A false positive on the NORAD radar screens — some sort of “electronic gremlins,” according to a spokesman — caused a brief evacuation of the White House this morning.

SpaceWeather.com reports that last night’s Leonid meteor shower… sucked. “In most places, people saw fewer than 10 meteors per hour–much less than predicted,” they say. But oddly, Becky and I saw more than that from our vantage point outside her parents’ house 40 miles east of Phoenix — and the shower was expected to be weakest in the Southwest. Eh, who knew? For us, the Leonids were quite nice!

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This weekend’s — or rather, this week’s — set of college football games affecting USC actually begins tomorrow night with TCU against Southern Miss, so I figured I’d better post my viewer guide now. Here goes:

Trojan fans’ rooting task this week is a bit more complicated than last week. Of course, we need to root for USC and against Ohio State; no surprise there. And, again, we need to root for USC’s previous opponents and opponents’ opponents, and against Ohio State’s previous opponents and opponents’ opponents. We also need to root for LSU… unless of course Ohio State loses, in which case we need to root against LSU. (Got that?) And regardless of what Ohio State does, we need to root against LSU’s previous opponents and opponents’ opponents, because while we like the Tigers as a human-poll buffer against the Buckeyes, we don’t like them as a computer-poll competitor against the Trojans! Finally, we need to root for Washington State, and for their previous opponents and opponents’ opponents, and against the teams who are ahead of them in the BCS standings, namely Georgia, Tennessee, and TCU. (Texas is also ahead of Wazzu, but doesn’t play this week. Michigan is ahead of the Cougars, too — but God knows we don’t want to root against Michigan. We love Michigan!)

First and foremost, of course, USC needs to beat UCLA, or none of this matters. Beyond that, the bottom line is this: if Ohio State beats Michigan and either Washington State or LSU loses, it’s all over; we ain’t going to the Sugar Bowl. (Well, barring unforseen computer-poll anomalies and/or Oklahoma losses.) If Ohio State beats Michigan, but both WSU and LSU win, it could be very close between the Trojans and Buckeyes — it would probably come down to strength of schedule (hence all the opponents and opponents’ opponents crap). If Ohio State loses to Michigan, USC is probably going to the Sugar Bowl if we win out, but we could still use a bit of help to fend off LSU (which would then become our chief BCS competitor), so it’s still well worth rooting for WSU and our strength-of-schedule helpers. Finally, if Ohio State and LSU both lose, SUGAR BOWL HERE WE COME!!! (That is, again, if we beat UCLA… and Oregon State in two weeks.)

So, here we go… the definitive Trojan fan’s viewing guide for this week’s games! All times Eastern; all games on Saturday unless noted; all rankings based on Rich Tellshow’s extended BCS; Trojan fans root for the boldfaced teams. (UPDATE: Here’s a list of televised games. I have also added this information below.)

THE REALLY BIG GAMES:

#2 Ohio State at #9 Michigan, 12:00 PM Eastern (ABC)
The Trojans’ Sugar Bowl hopes probably hinge on this one game (well, and on the Trojans’ last two games, of course). So whatever you think of the Wolverines, put that to one side for about three hours, and root like hell for Michigan — or, if you prefer to think of it this way, just root like hell against Ohio State. Just LOSE, dammit, Ohio State, LOSE!!! (Unless, of course, you think USC has absolutely no chance against Oklahoma, or you’d rather root for some crazy hair-brained BCS scenario than root for your own team to win the national title… in which case, go ahead, root for Ohio State, weirdo. :) Otherwise… f**k the Bucks!

#49 UCLA at #3 USC, 3:30 PM Eastern, (ABC - regional)
It goes without saying (but I’m gonna say it anyway) that regardless of scenarios, standings and statistics, we need to root like hell for the Trojans against the Bruins. If we lose this game, not only do we fall out of the national championship picture, we probably fall out of the Pac-10 championship picture. Forget that — we’re not even the champions of Los Angeles if we lose this game. So obviously, obviously, f**k the Bruins.

THE ONLY-SLIGHTLY-LESS-BIG GAMES:

#4 LSU at #15 Ole Miss, 3:30 PM Eastern (CBS)
LSU is boldfaced on the pessimistic assumption that Ohio State will beat Michigan (probably in quadruple-overtime when the Wolverines miss a short field goal, drop a potential winning touchdown pass and/or get screwed by a bogus pass interference call). If Ohio State does indeed win, then LSU must win this game (and their other two remaining games, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it) in order for USC to stay alive for the Sugar Bowl. But on the other hand, if Michigan beats Ohio State, then the boldface here should be switched, and we should root for Ole Miss!! (However, whereas this would be a LSU-must-win situation if Ohio State wins, an Ole Miss win would not necessarily be a “must” if Ohio State loses; it would just be nice.)

