“Fire Lane” movement brings out fans’ worst


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It couldn’t be ignored. Most of the time, when the home team suffers an upset loss, they say you can hear a pin drop in the stands because the crowd is in such stunned silence. When the clock struck zero on Saturday night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, however, this was not the case. […]

QB battle is a story made for Hollywood


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Usually the first game of the season answers questions about a team — it gives the team a chance to forge a sense of identity  and define structural parameters for expectations. When I covered spring practice almost six months ago, few games on the USC schedule mattered as much to me as USC-Hawai’i. The reason […]

Early conference games are not ideal


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It always used to go something like this: USC would play two or three nonconference games and then shift over to conference play, not facing an opponent outside of the Pac-10 for the rest of the season, save for Notre Dame. It had a sort of fluidity to it. Though those nonconference games counted in […]

NCAA gets it wrong yet again


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June 10, 2010 is when it all started. That was the day the NCAA handed down some of the stiffest and most stringent penalties of all time in its sanctions against the USC football program. That was when I became skeptical about the integrity and questionable motives of the NCAA as an institution. Looking back, […]

Coach Hubbs tasked with rallying program


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Most of the excitement in USC sports has been in anticipation of the start of Trojan football. But there was some big news this week for a different men’s sports team —one with arguably more prestige than those guys who play in the Coliseum. On Tuesday, USC announced that baseball coach Dan Hubbs, who took […]

First game couldn’t arrive sooner for USC


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It’s here. It’s been eight months since USC last played a football game — 241 days, to be exact. It’s actually been about 10 months since USC played a game that was enjoyable to watch, but I digress. The wait is over. This is a team, a fan base and a program all too eager […]

Football program stays out of trouble


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I’ll admit that heading into the football season, USC head coach Lane Kiffin doesn’t have a lot going for him. USC’s dive from preseason favorite to unranked with six losses last year was unprecedented, and Kiffin’s chilly public persona only fuels his detractors. If he wins fewer than nine games this upcoming year, there is […]

Kiffin’s indecision is blessing in disguise


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When USC head coach Lane Kiffin announced on Saturday that, after months of evaluating redshirt sophomore quarterbacks Cody Kessler and Max Wittek, he was still unable to name a starter for the season opener, my initial reaction was to brace myself for the immediate, Twitter-induced backlash that predictably followed. Fans and media members alike were […]

Fall, spring at USC filled with highs, lows


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As the 2012-13 school year comes to a close, it is only natural for students to reflect on their time at USC. For seniors about to embark on the next phase of their lives, the most common thought is most likely along the lines of “where did the time go?” For underclassmen, time might not […]

Collins coming out is big-time sports news


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When news broke on Monday that Jason Collins was the first active athlete to come out as gay in a major sports league, there were three basic reactions on television, social media and elsewhere. Reaction one: Overwhelming support. Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, David Stern, even President Barack Obama congratulated Collins for coming out. Reaction two: […]