I hit the television last night in just enough time to catch Utah's rally against Oregon State. Aside from wondering how it was that the Utes' defense managed to stop the Beavers when it really counted, it made me think that there's potentially an epidemiological explanation for Oregon State's collapse at the last minute: an outbreak of transitive flop sweat.

With this hypothesis, I propose that Ohio State arrived in Los Angeles as a carrier of transitive flop sweat. There are two main properties of transitive flop sweat: firstly, it results in getting beaten in a game for which you should have been competitive at a minimum, and second, it transfers to the winning team so that they botch their next game.

Obviously USC contracted a serious case of transitive flop sweat, as demonstrated in Corvallis - no need to revisit that, as the case history is well documented.

It appears that USC was able to transmit the transitive flop sweat to Oregon State however. While the Beavers' case was mild and late breaking, that could be explained by their relatively healthy conditions in Corvallis, where there is a lower level of ass-sunshining and plenty of fresh air. (And ready access to veterinary -grade meds, not that I'm implying anything or anything...) But late-breaking or not, the fact is, there was a little eau de flop hanging around the Beavers after they were this close to bringing down another ranked team.

The next test of this hypothesis will be Utah's game against Wyoming - although with the best will in the world, I don't know if that's going to be enough of a test to see if there's been a hand-off from Oregon State as opposed to showing if Wyoming is an antidote.

According to the LA Times:

• Rey Maualuga has a suspected sprained knee and will be examined further today
• Brian Cushing broke a bone in his hand
• Zack Heberer injured a toe
• Whatever it was that Taylor Mays injured, his absence from the sidelines was because he was coughing up blood

Not mentioned in the article: the bruised egos and dented pride suffered by the entire team.

Four years jail time, that is, not a four year playing career. Without knowing the general sentencing guidelines, (the other guy got 12 years) it's still safe to say that was a pretty expensive decision on his part.

Here's hoping that Maurice Simmons is able to get through this and make something of his time when he's released.

(Does this mean his scholarship is officially available? Yes, I am that heartless, why do you ask?)

We have to take some time out here for a collective head-scratching - because, even though it involves our cross-town rivals, this is bafflingly inept.

So we've heard from a Bruin that the "monopoly over" ad in the LA Times was directed at the bruin faithful to get them energized about the new season and the new coaching staff. Fair enough, even if it played differently to those outside that group.

The ucla marketing department have excelled themselves now, however: according to the LA Times, they've been advertising in the Fresno Bee to encourage fans to attend the ucla - Fresno State game. Fresno State fans, that is, since there are empty seats and... the seats have to be filled? It's a regional broadcast on ABC, so it's not like the rest of the country will be tuning in to see a partly empty Rose Bowl. The Pac-10 territory knows that the bruins are off to a rocky start, so there's not much of a PR hit there.

I can only assume that the people in the marketing department who thought this up are the victims of an unfortunate fall that left them with their heads up their fundaments - a rectal - cranial inversion, as they say. If I recall, the point of marketing is to show your product in the best possible light, and in football terms I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean inviting people to show up and cheer against the team you're supposedly promoting.

Neuheisel, Chow, and Walker have quite a season ahead of them, as do the bruins players who have to be at least somewhat demoralized. I don't really care if they do better or not, but the least that the ucla marketing department could do is not make the hill to climb that much higher. If SC's marketing department did something that asinine, I'd want them fired. No doubt bruin fans are thinking much the same about their own marketing gurus.

UPDATE...Here is the story in the Fresno Bee. I am also reading that the ucla AD sent out broadcast email that the tickets for all remaining home games are going for the bargain price of $10.00. Next thing you know you will get two free tickets whith your pizza delivery...Paragon

That's all. I have nothing to add.

Oregon, Oregon State, and USC win in intersectional match-ups. Everyone else, not so much.

Holy hell! Cal loses to Maryland, 37 - 25. Stanford lost to TCU, 14 - 31. Washington State lost to Baylor, 17 - 45.

With less than 10 to go in the first half, Oregon is down 3 - 20 to Purdue (!), Oregon State is down tied 0 7 - 7 to Hawaii, and UCLA is down 0 - 28 35 to BYU (!!!)

With Washington "playing" Oklahoma later, it looks like it's up to Arizona State (against UNLV), Arizona (against New Mexico), and USC to post any intersectional wins today.

This is why I get all nervous about supporting the conference in intersectional games. I hope to hell that SC does a bit better than this against Ohio State, because otherwise we'll never hear the end of it.

I watched the third quarter and the Cal offense was just awful. The defense was picking up the slack as best they could but Follett can only do so much.

It looks like they're making a late comeback effort with just under 2 minutes to go, but WTF? I would never had predicted that they would need an onside kick, a touchdown, and a 2 point conversion just to get to overtime.

Despite not having attended the University of Michigan, Frau DC Trojan grew up in within earshot of Michigan Stadium and as such the Ohio State Buckeyes are not welcomed on our television. Indeed, her reaction to their late game resurgence against plucky little Ohio last weekend was to mutter something about souls, garage sales, and the devil, but I can't be sure quite what she meant.

In any case, on the news that Beanie Wells is healthy enough to be put on the field, I thought I'd scan the internet for highlight reels. There are plenty of them, but most are far too long. However, there were two that I think highlighted what SC needs to worry about:

1) Wells' ability to hit the hole

2) A little bit of tank action in the secondary

(Someone call the ASPCA because he abused that Husky...)

Standard caveats apply: there are certainly more Buckeye starters that you need to worry about. Still, if Wells is this healthy for the entirety of the SC game, it's going to be an interesting night.

Apologies for providing a link dump, but Paragon and I are busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest, so sometimes you just have to take the directions without the colorful stories.

• Bill Plaschke is doing a little chest pounding
• Sideline passes remain a hot commodity
• Whicker on Herbstreit on the Buckeyes
• Whicker and Lev bs-ing their way through a preview of Saturday
• Maisel leads off with SC and tOSU
• ESPN's Rittenberg on speculation about Pryor's likely playing time
• Mandel manages to avoid making a single prediction
• If you didn't see it yesterday, consult EDSBS for a (mental) preview of the game from Catlab.