#10 Washington State at #66 Washington, 6:30 PM Eastern (Fox Sports Net)
Barring an unlikely tidal wave of late computer shenanigans in USC’s favor, this game is a WSU-must-win game for the Trojans to maintain any hope of the reaching Sugar Bowl if Ohio State beats Michigan. Even if Michigan wins, this game is still very important, because we might need those quality-win points against LSU. So, root especially hard for Washington State if Ohio State wins, but root for them regardless. Well… unless, heaven forbid, USC loses to UCLA. In that case, although our Sugar Bowl hopes would be long gone, a Wazzu loss would keep our Rose Bowl hopes alive, so we’d need to cheer for Washington. So, switch the boldface on this one if the Trojans lose. But let’s all really hope it doesn’t come to that. (NOTE: I originally said this game was at 3:30 PM, but I was mistaken. It’s at 6:30 Eastern.)

THE WE-LOVE-YOU-WAZZU GAMES:

#8 TCU at #36 Southern Miss, 7:30 PM Thursday (ESPN)
Great fan of the mid-majors that I am, it pains me to root against the Horned Frogs, but having chastised Andrew for being unable to put aside his hatred of Michigan for USC’s sake, I will certainly do my part here. :) A TCU loss is our best chance this week for Wazzu to move up a notch in the BCS.

#91 Kentucky at #6 Georgia, 12:30 PM
In addition to boosting Wazzu, this result would also hurt LSU’s strength-of-schedule rating, so it’s listed below as well. Alas, listing it twice doesn’t make it any more likely.

#97 Vanderbilt at #7 Tennessee, 1:00 PM
So what if Vandy is 2-9, with one of those wins coming last week against the above-mentioned football “powerhouse,” Kentucky? This is Rivalry Week — anything’s possible, right?

THE “FLY, PIGS, FLY!” GAME:

#1 Oklahoma at #38 Texas Tech, 3:30 PM (ABC - regional)
Pretty much all of my analysis about USC’s Sugar Bowl chances vs. Ohio State is based on the assumption that Oklahoma wins out. This seems a rather plausible assumption, given the way undefeated OU has been playing. But if the Sooners were to lose a game, even though they’d probably still be in line for the title game, their loss would give the human pollsters opportunity the drop them below USC — but perhaps keep them ahead of Ohio State, which would be extremely helpful. And at least Texas Tech (7-4) has a better chance of pulling it off than Baylor ever did (apologies, Chris). It’s still very unlikely, but like I said, this is Rivalry Week, so who knows? (UPDATE: A guest on Rich Tellshow’s message boards isn’t sure who we should root for in this game, because he fears an Oklahoma loss might hurt us in the computer polls without helping us in the human polls. He might be right, but my hunch says he’s not, so I’ll still root for Tech. But you can decide for yourself.).

THE ENEMY-OF-MY-ENEMY GAMES:
(The statistical importance of these games varies, but all of them potentially impact our strength of schedule and/or computer rankings to some degree. If you want details, go to Rich Tellshow’s key opponents page.)

#23 Boise State at #48 Fresno State, 9:00 PM Friday (ESPN2)
#29 West Virginia at #56 Syracuse, 12:00 PM (ESPN2)
#53 Northwestern at #101 Illinois, 12:00 PM (Sorry, Adrienne)
#91 Kentucky at #6 Georgia, 12:30 PM (also listed above)
#116 Louisiana-Monroe at #87 Troy State, 12:30 PM (Troy helping Troy!)
#20 Bowling Green at #90 Ball State, 1:00 PM
#25 Pittsburgh at #109 Temple, 1:00 PM
#77 Cincinnati at #46 Memphis, 2:00 PM
#14 Miami of Ohio at #112 Ohio University, 2:30 PM
#24 Utah at #73 BYU, 3:00 PM
#72 Houston at #55 Louisville, 3:00 PM
#18 Iowa at #32 Wisconsin, 3:30 PM (ABC - regional)
#30 Maryland at #35 NC State, 3:30 PM (ABC - regional)
#34 Oregon State at #37 Oregon, 3:30 PM
#50 California at #59 Stanford, 3:30 PM (A chance for Mike to redeem himself :) (UPDATE: The above-mentioned Tellshow guest says we should actually root for Cal, and he may be right. I’m not sure, so I think I’ll just root against the Stanford Band and be neutral regarding the football teams.)
#104 Utah State at #113 Idaho, 5:00 PM (A real power matchup)
#10 Washington State at #66 Washington, 6:30 PM (FSN) (also listed above)
#39 Clemson at #58 South Carolina, 7:00 PM (ESPN2)
#54 Alabama at #40 Auburn, 7:45 PM (ESPN)
#51 Air Force at #78 San Diego State, 9:00 PM
#115 Army at #69 Hawaii, 11:05 PM
#60 North Texas at #108 New Mexico State, 7:00 PM Tuesday (ESPN)

