Pete Carroll isn’t talking about the ongoing speculation concerning his possible return to the NFL with either the Atlanta Falcons or the Washington Redskins. But the Associated Press asserts that the Falcons’ hiring of Tom Dimitroff as general manager last weekend "likely will end [owner Arthur] Blank’s possible interest in Southern Cal coach Pete
Carroll. Carroll has said he would have interest in an NFL job only if
given the authority in personnel decisions."

Meanwhile, USC linebakers coach Ken Norton will remain at Troy instead of defecting to his alma mater, UCLA, which had tried to woo him across town. "I’m flattered," he said of the Bruins’ interest. "They’ll always be a team in my heart . I feel real good about Rick Neuheisel and what he’s going to
do there. … The
timing just wasn’t right. I’m really appreciative of what Pete Carroll
has done for me over here, and my business is not finished."

"Irish Bruin" Mike Tran — he of the stylish car with the gorgeous flag — is eager to redeem himself after going 0-3 against me in football this past fall (ND 20, UCLA 6; USC 38, ND 0; USC 24, UCLA 7). Luckily for Mike, basketball season has arrived. With his Bruins ranked #4 and my Trojans unranked, Mike sees an opportunity to win his first bet against me since The Game Which Must Not Be Named led to this fashion atrocity and this pack of lies. So he’s been harassing me to come up with a basketball bet before USC visits UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday.

Because individual regular-season basketball games aren’t nearly as important as individual regular-season football games, and because the teams will play each other at least twice and possibly three times (maybe even four, in the unlikely event they meet in the NCAA Tournament), I wanted to bet on the season series, not the individual games. But Mike said he’s not patient enough to wait all those weeks for what he seems to view as an inevitable victory. So we compromised and made a pair of small, relatively low-stakes bets on the individual games, plus a much higher-stakes bet on the season series.

Full details are published after the jump, but the basic gist is this: each individual regular-season game will cause either Mike or I to profess our man-crushes on O.J. Mayo and Kevin Love, respectively, for the following 24 hours. Also, if I lose, my blog’s subtitle will change to "Mike Tran owns me," and if he loses, his Facebook profile will change similarly. As for the season series: if USC wins it, either 2-0 or 2-1 counting the Pac-10 tournament (any potential NCAA Tournament matchup doesn’t count), you’ll be seeing — repeatedly, throughout March and early April — a lovely photo of Mike wearing a USC shirt and doing the victory sign in front of Tommy Trojan. On the other hand, if UCLA wins the season series, the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool will be renamed "the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool, presented by the UCLA Bruins," and I’ll have to say that in every pool update on the blog, and in the official logo to boot.

Full bet terms after the jump.

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Finally, a Pac-10 win!

Now, let’s upset the Bruins at Pauley next Saturday and we’ll be back on track…

After a promising non-conference start featuring two close losses to Top 5 teams, followed by a disappointing 0-2 road trip to open the Pac-10 season, USC (9-5) hosts #4-ranked Washington State (13-0) tonight at 11:00 PM EST at the Galen Center. Wazzu is one of Division I’s five remaining unbeatens, along with #1 North Carolina, #2 Memphis, #3 Kansas and #13 Vanderbilt. (USC’s aforementioned "close losses" were against Memphis and Kansas.)

An undefeated team went down yesterday on the road when Tennessee beat Ole Miss in both teams’ SEC openers. Can USC channel the Vols and knock off the Cougars tonight? It would certainly be nice to avoid an 0-3 start in the brutal Pac-10. Fight on!

UPDATE: Wazzu won easily, 73-58. Up next for the Cougars, a huge showdown at Pauley Pavilion against #5 UCLA. USC, meanwhile, hosts Washington on Saturday, in what is pretty close to being a "must-win" game, despite how early in the season it is. You don’t want to fall to 0-4 in conference — with losses to two of the weaker Pac-10 teams, Cal and UW — if you fancy yourself an NCAA contender.

It’s January, which means it’s Pete-Carroll-to-the-NFL rumor season. This time, though, it sounds like there may actually be something to the rumors:

USC coach Pete Carroll is interested in the Atlanta Falcons’ head coach
opening and is expected to speak with Atlanta owner Arthur Blank via
phone Wednesday, sources at the American Football Coaches Convention in
Anaheim told ESPN’s Joe Schad.

Blank is expected to offer full control of personnel decisions to
Carroll and the sources said that is what intrigues Carroll most.

DAMN YOU, BOBBY PETRINO!!!

(Hat tip: BK.)

P.S. Reaction from around the Trojansphere:

Student Body Right: "Let’s face it, at some point the guy will jump back to the NFL, it
seems inevitable, but… Atlanta? Maybe the single worst job in the
league right now? Seems a little nutty, if you ask me."

AOL Fanhouse: "It’s… interesting to speculate why Carroll would leave a gravy job at USC for
a massive rebuilding project in Atlanta."

