Maybe It’s Time to Break Out the Leather Helmets

Today, not on ABC, not on Fox Sports Net, not on ESPN and not on TBS, UCLA plays a football game the old-fashioned way.

Not on TV.

Not live. Not delayed. Not locally.

If you want to watch the Bruins play Oregon this afternoon, you will have to buy a ticket, just as in the Gary Beban days. If you don’t buy a ticket and still want to keep tabs on the Bruins’ play by play, your options are radio, just as in the Tommy Prothro days, or the Bruin Web site, which is offering access to live audio commentary.

Today, UCLA stands for U Can Listen Anyway.

UCLA is not on television because of the Bruins’ recent 0-2 streak and a decision by Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, a gutty little Bruin from way back, to hold the line. ABC had a choice of 12:30 p.m. Pac-10 games to televise today, and when UCLA dropped out of conference title contention, the network opted for Arizona State at Washington State.

Because of contractual arrangements with ABC, no other Pac-10 game can be shown locally during the 12:30 p.m. time slot. Fox Sports Net offered to televise the game if UCLA moved the kickoff to 7 p.m., but Guerrero, in a departure from the college sports norm, decided not to take the money and leave Bruin ticket holders scrambling.

Guerrero kept the kickoff at 12:30 p.m. and said no to about $40,000. With recruits in town and social activities scheduled around an early afternoon start, Guerrero chose the big picture over the short-term grab. Commendable -- and something of a stunner, considering how most of Guerrero’s colleagues bow at the altar of the big screen, scrounging for whatever loose change the networks jingle in their pockets.

This season, ESPN has televised college football games on Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights, Thursday nights and Friday nights. ESPN didn’t put a gun to any athletic directors’ heads to get this done. ESPN saves all its guns for “Playmakers.”

Remember that the next time a college administrator rambles on piously about a two-week college football playoff taking too much classroom time away from the “student-athletes.”

There will be no local delayed telecast of the UCLA-Oregon game because Fox Sports Net did not want to staff a game that could not be shown live and, well, because Fox Sports Net isn’t KCAL.

So it’s audio-only for fans not headed to the Rose Bowl. Pragmatically, the decision makes sense for UCLA as well. If the game is not on TV, fewer people may feel the need to criticize Karl Dorrell. From the UCLA perspective, that qualifies as a win-win.

Other coaches won’t be so lucky this weekend.

TODAY

* USC at Arizona

(TBS, 4 p.m.)

USC gets TV, though not ABC (which is airing a delayed telecast of the PGA World Cup at 4 p.m) and not ESPN (carrying Louisiana State-Alabama at 4:45 p.m) and not ESPN2 (Pittsburgh-West Virginia). USC gets TBS, which says everything you need to know about Arizona (2-8, 1-5 in the Pac-10), a 28-point underdog.

What to watch for: Matt Leinart continuing to keep pace with the 2002 statistical haul that earned Carson Palmer the Heisman Trophy. Two months ago, Leinart, a sophomore, was considered the one-year stopgap between the Palmer and John David Booty regimes. Now, he’s a semifinalist for the Davey O’Brien Award, which raises a belated question about Palmer’s Heisman statue:

Was is Palmer, or was it the system?

* Purdue at Ohio State

(ESPN GamePlan, 12:30 p.m.)

Trojans Go Scoreboard Watching, Part I: The Buckeyes are 9-1 and have climbed over the fallen bodies of Florida State and Virginia Tech to nip at the Trojans’ heels during the bowl championship series stretch run. Apparently, Maurice Clarett wasn’t all that important.

* LSU at Alabama

(ESPN, 4:45 p.m.)

Trojans Go Scoreboard Watching, Part II: LSU is No. 3 in the polls and No. 4 in the BCS standings, so the thinking around USC is this: As long as LSU holds on to No. 3 in the polls -- and peaks there -- the Buckeyes will be kept at bay. So Trojan fans will be rooting for an LSU victory here. Just not too big a victory.

* St. Louis Blues at Kings

(Fox Sports Net, 1 p.m.)

The NHL has learned to live with ice shavings for TV ratings, but now attendance is down around the league, with 16 of 30 teams reporting declines at the turnstiles during the season’s first month. Locally, the Kings lead their division, and the Ducks, coming off an appearance in the Stanley Cup finals, are second, so it’s not down to wins and losses. And they haven’t been going head to head against a local NFL team or a World Series contender this year.

Evidently, fans are already in training for the Great Work Stoppage of 2004.

* Orlando Magic at Clippers

(Channel 5, 7:30 p.m.)

On the Staples Center police blotter: Lakers -- Kobe Bryant. Kings -- Joe Corvo. Clippers -- nobody yet. Same old Clippers. Underachieving again.

SUNDAY

* San Diego Chargers at Denver Broncos

(Channel 2, 1 p.m.)

From CBS analyst Boomer Esiason on nfl.com: “When describing San Diego’s Marty Schottenheimer, it is said that he is a strict disciplinarian who loves to play ‘Marty Ball,’ but he is so headstrong and inflexible that today’s players don’t respond to his methods.” Which explains the Chargers’ 1-7 record before Doug Flutie’s first start, and why Flutie, a.k.a. Yesterday’s Quarterback, starts again for Schottenheimer in Denver.

* Dallas Cowboys at New England Patriots

(ESPN, 5:30 p.m.)

Sunday night football ... or is it boxing? In this corner, it’s Bill Parcells, 7-2 with the Cowboys. In the other, it’s Bill Belichick, 7-2 with the Patriots after spending two decades as Parcell’s right-hand man and then frosting the relationship by refusing Parcells’ offer to become his hand-picked replacement with the Jets in 2000.

Instead, Belichick bolted for New England, won a Super Bowl there, and now the former colleagues and friends meet with the same dramatic mission in mind: Kill Bill.