I’ll be leaving for the airport via SuperShuttle in about an hour. I’ve finished packing (except last-minute stuff like toothpaste, cameras, and my computer) and I just emptied Becky’s refrigerator for the long winter break. Next: washing the dishes. :) Then I just gotta unplug the appliances and I’ll be outta here. Weather permitting, I should be back in Connecticut in about 13 hours.

Anyway, I leave you with this picture of beautiful downtown L.A. at Christmastime, taken earlier this evening from Parking Structure D on campus:

(I also took a lighter, wider shot of the same view.)

P.S. Here’s my flight info: Delta Airlines flight #548, Los Angeles to Cincinatti, 11:15 PM to 6:18 AM. Delta Airlines flight #330, Cincinatti to Hartford, 7:00 AM to 8:51 AM.

From America Online’s welcome screen this morning:

Thank goodness sensationalistic journalism is a thing of the past! :)

As if the possible New York City transit strike wasn’t enough to stress me out, now I’m apparently going to greeted by an ice storm when my plane attempts to arrive at Bradley on Thursday morning. Lovely.

In an unrelated story, ESPN has USC winning the national championship in its fantasy college-football playoff. If only. Meanwhile, the race for the Heisman seems to be down to Willis McGahee, Carson Palmer, and Brad Banks, or at least that’s the conventional wisdom as far as I can tell. I’m predicting Banks by a hair, but obviously I’m rooting like hell for Carson. I’ll actually be in Manhattan on Saturday, when the awards are handed out, though whether I’ll be anywhere near the Yale Club remains to be seen.

In other sports news, the UConn men’s basketball team scored nine points in the first half against UMass on Tuesday, but managed to rally for a 59-48 win. Hey, wasn’t that the final score of the Miami-Virginia Tech football game on Saturday?

Okay, I have a final in seven hours, so I’d better get back to studying.

Although college football updates and BCS scenarios have virtually transformed my personal homepage into a sports blog over the past two weeks, there actally is other stuff going in my life, too. I figure I’d give everybody a brief update on that now.

In about an hour, I will be on campus to take my second of three final exams, this one for my media-law class. My last exam is tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM, and then I’m done for the semester — sort of. I still have three papers due, at least two of which I will probably end up e-mailing to my professor from home. My winter break won’t really begin until around Dec. 17, when I leave all my worries, cares, and stressors behind, and head to Hawaii for a week-and-a-half vacation with Becky and her family.

Ah yes, Hawaii. It will be my 47th state, and the furthest west I’ve ever traveled. It will also be the first time I’ve ever been away from my parents at Christmas, which is sad. But the vacation will be lots of fun, and our family is sort of “moving” Christmas to New Year’s Day. We’ll open our gifts and do all our traditional things then. In the mean time, in order to facilitate the Hawaii trip but still go to my mom’s thesis art show (which opens Monday) and still spend a decent amount of my break at home, I’m flying more than 15,000 miles over the next month and a day. Tomorrow begins the odyssey. Here is a map of my flights:

My itinerary for the next week or so goes a little something like this:

Wednesday: Final exam, 8-10 AM; Finish a paper or two and pack for home; Leave on SuperShuttle at 9 PM; Fly out of L.A. at 11:30 PM.
Thursday: Arrive in Connecticut in the morning; Continue working on papers; Go see the new Bond movie with Jen.
Friday: Continue working on papers (hopefully finish everything!); Go see the new Star Trek movie with Sean.
Saturday: Drive/ride down to New York City with my mom; Help her set up her thesis show; Watch the Heisman ceremony at 8 PM.
Sunday: Go see a Yiddish theatre production with my mom; Continue helper her set up; Take Greyhound back to Connecticut.
Monday: Drive/ride back down to New York City with Jen; Go see my mom’s show.
Tuesday: Get a ride back to Connecticut, and to Bradley Airport; Fly to Phoenix.
Wednesday: Go see The Two Towers!!!
Thursday: Depart for Hawaii!!!