Conquest Chronicles: "I am a little shocked that the Falcons would even entertain going after
another college coach, regardless of [the coach’s] success, after the whole
Petrino mess. I have said before that I think Pete Carroll will end up
back in the NFL but I’m not sure this is right fit for him. … [But] I think this might the time for him to go. This is an itch he really
wants to scratch and you will only get so many opportunities to make
the move back into the NFL. Don’t get me wrong I want to keep him as
long as we can but we need to be realistic that sooner or later this
will probably happen."

TrojanWire: "Miami, San Diego, San Francisco, Arizona and Houston have all
courted the man, but so far no team has been able to woo him back over.
… [But now Atlanta] is
supposedly offering what Pete wants most: full control of all personnel
decisions for the Falcons. … Pete has been quoted saying he’ll ‘never return’ to
the NFL, but who knows…if the conditions are right, any man has his
price — even Pete."

Scott Wolf: "About two weeks ago, I  spoke to Carroll about the Falcons job and he was not bullish on it or the organization." And later, a quote from the USC sports information department: "There’s nothing going on, no reason to even talk about it." Yeah right — "Nothing going on . . . except an interview with the Atlanta Falcons today," Wolf adds.

If LenDale White gets a first down on that 4th-and-2 against Texas, if John David Booty doesn’t throw an interception with 1:10 left against UCLA, and if Stanford’s Tavita Pritchard doesn’t complete that 4th-and-goal prayer from the 10 (or the 4th-and-20 moments before), USC is celebrating its fifth consecutive national championship right now.

I know: if, if, if. And throw in two more "ifs," because I’m assuming the Trojans would have beaten Ohio State in the title game the last two years, if they’d made it in (though that seems like a pretty reasonable assumption). Still, it’s pretty incredible to contemplate how close ‘SC has come to a dynasty like no other.

Ah well. Next year. BEAT THE CAVALIERS!!

Kyle McAlarney scored a career-high 32 points as Notre Dame beat UConn to improve to 2-0 in the Big East and 12-2 overall. Nice! (Hat tip: JohnMac.)

The news was not as good for USC, which fell to 0-2 in the Pac-10 and 9-5 overall (albeit against a much tougher non-conference schedule than the Irish) with a 52-46 loss to #24 Stanford. The Trojans were ranked #22 before their consecutive road losses to Cal and Stanford, but will undoubtedly fall out of the poll next week. It doesn’t get any easier for ‘SC in the loaded Pac-10, as they host #4 Washington State and a Washington team that almost beat Wazzu yesterday, then travel to Westwood for a showdown with Kevin Love and #5 UCLA.

Gonzaga, meanwhile, finished up its pre-WCC schedule with a 75-67 win in the Battle of the Bulldogs against Georgia.

Loyette and I are watching the Rose Bowl in the hospital (well, she's asleep, but she's sitting on my lap while I watch it, anyway), and so far, we like what we see: the Trojans lead 21-3 at halftime.

UPDATE: USC 49, Illinois 17, final. w00t!

Meanwhile, Georgia and Hawaii are underway in the Sugar Bowl. Thom Brennaman and Charles Davis — the same announcing team that called last year’s Boise State win in the Fiesta Bowl and this year’s Appalachian State upset of Michigan — are calling the game. I sense an upset!

UPDATE 2: Or not. Georgia 24, Hawaii 3 at halftime.

UPDATE 3: Nope, definitely not. Georgia 41, Hawaii 10, final.

Remember how everyone wanted to see USC vs. Georgia instead of putting them in separate bowls? Tonight pretty well demonstrated why, no? It’s not the Rose Bowl’s fault that a Trojans-Bulldogs matchup didn’t happen, but man, it would have been pretty awesome. The BCS sucks.

Although I suddenly find college football considerably less interesting than staring dumbfoundedly into my daughter’s eyes, nevertheless a bunch of bowl games are happening today. And things are going well so far for the hometown team, as Tennessee leads Wisconsin 21-7 near the end of the first half.

Later, of course, it’ll be USC vs. Illinois in the Rose Bowl and Georgia vs. Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. Loyette says, “Fight on Trojans, and Go Warriors!” Okay, actually, Loyette just sort of let out a sleepy squeak, but that’s how I interpret her sentiments. :)

Also about to begin: the Sabres-Penguins outdoor hockey game, with 73,000 crazed Buffalonians packing the Bills’ iced-over football stadium. Kevin at Bfloblog calls it “the biggest sporting event to occur in the City of Buffalo in my lifetime.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, Becky and Loyette are both napping at the moment, and I’m going to try and do the same. I haven’t gotten much sleep in the last 36 hours (something I know will be quite common for the next several weeks/months/decades), and I gotta rest up before the Rose Bowl!

Heh.

That’s USC alum Michael Walsh, a.k.a. lex icon, at left, and UCLA alum Mike Tran at right, looking pretty sanguine under the circumstances.

