heaven; don’t fumble it. Catch it and run with it.
Come on you guys, are you seriously intent on joining the Big Ten? If so, pack your parkas. Take plenty of wool socks. Add some extra longjohns. And be prepared to serve as doormats for Spartans and Cornhuskers and the like when they stomp the December snow off their cleats.