To Keep Fighting On Is War He Can’t Win

So, USC’s victory against Stanford last Saturday gives the Trojans hope of salvaging another season for Coach John Robinson.

A win at Oregon State this week would give USC the six wins required to qualify for a bowl game. Defeating UCLA on Nov. 22 would set off car horns and lift the Trojans to 7-4.

Robinson might feel vindicated, satisfied, energized. He might even want to come back next season.

He should not.

If USC should turn this wreck of a season around and qualify for a bowl game, Robinson should walk away from Troy.

He should go out on his terms, at a news conference he calls.

Robinson said after his team’s lifeless loss to Arizona State on Oct. 11 he would resign if the Trojans didn’t improve.

The mea culpa was a vintage Robinson preemptive strike, shrewd and effective. The truth is Robinson may not have had the choice.

He might have one now.

If USC finishes just strong enough to save Robinson’s neck, what would he be coming back to? Another season in which his status is a weekly topic of conversation, where a victory one week staves off the wolves while a defeat sends reporters on a beeline toward Athletic Director Mike Garrett for a reaction--sometimes on the sideline before the game is over?

Does Robinson need more of that?

There is no indication USC is going to be a national power soon. Robinson promised as much on his second tour, but it was different this time. Bill Walsh understands. Robinson needed Charles White the running back, not Charles White the running backs coach.

Scholarship limitations have made talent-hoarding a lost art. Even Robinson’s legendary charisma seems to ebb and flow.

Why would Robinson want to come back to a team that might go 6-5? One that would confound him daily? Is this year’s alleged great recruiting class going to be any better than alleged terrific classes of years past?

So, Robinson may have found a good young quarterback in Mike Van Raaphorst. But where on earth is that good young tailback?

The Pac-10 isn’t going to get weaker. Arizona State, the team that sent the Trojans scurrying into crisis mode with a 35-7 thumping, will be better next year, with the core of its offense returning. You think Washington is going to be down?

Why would Robinson subject himself to this?

It couldn’t be the money, could it?

At his best--in his first tenure with USC and before things went sour with the Rams--Robinson was a great conductor. He was a good coach. One of his best attributes was surrounding himself with great assistants and waving his coaching wand like a maestro.

Think of those staffs he had at USC and the Rams: Marv Goux, Norv Turner, Hudson Houck, Steve Mariucci (if only briefly), Bruce Snyder, Ernie Zampese, Fritz Shurmur, Gil Haskell, Paul Hackett.

No offense, but USC’s current supporting cast doesn’t stack up.

Should Robinson earn the right to return, will he have to make concessions? Will he have to fire friends to save his job, as Robinson did with the Rams when he jettisoned Shurmur, a brilliant defensive coordinator who now sports a Super Bowl ring with the Green Bay Packers?

Why would Robinson want to do that again? Call people into his office? Ask them to take a seat?

Why would he want to tiptoe around the mercurial Garrett, never knowing day to day where he stands?

Robinson should beat Garrett to an inevitable punch.

Why should a 62-year-old coach who has won a national title, coached in two NFC championship games and claims four Rose Bowl victories without a loss keep looking over his shoulder as he approaches Social Security?

With a victory against Oregon State, Robinson will be afforded a rare window to set the conditions of his exit.

He should jump at the chance.

Robinson’s collegiate career needs no apologies: five Pac-10 titles in 12 seasons, 103 victories.

Yet, he should not become a cautionary tale.

Another Robinson, Eddie, is coaching his last home game this week after 57 years at Grambling. The regret is he will leave having coached three consecutive losing seasons for the first time in his career.

Here’s hoping the ending for one Robinson will be different.

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

Last week, the financially strapped Copper Bowl sold its name to a couple of computer entrepreneurs for $4 million and now will be known as the Insight.com Bowl, leaving the Rose Bowl as the last significant bowl without a title sponsor.

But for how long?

Because of its vast television and gate revenues, the “Granddaddy” of all bowls has been able to resist the Chick-Fil-A Peach, Tostitos Fiesta, FedEx Orange, Nokia Sugar corporate madness that has infested college bowl games in recent times.

But next year, when the Rose Bowl joins the bowl alliance, it too will have a sponsor, yet to be determined.

“It will be a presenting sponsor, not a title sponsor,” Tournament of Roses Assn. Executive Director Jack French said this week.

Semantics?

Perhaps.

French said the sponsorship question was painstakingly negotiated with ABC. The game will not be known as “Company X” Rose Bowl, but will be The Rose Bowl presented by “Company X.”