(This is all because I won a bet, in case you forgot.)

In accordance with the terms of the bet, Tran’s ride will be flag-adorned all day today and tomorrow. So there will be one extra Trojan car driving around the streets of L.A. (or Orange County, whatever) during the Rose Bowl.

Hopefully Mike will manage to contain his self-loathing enough not to drive across the center line or anything. ;)

Here’s another shot of just the car with the flag:

Fight on Trojans, Beat the Illini!!!

There finally appears to be some progress in the negotiations between USC and the L.A. Coliseum Commission… but this part concerns me:

The school…will allow the commission to pay for a stadium overhaul — one that would cost in the neighborhood of $50 million — by allowing the use of USC’s logos in a stadium naming-rights deal.

“In the interest of getting a deal done we have … agreed to allow the commission to do a naming-rights deal and cooperate with the commission to get a single, prime naming-rights sponsor to name the Coliseum and put together a package,” Dickey said. “As long as the money that was raised from that will go toward improving the Coliseum, based on the list of improvements that we feel are necessary and the specific deadlines by which they must be done.”

Does this mean the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is going to become the Office Depot Coliseum of Los Angeles or some such blasphemy? Good lord.

(Suggested corporate sponsor via Boi From Troy, who blogged about this possibility way back in September.)

The shameless blog plugs worked! Julie Moffitt, the former SoCal VoCals phenom, is now a "FameCast Fenom" and winner of a cool $10,000! She won first place in the Internet competition’s Singer/Songwriter category, thanks to a furious rally in the final day of voting. (She was in third place as late as Wednesday evening; the polls closed at noon Thursday.) That rally is probably due mostly to Julie’s own network of fans, but hey, you never know — maybe it was support from the Irish Trojan crowd that pushed her over the top. :)

There’s been no reaction yet on Julie’s blog or her Facebook group — probably because she’s been busy celebrating, and deservedly so — but I’m sure there will be eventually. Anyway, congrats, Julie!! (Hat tip: Mike.)

UPDATE: Julie — who, incidentally, was also named the "Critics’ Choice," as seen in this video — just sent an e-mail to her fans titled "WE DID IT!!!" The full thing is reproduced after the jump, but here’s the money quote:

Whether I had won or not, this has been a life-changing experience.  It’s like the VH1 "Best Week Ever" – I won $10,000, was chosen as an industry favorite in my genre, and I got a puppy!!  I’m really excited for next year – more touring, a new album (HOORAY!) and time to take advantage of all these new industry connections I’ve been making.  :)  My 10-year high school reunion is about a year and a half away…is that enough time to get a Top 10 single on the radio?

Like I said, the whole thing is after the jump.

P.S. By the way, Julie’s 2006 debut album is available on iTunes. And one of its songs has already gotten a positive review in comments on this post!

P.P.S. I say "debut album," but of course, Julie is also prominently featured on the SoCal VoCals’ best album to date IMHO, V3: Previously Unreleased, including in particular Track #12, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," her signature solo.

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The USC Trojans are your 2007-08 college football national champions! Well, sort of.

Former SoCal VoCal Julie Moffitt (previous posts here and here) has risen to the #2 spot in the FameCast Singer-Songwriter Finals, which puts her achingly close to the $10,000 prize — but she still needs your support! In an e-mail to her fans last night, Julie wrote that she "think[s] an extra 15 or 20 votes will put me over the top at this point." The polls close at noon today. So, with apologies for the excessive shilling :) … one last time … vote for Julie!

(You must be registered to vote. Registration is free. One vote is allowed per account per day, so if you voted yesterday, you can vote again today.)

Julie Moffitt, of SoCal VoCals/Total Eclipse of the Heart fame (previous post here), still needs your help! It’s crunch time in the FameCast Singer-Songwriter Finals, and Julie’s in the running for the $10,000 prize… but she needs votes. Lots of votes! The polls close at noon EST tomorrow, so now’s the time to vote for Julie!

(You must be registered to vote. Registration is free. One vote is allowed per account per day.)

Here, by the way, is what Rolling Stone reviewer Gary Graff had to say about Julie’s performances on the linked page:

The smartest thing you do here is give us a real
sense of range with two very different songs played, no less, on two different
instruments. It’s great to hear a piano song, and "Bound to Fail" is an
exceptional song — even though there are things you can, and should, do to it
when it’s recorded, like speeding it up a bit, particularly in the bridge. But
it’s a song that will definitely benefit from a full band arrangement, and your
vocal here is well nuanced, mixing pathos and playfulness. "Oh Hell" is a lot of
fun and lets you sing in a completely different way — and show some
instrumental chops, too, since it’s hard to do those barre chords on a 12-string
acoustic. You are ready for prime time, so let’s hope others cotton on to that
real soon.

Also, she has a new puppy. Which means she needs that $10,000 for dog food. So get out the vote already! :)