So there you have it: everything you need to know about this week’s games. So c’mon, fellow male Trojan fans: print out this post, plop yourself in front of a TV on Saturday morning, and then, with the BrendanLoy.com viewer’s guide by your side, ignore the woman in your life (if any) for the next 12 hours. It’s RIVALRY WEEK!!! :)

(NOTE: Somebody e-mailed me about the above line, saying it was offensive toward women. It’s a joke, people! I don’t actually advocate ignoring the women in your life, nor am I seriously implying that all college football fans are men. If I was being genuinely sexist, I’d be in big trouble, since Becky — my girlfriend, for the uninitiated — is one of my most frequent visitors! There, now that caveat surely ruined the joke altogether… the humorless political-correctness police win again. :)

(ADDITIONAL NOTE: I just wanted to add, for future reference, that the smiley face emoticon, used in the original “offensive” paragraph and also in the “NOTE” above, generally suggests that some sort of humor, or at least alleged & intended humor, is taking place. You can translate “:)” as “just kidding” or “hee hee” or whatever you like. Just keep in mind, it usually suggests that you shouldn’t take what I’m saying too seriously. For example, I would not generally say, “Saddam Hussein is a homicidal madman. :)” But I might very well say, “Dane is such a communist. :)” You see the difference? Okay, good.)

Say it with me now…

S-O-U-T-H-E-R-N!
C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A!
Southern!
Cali-foooorrrrrr-NIA!

GO TROJANS!!!!

After yesterday’s day off due to the Leonids and the Lord of the Rings, BrendanLoy.com’s tribute to Michigan returns with a vengeance — a double tribute covering both day 3 and day 4. :)

Today’s Michigan statistics: The gross state product (GSP) of Michigan is $263.3 billion, and its per capita income is $24,998.

Today’s Michigan symbols: The state bird of Michigan is the robin. The state tree is the white pine.

Today’s fabulous facts about Michigan: The first people in the nation to receive assigned phone numbers lived in Detroit, Michigan in 1879. Grand Haven, Michigan has “singing sand”; the sand particles make a whistling sound as you walk on the beach.

Today’s famous Michiganians: Magic Johnson is from Lansing, Michigan; Sugar Ray Robinson is from Detroit.

Today’s pretty Michigan pictures:

The evening sky over Lake Michigan.

Geese at Grand Marais, Michigan.

Today’s great moments in Michigan-Ohio State football history:
In 1926, Michigan defeated OSU, 17-16, on a missed field goal at the last second. Here is how the Michigan Alumnus Magazine summed it up: “Driven by the toe of a scarlet-jerseyed Ohio halfback, a football rose from the turn of the vast Columbus stadium, wobbled uncertainly through the air while a crowd of more than 90,000 people forgot to breathe, then passed squarely between the uprights of the Michigan goal, but a full two feet below the crossbar – and by just the measure of that small tragedy, Michigan had beaten Ohio 17 to 16 in the epic and unforgettable battle of November 13.”
Sixty years later, in 1986, the Wolverines won, 26-24, in very similar fashion: “Ohio State kicker Matt Frantz may have missed the game-winning field goal with a minute left yesterday, but to the Big Ten champions Michigan Wolverines, the kick was good, very good. It gave Bo Schembechler and his boys a clutch 26-24 victory over the vaunted Buckeyes and trip to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. to meet Arizona State.”

Today’s Michigan jokes of the day:
“Q: What do you get when a OSU fan walks across the road?
A: Road kill.”
“Q: Did you hear about the Buckeye shooting craps?
A: He shot a hole in his toilet.”

Well there you go. I will probably skip the tribute to Michigan again tomorrow, because I’m going to see The Mikado in the evening with Becky and her parents, but stay tuned for another double-tribute on Friday. And then on Saturday, get ready for an extra-special game-day tribute!

Gooooo Wolverines! Gooooo Trojans! F**k the Bucks and f**k the Bruins! :)