USC isn’t as popular a bet these days

Gamblers have taken note: It’s a new day at USC.…

After opening Sunday as 20-point favorites over Minnesota, possibly the 11th-best team in the Big Ten, Matt Barkley and the underwhelming Trojans might be taken aback to learn that by midweek the line had dropped to 11½. …

“Bettors have lost confidence in USC,” says Mike Seba, senior oddsmaker at Las Vegas Sports Consultants, which establishes the opening lines. “That’s just based on results.” …

Lackluster wins over Hawaii and Virginia do not impress. …

Next time, perhaps, Clinton Portis will consider putting the tape over his mouth before inserting his foot. …

Except in terms of Super Bowls won, of course, there really is no comparison between Peyton and Eli Manning.…

One is a four-time MVP who ranks among the sport’s all-time greatest players, ambassadors and icons. …

The other is his talented, overshadowed little brother. …

Presumably casting his team as the underdog, Tyron Carrier of No. 23 Houston says Saturday’s game against UCLA at the Rose Bowl has a “David and Goliath feeling to it.” …

Has he not seen the Bruins? …

Speaking of which, retired postal worker Claudia Hart of Culver City says she has attended every UCLA football game — home, away and bowl games — since Oct. 14, 1989.…

That’s devotion.…

The last time before this month that Joe Torre managed a team playing out the string, Derek Jeter was still a triple-A prospect and Clayton Kershaw a first-grader.…

The year was 1994.…

Friends say that before his death last month, longtime Screen Actors Guild leader Ken Orsatti proudly wore a prized possession every day for decades: a World Series championship ring given him by his uncle, Ernie Orsatti, center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals’ famed “Gas House Gang” of 1934. …

Ernie Orsatti, who compiled a .306 lifetime batting average and played in four World Series, was from Manual Arts High.…

Former Inglewood High star Paul Pierce will have his No. 34 jersey retired Tuesday morning in a ceremony at his alma mater — and Ron Artest can do nothing to stop it. …

Commitment to consistency, anyway: The Oakland Raiders haven’t won an opening-day game since 2002, which also was the last season they finished with a winning record.…

In goaltenders Antero Nittymaki and Stanley Cup winner Antti Niemi, the San Jose Sharks have two Finns.…

Nearly half of the 120 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, college football’s upper echelon, received at least one vote in the preseason USA Today coaches’ poll. …

Michigan, the sport’s all-time leader in victories and a Denard Robinson-led winner Saturday over Notre Dame, did not.…

Kevin Kolb of the Philadelphia Eagles won’t be the last quarterback left seeing stars after a jarring hit by former USC linebacker Clay Matthews of the Green Bay Packers.…

Set your watches: The Buffalo Bills and Cleveland Browns play all 16 of their games at 1 p.m. Eastern time. …

In ditching the Cleveland Cavaliers in a widely lampooned spectacle, LeBron James “lost a billion dollars in brand equity, give or take a couple bucks,” Mark Cuban noted this week.…

Tennis fans don’t need a computer to tell them Rafael Nadal is the world’s No. 1 player for the second time in three years.…

What would later come to be known as the NFL was born 90 years ago this week, when 10 teams paid $100 each to join the American Professional Football Assn. …

Original paintings, drawings and sculptures by Todd Marinovich can be viewed — and purchased — at toddmarinovich.com.…

“I draw from my life experience and try to create art with ‘feel,’ ” the former quarterback notes on the site. “It’s not perfect and often times not pretty. My intention is to invoke emotion.” …

Hasn’t he always? …

New version of an old joke overheard Saturday at the Rose Bowl, where UCLA fans looked forward to a better showing from the Bruins this week: “I left two UCLA-Houston tickets on the dashboard of my car. Someone broke in — and left two more.”

jerome.crowe@latimes.com