Last Call - Oregon Edition

This weekend's homecoming opponent (Oregon State) will be clad in orange and black, but last week's loss gets our Halloween theme ...

USC Obituaries

• CBS's Dennis Dodd penned, "In lieu of flowers, loved ones suggest you send Holiday Bowl ticket orders."
• The Sporting News' Matt Hayes pronounced, "I come not to praise Oregon ... but to bury the Trojans." Sorry, Matt. You're not the first one to say that this season.
• Some Farkers think USC is headed for the depths of ... scratch that, it froze over when they lost to Stanford.

Ouija Board Bowl Projections

There's a surprising amount of BCS optimism out there for Trojan fans:

• WeAreSC's Jeremy Hogue sees a way for USC to make a BCS Bowl.
• BCS expert Jerry Palm is reportedly predicting USC in the Fiesta Bowl.
• ESPN's gurus are thinking Rose or Fiesta.
• CBS Sportsline is a little more conservative, going with the Holiday Bowl.

Ghosts of Coaches Past

• A writer in San Jose is noticing the Norm Chow impact.
• Crazy Trojan Musings agrees about Chow.
• SC Playbook's Clay De Leon misses Ed Orgeron.
• If you miss Coach O, read this semi-intelligible, R-rated parody of "A Day in the Life."
• There were a lot of Trojans involved when former coaches Chow and Lane Kiffin faced off this weekend in the NFL. Chow's Tennessee Titans won on the shoulders of LenDale White's career game. Mike Williams of Kiffin's Oakland Raiders dropped the final pass of the game. Later, Williams was cut by Kiffin.

Other Sightings

• The wildest action in Autzen on Saturday may have been in the press box.
• The Ducks' sound bites are sounding a lot like the Trojans' used to. From the second paragraph of an AP recap: "Rose Bowl, national championship. You can't look ahead though ... we gotta take it game by game, which is what we've been doing. We got ASU this week. Our goal is always to win the Pac-10, and we're on the road for that."
• Even the Old Gray Lady had a writer covering U.S.C. and Oregon.
• USCFootball.com's Jonathan Kay doesn't buy the turnover excuse.
• Oregon's win really complicated this weekend's TV schedule.

Irish News Not Dead Yet (Right, Digger?)

• USC-Notre Dame has been the hottest rivalry ticket of the year -- for now. USC-UCLA is fourth. That's about consistent with last year.
• Remember when Pete Carroll contested a call in South Bend? He was right.
• Slate isn't exactly known for its sports coverage, but it sure recognizes a coaching fraud when it sees it.