Who Should Be Favored?

Coaching.

First of all Quinn should not even be invited to New York for the ceremony. He has managed to pad his stats against inferior competition and had sub par performances against Michigan, Michigan State and UCLA. I think both Quinn and Smith are fortunate that Peterson broke his colar bone, because Peterson is the best football player in America.

As for the rest of the 18 senior starters for the Irish.... well they are still around because they are not good enough to make the NFL.

After reading your article Scott it seems as though you feel USC is unfairly favored in this game? Having only been a visitor to your site this year I am inrceasingly convinced that you have some sort of "chip on your shoulder" regarding USC football.

Last years game was a fluke brought on by a flat USC squad, long grass, and an intense rivalry, often allowing the inferior team a shot at winning. That game was not unlike USC's near loss to UCLA at the Rose Bowl in 2004. By your same logic was USC given too many points last year when UCLA came to the Colisium and the Trojans put up 50+?

Frankly I am surprised USC is not favored by at least 12-14 points. ND is not very good and should not even be ranked in the top 10. They continue to coast on their preseason hype and the fact that they are Notre Dame.

When was the last time ND beat a ranked team? Not this year. Last year they did beat Michigan, who may have been ranked at the time, but Michigan ended their season I think 6-5 unranked. Notre Dame then went on to get blasted by Ohio State.

Look everyone knows that on any given day a weaker opponent can knock off a better team. This is especially true of Saturday's game between the Trojans and Fighting Irsih because if the intense rivalry and history of the game. But, if one asked you "who SHOULD win the game" with out a doubt the answer SHOULD be USC. USC is faster, more athletic, better coached and most importantly playing at home.

Keep the Shillelagh!!!!!

P.S. By the way, Charlie "I look like the #8" Weiss, in anticipation of Quinn not winning the Hesiman has begun touting Quinn's NFL draft status as a measure of why he is better then Troy Smith. Pathetic! All of these fricken coaches should stop spending their time campaigning for a BCS game, hesiman trophy winner, playoff system, etc. and concentrate on winning games and graduating players.

They haven't played better because they can't. They only played a tough opponent in Michigan and they lost handidly. They'll get knocked on their butts Saturday. Don't expect a close game.

IS this the same coach you interviewed earlier in the year who was derogitory towards USC?

ND has played no one, the game is at USC, and SC is playing tough teams and beating them convincingly. That's why SC is favored. Putting up yardage against teams that are in the bottom half of the division in defense tends to make your numbers look good.

Scott, your articles are always laced with an anti-SC slant that gets really annoying.

Senior starters? aka Willingham recruits. We're really nervous.