“There’s a fine-line difference,” French said.

French said the Rose Bowl, which began in 1902, insisted on the distinction.

“I think we at the Rose Bowl, and we’re supported by the Big Ten and the Pac-10, we do not feel we need to have, or should have, a title sponsor. If you want to look at it historically, we kind of started the bowl thing in 1902.”

Who could forget? “The Rose Bowl, presented by Edison’s Incandescent Bulb.”

WASN’T THAT A KICK? NOT!

Missouri Coach Larry Smith refused to show the tape of Saturday’s heartbreaking, 45-38 overtime loss to Nebraska to his players.

It hurt Smith enough to watch it. Why put his players through it?

Nebraska won in overtime after tying the score in regulation in the final seconds when Shevin Wiggins kicked Scott Frost’s pass and Matt Davison snatched the ball in the end zone for a 12-yard touchdown.

By early Sunday morning, Smith had seen the play too many times to remember. “Every time you realize how well and how hard our guys played for 59 minutes and 53 seconds, and then you see that last stinking play,” Smith said.

Smith’s biggest worry now is that his 6-4 team, which has all but cinched a bowl bid, will fall flat for its last game this week against 2-7 Baylor.

“I’m going to challenge them, go after them, present the facts to them,” Smith said. “There’s a big difference between 6-5 and 7-4.”

Missouri has secured its first winning season since 1983 and, despite the loss, entered the AP poll at No. 25 this week, the Tigers’ first appearance in 14 years.

“You salvage something out of a loss,” Smith said. “It’s very rare to see a 6-4 team ranked. I don’t know if that was a sentimental vote or what.”

PLEASE READ THE FINE PRINT

Could Michigan finish 10-1, win the Big Ten and not go to the Rose Bowl?

Yes.

If Michigan beats Wisconsin this week, Ohio State defeats Illinois on Saturday and Michigan on Nov. 22, and Penn State wins its final three games, there would be a three-way tie for first at 7-1.

Michigan wins the tiebreaker in that scenario because it has gone the longest without going to the Rose Bowl. But if Ohio State is ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the national polls, the Buckeyes would go to the Rose Bowl.

There is a clause in the Rose Bowl contract that stipulates any Big Ten or Pac-10 school ranked first or second is bound to the Rose Bowl.

The loophole was added to protect the Rose Bowl from handing the bowl alliance a top-ranked school to put in its national championship game. The issue becomes moot next year, when the Rose Bowl joins the alliance, but the loophole looms large in the coming weeks.

Think about it. Ohio State is fourth in this week’s AP poll. If the Buckeyes defeat Michigan on Nov. 22, and either No. 2 Florida State or No. 3 Nebraska loses, Ohio State could move up to No. 1 or No. 2.

What sweet redemption that would be for Ohio State, which entered the Michigan game No. 2 and undefeated the last two seasons and lost both times.

COAST TO COAST

* I don’t have a problem with No. 4 Michigan jumping over No. 3 Florida State into the top spot in this week’s AP poll. The Wolverines and Seminoles won big games on the road, but Michigan’s victory over Penn State was more impressive than Florida State’s over North Carolina. Penn State is one of the nation’s great programs. North Carolina is 0-29-1 against top five teams. I do have a problem with Michigan and Florida State not being able to play each other for the national title.

* It’s doubtful Washington State quarterback Ryan Leaf will return for his senior season, but wouldn’t it be great to seem him make a run at John Elway’s Pac-10 record of 77 career touchdown passes? With four Saturday, Leaf has 29 this season and 54 in his career. He is tied with Pat Barnes (California) and Rodney Peete (USC) for seventh place.

* Michigan has been ranked No. 1 only one other time since its national title season of 1948--in 1976. This is the latest a Big Ten team has been ranked No. 1 since Ohio State on Jan. 1, 1980.

* Rose Bowl race clarification: Washington State does not necessarily go to the Rose Bowl if it wins out against Stanford and Washington. Washington State loses a two-way tie at 7-1 with Arizona State because the Sun Devils won the head-to-head encounter. Washington State wins a three-way tie with UCLA and Arizona State because of a better nonconference record, so the Cougars are rooting for the Bruins to beat Washington and USC.

* A Rocky Mountain News survey of 10 Heisman Trophy voters revealed Tennessee’s Peyton Manning holding a narrow lead over Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson. Leaf was third, followed by Texas tailback Ricky Williams and Marshall receiver Randy Moss.