The USC Trojans may have the Oklahoma State Cowboys to thank for their bid to the Orange Bowl — indeed, for their inclusion in any BCS bowl.

Why? Think back to the last two weekends of game action. USC had only one game during that time (the little scrimmage where we crushed Notre Dame, 44-13), but there were seven other major games in which Trojan fans were hoping for upsets: Miami vs. Syracuse, Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State, Miami vs. Virginia Tech, Washington State vs. UCLA, Georgia vs. Arkansas, and Oklahoma vs. Colorado. Only the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game turned out the way we wanted it to — the Cowboys won, 38-28 — but that one upset proved to be enough.

If the Sooners had beaten the Cowboys, and had gone on to defeat Colorado as they did on Saturday, they would have been ranked #3 in the final BCS standings, bumping the Trojans out of the BCS “guarantee zone.” In fact, USC — which, in reality, finished #4 — very likely would have fallen all the way back to #6 because, BCS math being what it is, a higher-ranked Oklahoma probably would have allowed Iowa to stay ahead of the Trojans.

Now, imagine if USC had finished #6, and everything else had stayed the same. Would the Orange Bowl, with its first pick, have chosen the #6 Trojans? I doubt it. They might have picked Iowa and Oklahoma (the Sooners would have been a much more attractive team under those circumstances, 12-1 instead of 11-2 and #3 instead of #7), or perhaps Oklahoma and Notre Dame. Or they might have picked Iowa and Notre Dame, or Iowa and Kansas State. Under any of those scenarios except the first one, USC definitely would have been locked out of the BCS altogether, and even with an Iowa-Oklahoma Orange Bowl, there’s no guarantee the Trojans would have landed anywhere other than the Holiday Bowl. (Had the Orange Bowl taken the Hawkeyes and Sooners, the Rose Bowl would have been forced, if it wanted to keep the Trojans in the BCS, to choose between a Washington State-USC matchup and a Washington State-Florida State matchup, neither of which would have been terribly attractive. Can you say Washington State-Notre Dame?)

So, in conclusion, Trojan fans should thank their lucky stars the Cowboys beat the Sooners.

Here, by the way, are the final BCS standings. And here’s an article about Iowa QB Brad Banks’s narrow win over Carson Palmer for Associated Press Player of the Year. Imagine how heated the USC-Iowa game will be if they finish #1 and #2 (in either order) in the Heisman balloting, too!

Oh yeah, and UCLA coach Bob Toledo got canned today.

UPDATE, 5:44 PM: Major kudos to West Virginia’s coach for griping loudly about Notre Dame’s unfair special status. He’s right; the Irish shouldn’t just be assumed to be as good as the #2 team in a major conference when they haven’t proven it. Their record against the Big East was 2-1, and one of the two wins was against Rutgers. Truth be told, Notre Dame proved very little this year — they lost to Boston College, for goodness’ sake, and got squashed by the only Top Ten team they faced (that would be us). Their only real quality wins were against Michigan and Florida State, both of which are good but not great teams. Yet if it weren’t for Washington State’s win over UCLA, that probably would have been enough to get them into the BCS. And even as things stand now, they’re bumping quality teams to “earn” a quality bowl berth. Not fair, people. Simply not fair.

So let’s get real: college football needs to reform itself from top to bottom. Postseason honors should never be doled out based on money, reputation, or attendance figures. NEVER. It’s wrong, and it’s disgusting, and it’s antithetical to the very idea of athletic competition. This situation, and a couple of other bowl fiascos around the country, prove that the problems go beyond simply the BCS. The sport’s ruling weasels need to put their heads together and come up with a better system, because the one they have now just isn’t working.

