New Year Might Not Be Happy for Hackett

While Pete Carroll has guided USC to a No. 1 ranking and into today’s Rose Bowl game, things are not going quite as well for the man he succeeded, Paul Hackett, the New York Jets’ offensive coordinator.

Ted Cottrell, the Jets’ defensive coordinator, and three other defensive coaches were fired Tuesday. Hackett’s position is shaky as well.

Coach Herman Edwards told New York reporters that all of the Jets’ offensive coaches are back -- for now. “When I sit down and discuss certain things I want done, we will see what happens,” Edwards said.

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Trivia time: What does last year’s Rose Bowl game involving Oklahoma and Washington State have in common with UCLA’s regular-season meeting against Oklahoma in 1990?

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Take your pick: Bill Doba, whose Washington State team defeated Texas in the Holiday Bowl on Tuesday night, recently told the Spokane Spokesman-Review about a decision he had to make after succeeding Mike Price. Doba had been the defensive coordinator.

“Mike had all the offense on bus one and the defense on bus two,” Doba said. “When I became head coach, I didn’t know what bus to get on.”

They’re off: Santa Anita steward Pete Pedersen was among several readers to e-mail that the quote, “Racetracks are where windows clean people” in Wednesday’s Morning Briefing should have been attributed to comedian Joe E. Lewis, not comedic actor Joe E. Brown.

Lewis’ life was the subject of the movie “The Joker Is Wild,” starring Frank Sinatra.

According to Pedersen, Lewis would open his Las Vegas act holding a tumbler of whiskey and declare: “It is now post time.”

Pederson also passed along this Lewis line: “I wake up at the crack of ice.”

More Ram sorrow: It was noted in Wednesday’s trivia that the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs three times in four years (1974-77).

Reader Steve Fetchet, in an e-mail, said we should have included the 1969 playoff loss to the Vikings, which was “one of the most bitter of them all.”

The Rams, who started that season 11-0, led the Vikings, 17-7, at halftime in Bloomington, Minn., but lost, 21-17, when quarterback Joe Kapp hurdled the Rams’ Eddie Meador to score the winning touchdown.

Green with envy: Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times asks, “Why do the Vikings envy the Portland Trail Blazers?” Answer: “The Blazers have a better record on grass.”

Trivia answer: The score. Oklahoma won both games 34-14. (Note: Alabama beat USC in the 1946 Rose Bowl by the same score.)

And finally: From Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Twenty years from now, today’s football players will be saying, ‘Back in my day, we didn’t do all the outlandish stuff these kids are doing. We kept it dignified, with Sharpies and cell phones.’ ”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.