Playing to win blurs the line of controversy


Sometimes, the best way to gauge the public opinion of an event is to ask someone not particularly inundated with its details.

You know what I mean?

Taking control · Referees stopped what could have been a brawl. - Dieuwertje Kast | Daily Trojan

Taking control · Referees stopped what could have been a brawl. - Dieuwertje Kast | Daily Trojan

Like, if you were trying to decide whether Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” has become a certifiable hit, you wouldn’t ask a friend who is a popular music major.

I bet he or she would have a strong argument either way. But your other friend — the one who doesn’t listen to that much music but always knows Akon’s song choruses when they are played at 2 a.m. — they would be the right person to ask.

Where am I going with this?

Well, in many cases, the supposed expert isn’t always the right person to ask.

Take the last minute of USC’s 28-7 win over UCLA on Saturday — it’s sparked quite a bit of analysis in the sports world.

You can group the majority of opinions into three general groups: UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel’s camp, USC coach Pete Carroll’s camp, and the “everyone’s bad” opinion.

The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke trashed Neuheisel in the Sunday paper, calling him a “brat.” ESPN.com’s Ted Miller said his timeout was “useless and annoying.”

Sports Illustrated’s Arash Markazi called it an absolutely embarrassing performance by USC; the Orange County Register’s Jeff Miller preferred the phrase “thoroughly unnecessary.”

Contradictory pieces, for sure. Somebody has to be right, right? And somebody has to be wrong, right?

Wrong.

Maybe neither coach was wrong.

Maybe calling a timeout with 52 seconds left to play and all your timeouts in a two-score game isn’t all that absurd.

Maybe playing to win in a rivalry game isn’t unheard of and actually completely rational — for both teams.

Now that seems to make a little bit of sense to me, but, hey, I don’t expect you to listen to me. I understand.

I’m no expert. I didn’t play high school football and I’m certainly not a former pro athlete — or professional writer, for that matter.

But just listen to the athletes.

Save for the knee-jerk reactions from both teams immediately after fourth-year junior receiver Damian Williams ran into the end zone, players on both sides largely took a that’s-what-I-would-do approach.

More than one USC player said the Williams catch was standard protocol for the situation.

Redshirt senior linebacker Reggie Carter and sophomore free safety Rahim Moore, UCLA’s two defensive leaders, were each quoted as praising the Trojans for a well-thought out play.

Said Carter: “I would have done the exact same thing.”

Now, can I make a suggestion?

How about we take all this hoopla, everything that everyone has said in wake of “the final minute,” and just forget it?

How about we remember the 2009 version of the USC-UCLA rivalry as exactly what it was — an entirely uninteresting game juiced up a bit by an intriguing final minute — and forget what it wasn’t?

And how about we hope that the final minute sparks a rivalry actually becoming of the word “rivalry,” and not the domination USC has had over UCLA in recent years?

The Trojans have won 10 of the last 11 games between the two teams.

Yes, that’s a great stat for any USC fan, but with it comes the simple fact that most of these games haven’t been exciting, haven’t been close, haven’t been rivalry-esque.

And that’s what redshirt sophomore middle linebacker Chris Galippo was talking about when he compared the USC-UCLA rivalry to others across the nation after Saturday’s game.

He said every other rivalry was rife with controversy — and it’s true. USC-UCLA has paled in comparison in recent years.

The Battle for Los Angeles isn’t even close to the best inter-region rivalry in the Pac-10.

Oregon and Oregon State’s Civil War will be a lot bigger deal when the two teams match up Thursday night. And this year’s Big Game between Stanford and Cal came down to the wire.

Because when it comes down to it, players on both squads enjoy these types of rivalries.

That’s why you saw sophomore defensive tackle Jurrell Casey waggle his tongue out and freshman quarterback Matt Barkley mouth “scoreboard” to the UCLA sideline on the Fox Sports Network broadcast of the game.

That’s why UCLA was so peeved about the issue at first.

And that’s why USC and UCLA need a larger-scale rivalry to capture these issues in forthcoming games.

More of the excitement, please. Less of the monotony.

“Looking Past the X’s & O’s” ran Tuesdays. To comment on this article, visit dailytrojan.com or email Pedro at [email protected].

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