Speaking of which, let’s get one thing straight. The fact that two undefeated teams are playing for the national championship this year does NOT vindicate the BCS system. It vindicates the idea of staging a #1 vs. #2 matchup regardless of conference tie-ins, yes. But it does not vindicate the BCS computer formula, or the BCS politicking, or any of the rest of it. The fact is, a selection committee made up of monkeys and chimpanzees could successfully pick a championship game when two teams go undefeated. This isn’t rocket science. So enough with the BCasS-kissing, please. College football still needs a playoff. (You know why? Because USC could beat Miami and Ohio State if we had the chance. That’s why.)

In a basketball game that apparently had all the appeal of a Gray Davis-Bill Simon campaign, the USC Women of Troy out-sucked the UConn Huskies on Sunday, shooting 18 percent from the field en route to a 68-44 loss to the defending national champs at the Hartford Civic Center.

Said UConn coach Geno Auriemma, referring to his own team’s performance in a game where the Huskies gave up 30 turnovers: “That was the most god-awful exhibition of basketball I have ever witnessed.” And yet USC still managed to lose by 24 points. How? Well, there was that little 18 percent thing — the lowest shooting percentage in school history. And then there was, um, lack of effort? “None of us were really in the game, me personally in the first half,” said USC star Ebony Hoffman. “We all could have played a lot harder.” So much for the notion that everybody puts on their “A” game when facing the team with the bullseye on its back. Sheesh.

It should be noted that I’m basing all of this on news accounts, since I couldn’t watch the game in person or on TV. Which reminds me of the really frustrating thing about it: USC played UConn today in Connecticut, and then next weekend they play Tennessee in Los Angeles. If those two games were reversed on the schedule, I could have gone to both. But as it is, I can’t go to either one. I was Los Angeles today; next weekend, I’ll be in Connecticut. D’oh!

Get ready for Rose Bowl East. The Orange Bowl will pair Pac-10 co-champion USC and Big Ten co-champion Iowa on January 2 at 8:00 PM Eastern time (5:00 PM Pacific time) in Miami.

Presumably, this means Florida State will play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, and Washington State will play Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl.

UPDATE, 1:07 PM: Yup. The bowl lineup is set, and it goes like this:
Rose Bowl: #7 Washington State vs. #8 Oklahoma, Jan. 1, 1:30 PM PDT
Sugar Bowl: #4 Georgia vs. #16 Florida State, Jan. 1, 5:30 PM PDT
Orange Bowl: #3 Iowa vs. #5 USC, Jan. 2, 5:00 PM PDT
Fiesta Bowl: #1 Miami vs. #2 Ohio State, Jan. 3, 5:00 PM PDT

Although it’s too bad the game has to take place on the East Coast instead of the West Coast, USC vs. Iowa should be a great game — especially if either Carson Palmer (the Trojan quarterback) or Brad Banks (the Hawkeye QB) wins the Heisman Trophy, in which case the game will be a chance for the loser to try and prove that he is the rightful winner.

So, what does USC need to happen in order for the Trojans to finish #2 in the final polls, after all the bowls are over? Well, first we need Florida State to beat Georgia, which will raise us to at least #4. Then we need to beat Iowa, obviously — preferably by an impressive margin. That’ll vault us over the Hawkeyes, and put us at least #3. Finally, we need Miami to blow out Ohio State (or vice versa, but that’s less likely), winning by a big enough margin to suggest to the voters that we are the better team.

One more item of note: Whatever the Associated Press might say, Notre Dame is not “the biggest loser” in today’s BCS announcement. That title would go to Kansas State, which got left out of the BCS despite having a poll better ranking than Washington State, Oklahoma, and Florida State (all of which got automatic bids because they are conference champs). The Wildcats, one of the nation’s most dangerous teams, actually have reason to be disappointed — and to wish there was a playoff instead of a BCS system. The Irish don’t; they had their chance to play themselves into the BCS, and instead played themselves out of it, getting routed by USC. If there was a playoff, Notre Dame would lose in the first round. The Irish didn’t deserve a bid, not if there were 9 or 10 spots in the BCS. It would have been an injustice if they had gotten one — over USC, Iowa, Kansas State or Texas — and thank goodness they didn’t. I do feel bad for Kansas State, though. There but for the grace of the New York Times computer poll go I.

