A gift horse for Raiders

It is a time of change. The election just told us that. We must solve problems, big and small. Yes we can.

Let’s start with the small; namely, the Oakland Raiders. They are currently 2-6, heading for 2-14. On a quality-of-team scale of 1 to 10, the Raiders are a minus-4. They have been dreadful the last six years and they are not standing pat on that. They are becoming more dreadful.

Last Sunday, they lost to the Atlanta Falcons, who themselves are not exactly the reincarnation of the ’72 Dolphins. The score was 24-0. The Raiders got three first downs, 10 yards passing and were applauded sarcastically when Justin Fargas finally ran for a first down . . . in the third quarter.

For the players, there must be something unsettling about being mocked by large people in black muscle shirts and tattooed foreheads who arrive en masse on Harleys.

There is reason for us to act here, to be compassionate. The Raiders used to be ours. They even won a Super Bowl with Los Angeles in front of the team name. Or was it Irwindale?

They left lots of lovers in our City of Angels, and many of the jilted still climb aboard Southwest Airlines at LAX Sunday mornings for home games in Oakland, clip in their nose rings and fly north.

It’s more than just local interest. There has been a cry for help, subtle though it may seem. It comes in the form of a sentence in a column written by Mark Purdy in the San Jose Mercury News, after last week’s joke.

Purdy wrote: “When you go into the Raider locker room and interview the players, when you sit and listen to the coach in the postgame session, you do not get the impression anyone has any idea what to do next.”

Well, we do. Send up USC to finish out the Raiders’ schedule. It is win-win.

This solves one of ‘SC’s biggest problems. The Trojans are six deep at every position and this gives more guys a chance to play. Mark Sanchez can take the first team to Oakland and Mitch Mustain can take over the ‘SC games with what’s left, which would be plenty.

You don’t think Mustain is as good as any quarterback in the Pacific 10 Conference other than Sanchez? Remember, he won all eight games he started at Arkansas, and you don’t see any Arkansas-caliber teams in this Pac-10. Matter of fact, you don’t even see any Arkansas State-caliber teams. This is the year the Pac-10 became the Pac-1.

Sure, it would be different if there were lots at stake for the Trojans, such as a Bowl Championship Series title game berth. But we all sense how that will turn out. Watch ESPN or listen to network talk radio and you’ll overdose on Texas Tech, Florida, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

The South and Southwest is where the college football influence rests. If it doesn’t have a twang in its accent, the BCS doesn’t pay attention. A place such as Los Angeles might as well be a foreign country.

Truth is, it’s hard to argue with anti-West Coast sentiment this year. Part of the BCS deal is strength of schedule, meaning that, almost on their own, Washington State and Washington have knocked USC out of the BCS title chase.

This is also a chance for Pete Carroll to show the pros, who sent him away with scorn, that he can coach on that level. Steve Sarkisian could stay home and handle the college games.

Al Davis would love this. He coached at USC for three years in the late 1950s and thinks of himself as a Trojan. Plus, this would let him call a news conference and put a picture on a big screen of a letter he has sent to his players and coaches, telling them he no longer has to pay them.

The Trojans get unprecedented seasoning and depth for next year’s run at the BCS and Davis can stockpile money to sign the next quarterback who reminds him of Jim Plunkett.

Like we said, win-win. And talk about timing. USC never loses in the month of November.

Sure, there will be some problems. USC players have to go to class now, ever since this Steven Sample guy, the school president, decided that course work in the fundamentals of shirt-buttoning was a no-no. Maybe they can bring back those guys who took tests for players in the good old days. After all, we’re only talking eight weeks here.

NCAA rules? No big deal. USC could just get a couple of lawyers to write briefs and motions and hem and haw and stall until all the players involved are grandfathers. They could call it the Reggie Bush Doctrine.

Raiders fan acceptance?

Not a problem. The tattooed and pierced would still show up, probably love it. They might not even notice who the players were.

Until the Trojans won.

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bill.dwyre@latimes.com