Journalism 101 Didn’t Include Fumblerooski

Bernie Miklasz in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Missouri football Coach Larry Smith is absolutely correct when he blames the media for the team’s 2-7 record this season.

“The media have been responsible for losing football games at Ol’ Mizzou for quite some time now. The Tigers have had only two winning records in the past 17 seasons, and it took some real courage for Smith to speak out and tell the truth rather than to fall back on the usual list of weak excuses.

“The trivial things like bad recruiting, consistently hideous special-teams play and glaringly incompetent fundamentals.”

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Trivia time: Which USC player returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown against UCLA in the 1955 game only to have it nullified because the Trojans lined up offsides?

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Northwest bias: Chuck Culpepper in the Portland Oregonian, commenting--make that gloating--over the relative national insignificance of today’s USC-UCLA game compared to the Oregon-Oregon State showdown:

”. . . USC-UCLA? Isn’t it just adorable? And so very watchable too. For instance, you know with UCLA you’ll see a lot of points because UCLA will allow them. You know with USC you’ll see a lot of turnovers, because USC will commit them.”

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Will luck run out? Art Thiel in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, commenting on today’s Washington-Washington State game:

“The Huskies have had so many preposterous fourth-quarter comebacks this year that the International Rabbit’s Foot Hall of Fame has asked that UW Coach Rick Neuheisel pose for a 50-foot statue after the season.

“The Cougars, meanwhile, have been good enough to play in three overtime games in a single season, but unfortunate enough to have lost all three. That is like winning a vicious patent battle for the right to produce the adobe submarine.”

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Understandable: Fox analyst Bill Maas, after Tampa Bay was whistled for having 12 players on the field against Green Bay: “We’re in Florida. We can’t get the count right.”

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Evil man? Randy Galloway in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, on Alex Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, the man behind most of the free agent’s seemingly outrageous demands: “Scott Boras is the Big Satan.”

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Trivia answer: Jon Arnett. UCLA won, 17-7.

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And finally: From the Gallery column in the San Diego Union-Tribune: “For the second year in a row, the Cal and Stanford mascots, Oski and the Tree, will be tested to see if they had anything to drink.

“The inside word is that Oski got bounced last year and the bear suit went to a backup--a designated Oski. Tussling, tipsy mascots have been a problem at the Big Game in the past.”