UPDATE, 11:42 PM: My friend Dane rightly points out that I should be eating my words about this. Just yesterday, I boldly said the following:

Dane concludes: “I love hindsight, don’t you?” Yup.

CBS SportsLine says it could happen. We’ll find out in a few minutes.

Partygoers chat after the official lighting at Brendan’s Festival of Lights, my annual Christmas season kickoff ceremony, on Dec. 2 in Becky’s apartment. Click here for more pictures. (Coming soon: videos!)

Above, the Moon is joined by Venus and Mars in a beautiful celestial triangle during Thanksgiving weekend. Below, a yummy turkey awaits its demise at Thankgiving dinner at Becky’s parents’ house in Arizona. Click here for more Thanksgiving photos!

Enough about football. The USC women’s volleyball team, ranked #1 in the country and seeded #1 in the NCAA Tournament, advanced to the Sweet Sixteen with a dominating 3-0 sweep of Texas A&M. The Women of Troy’s next opponent will be the winner of tomorrow’s showdown between Michigan State and Notre Dame. The date, time, and location for the Sweet 16 are TBA. Click here for the latest tournament scores and schedules.

Things didn’t go so well for the USC men’s basketball team, which blew an 11-point second-half lead and lost, 78-72, to #15 Missouri in the John Wooden Classic. The Trojans fell to 2-3 on the season, having also lost to Rhode Island and UC-Santa Barbara. Looks like the post-Sam Clancy, post-Brandon Granville Trojans may be in for a tough season.

The USC women’s basketball team, meanwhile, faces a huge test tomorrow when they travel to Hartford, Connecticut, to take on defending national champion and perennial superpower UConn, presently 5-0 and ranked #5 in the country, at 11:00 AM Pacific time in the Hartford Civic Center. I only wish I was already home so I could go to the game. I almost always root for my home-state Huskies, but not this time. Go Women of Troy!!!

Okay, back to football now. Georgia crushed Arkansas, 30-3, and Oklahoma blew out Colorado, 29-7. So they both head into the BCS. The official bowl pairings will be announced tomorrow at 12:30 PM Pacific time, so the time for scenarios is almost over. Here are my final bowl predictions:
Fiesta: Miami vs. Ohio State
Orange: Iowa vs. Florida State
Rose: Washington State vs. Oklahoma
Sugar: USC vs. Georgia

Andrew thinks the Orange Bowl will take Oklahoma instead of Iowa, leaving the Hawkeyes to play the Cougars in the Rose Bowl and preserve the Big 10-Pac 10 tradition. I think he’s deluding himself. If ABC was making the choice, maybe; if the Rose Bowl was making the choice, definitely. But the Orange Bowl is making the choice, and I think they believe Iowa is the team most likely to fill their stadium with fans — which, in the end, is all they care about. We’ll find out who’s right tomorrow. (Incidentally, I hope Andrew is right. Washington State would have a much better chance of beating Iowa than Florida State would, and somebody needs to beat Iowa if USC is going to have a chance to rise to #2 in the final poll rankings.)

(Quote of the day: “I’d like to play Iowa,” said Washington State Coach Mike Price, “because it would be wheat farmers against corn farmers. I’m a traditionalist.”)

Oh, and hey, check out these photos of USC students rooting for UCLA at the Rose Bowl today!

In other news, Democrat Mary Landrieu defeated Republican Suzanne Terrell in Louisiana’s U.S. Senate runoff, the final election of the 2002 midterm season. A Terrell victory over the incumbent Landrieu would have given the GOP a 52-48 Senate majority, but instead they must settle for thin 51-49. No word yet on whether Terrell will receive an at-large bid to the Sugar Bowl.

At volleyball game. USC leads 2 games to 0 and 14-8 in third game. In football, Oklahoma won.

Well, it’s not official yet, but USC will very likely play in the Nokia Sugar Bowl on January 1, 2003 in New Orleans. Our probable opponent: Georgia, which is kicking Arkansas’s butt at halftime, 23-0.

Now that Washington State has beaten UCLA 48-27, the Cougars are officially Rose Bowl-bound. The Trojans are Pac-10 co-champions along with the Cougars, but we lose the head-to-head tiebreaker because they beat us in October. So they get the Rose Bowl and we settle for an at-large BCS bid.

But there is still a slight chance we could end up the Rose Bowl. How? Read on.

The BCS bowl picture should play out like this. Miami and Ohio State will play in the Fiesta Bowl. Florida State will (almost certainly) make up one half of the Orange Bowl; Washington State will make up one half of the Rose Bowl; Georgia will (assuming it holds on and beats Arkansas) make up one half of the Sugar Bowl. That leaves three open spots — one each in Orange, Rose and Sugar.

The Orange Bowl, having lost top-ranked Miami to the Fiesta Bowl, will get first pick. The Rose Bowl, having lost #2-ranked Ohio State to the Fiesta, picks second. But its decision will depend on what the Orange Bowl did. The Orange Bowl has several options.

If the Orange Bowl takes tonight’s Colorado-Oklahoma winner: The Rose Bowl would clearly take Iowa, its first choice, setting up a Washington State-Iowa battle in Pasadena and sending the Trojans, who are guaranteed a spot somewhere because of their Top 4 standing, to the last remaining open BCS bowl, the Sugar Bowl.
If the Orange Bowl takes Iowa: The Rose Bowl would have two options for Washington State’s opponent: USC or Colorado/Oklahoma. It’s unlikely the Rose Bowl would set up a rematch of the conference game between USC and Washington State — but it’s not totally inconceivable. If the Rose Bowl picks USC, the Trojans will head to Pasadena to try and avenge their loss to the Cougars. If the Rose Bowl picks Colorado/Oklahoma, USC will head to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl — again, because it would be the last remaining open BCS bowl.
If the Orange Bowl takes Notre Dame or Kansas State (or some other at-large team): All hell would break loose. BCS controversy would engulf the land. Riots would break out in Iowa City. If Notre Dame is the offending team, Iowa residents might organize a citizen’s militia and invade South Bend, violating the neutrality of Illinois along the way. Why? Because Iowa would be screwed out of not only a BCS bowl, but any sort of major bowl whatsoever, thanks to the Big Ten’s premature bowl assignments earlier this week. The Hawkeyes might end up in the Seattle Bowl, of all places. But for the Trojans, the situation would be the same as the scenario above. The Rose Bowl would be left to choose between USC and Colorado/Oklahoma, meaning the Trojans head to either Pasadena or New Orleans, probably the latter.
If the Orange Bowl takes USC: This simply ain’t going to happen. Orange Bowl officials have made it abundantly clear that they don’t think the Trojans travel well enough to fill their stadium. But if they took USC anyway — which, to reiterate, they won’t — the Rose Bowl would take Iowa, and the Sugar Bowl would be Georgia vs. Oklahoma/Colorado.

The official BCS bowl announcement is tomorrow at 12:30 PM Pacific time.

Georgia didn’t manage to score the touchdown in the red zone. Still, 17-0 with 4:34 to go in the first quarter ain’t bad.

Meanwhile, back in the Pac-10, a great quote from ABC’s announcer: “(UCLA coach) Bob Toledo is saying, ‘What the heck? Nothing to lose — except, maybe, my job — so let’s go for it on fourth down.’”

UCLA defensive player Ricky Manning — a high-school classmate of my freshman-year dorm-mates Jenny and Dara — just blocked a Washington State field goal attempt, keeping the score 31-21 Cougars.

Meanwhile, less than ten minutes into the game, Georgia is already blowing out Arkansas, 14-0, and they’re about to go ahead 21-0. Looks like the Bulldogs are Sugar Bowl-bound.