For over two years now, a cloud has hung over USC's head through the stalemate of the NCAA's investigation into allegations that former star tailback and Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush accepted cash and gifts against NCAA rules. Obviously some sort of punishment against USC would be leveled if the NCAA found truth in the allegations.

Future unrest is usually trouble on the recruiting trail, just ask Penn State how much it has to answer to endless talk of Joe Paterno's retirement or dismissal. In spite of that, and of little surprise given Pete Carroll's ability to pitch, USC keeps smoking along on the recruiting trail.

They added Rivals.com's top player, quarterback Matt Barkley, this spring. Since then they've assembled a class of 15 players solid enough to rank second on Rivals.com's initial recruiting rankings and just behind Ohio State which already had 20+ commitments. If form holds it's another top five, maybe even No. 1 class.

Everyone knows USC is going to take some kind of hit from the NCAA, but the way high profile recruits keep arriving sends the message they're not worried about those pending sanctions.

3 ... 2... 1 ... Splat, in a straw cowboy hat. Not sure whether this was a puke-and-rally scene or if Ohio State's star cornerback (formerly pictured at right -- we're working to add the picture again) executed the El Foldo maneuver and called it a night.

Background: Playboy invites players named on its preseason college football All American team to hang out, bond, and, well, party together before the season.

They take group pictures for the magazine, but otherwise have a lot of free time on their hands. Sometimes that free time is spent wearing silly straw cowboy hats. Sometimes it's spent with women you won't be taking home to mother.

... And sometimes its spent refunding your lunch and all the good stuff that had you so cheerful earlier in the evening. Dagnabbit (sorry, straw hat talking there).

More documented fun at the link. Hint: USC's linebackers dwarf James Laurinaitis.

Update: Looks like the thread was pulled with all the images from the event. Hmm. Most of the pictures in the now-escaped thread showed several Ohio State and USC players hanging out together, partying, with women, etc. Standard stuff. And of course the former picture of Jenkins above losing his lunch. You'll have to take our word for it. It was funny. Bent over puke on the sidwalk funny. Darn lawyers.

Like boom boom, world's gonna end crazy talk.

[USC fans] know that [Ohio State is] gonna slaughter the Trojans, and therefore they do not want me there at the bloodbath, since it's probably the last football game we'll ever get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama.

Uh huhhhh. Oh, and the conservative Los Angeles based radio host wants his USC listeners to offer him tickets. Good luck with that.

Crazy as this sounds, I'm actually going to defend Hewitt a bit.

I won't defend the world's-gonna-end part, I'll leave that to our sister site News Bloggers to have fun with, but since we're talking college football here ... let it be known Hewitt is an unabashed Ohio State and Notre Dame (and Michigan) guy. USC naturally gets under his skin. I've listened to his show enough to know that one of his favorite things to do is bash USC. It's his schtick, and he gets particular glee from it considering the greatest chunk of his national audience is in USC-mad Orange County, where he also works as a law professor.

I've seen this act before and taken out of context it sounds crazy, but he truly is just being himself and hoping for a rise out of the USC contingent within his listening audience. As a person holding tickets to that game, I won't be offering Hewitt mine, nor do I think it will be a bloodbath in the Buckeyes' favor. But I am thoroughly amused at his opinion, which is what he was aiming for in the first place.

Now about that world's-gonna-end thing ...

(Via: Get The Picture / EDSBS)

I wish I was joking. His name's David Buehler (Bueller? Bueller?) and he clocks a 4.49 in the 40-yard-dash. That's uhhhhh, really fast. Need proof? Posted below are times from USC's recent end-of-spring combine. Dude can fly.

Buehler came to USC out of a junior college where he was a safety as well as the kicker. Unlike 99.9% of kickers out there he's a legit athlete. Like 100% of all kickers, he's still a kicker, and being an actual football player does little to diminish their standing as football's second class citizens.



I wish there was YouTube of this, but I remember in a game last year probably against Washington State he hilariously ran down a kick returner from behind. You can go a decade and sometimes not see something like that.

In lieu of meaningful video, we'll leave you with Buehler mic'd up at a USC practice.

That traffic in southern California can be absolutely brutal. It's not just that you have to be careful, but you have to always be wary of the other unpredictable drivers that roam the highways and byways. You never know when someone will cut you off. Just ask Pete Carroll.

According to Scott Wolf in the LA Daily News, the rock-star coach was simply minding his own business, cruising through Malibu on the Pacific Coast Highway Tuesday evening, when suddenly:

"I was in the fast lane and the cop came from the slow lane and pulled right in front of me to make a U-turn," Carroll said. "(My car) got hammered."

That's right, a cop. Apparently it was an LA County Sheriff who ruined Carroll's evening. Luckily there were no injuries, and everyone is OK. Carroll even attended a high school football camp the following day. The worst thing to come out of it was Carroll having to remain at the scene for a few hours while everything was wrapped up.

What's a little odd here isn't just a police car ramming Carroll, but according to the article, the Malibu sheriff station was completely unaware of the incident. Wouldn't you think the sheriff station would know if one of their own was involved in totaling Pete Carroll's car?

Context!

CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd wrote an article about USC offensive line coach Pat Ruel, discussing his itinerant career, accomplishments -- and man date with Pete Carroll before accepting the USC job.

Carroll worked all the angles. The two had been assistants together at Arkansas in 1977. USC's coach used picturesque Manhattan Beach to his advantage, taking his recruit to lunch there on a sun-splashed day.

"Pete's like a beautiful woman," Ruel said after taking the job. "The closer you get, you better look out. He is very charismatic. He can smile and make you feel like a million dollars."

I wonder who he thought of when calling Carroll a beautiful woman? Jessica Alba, perhaps? Or Halle Berry? Maybe Angelina Jolie? Maybe Cook's girl, Scarlett Johansson. Or maybe one of my favorites, Diane Lane? The world may never know.

One thing we do know, when your masculinity is set -- see: coaching offensive linemen and ownership of one awesome moustache -- you can safely get away calling your boss a beautiful woman. Just don't do it too often.

Cost of doing business? Is this normal?

Among Oklahoma's remedies to the Rhett Bomar/ J.D. Quinn money-for-nothing-gate situation, the school is banning employers from hiring more than five Sooner athletes at a time.

And this:

Oklahoma also informed the NCAA that it has expanded its full-time compliance staff from three to eight workers and also has two part-time staff members. As a result, the annual compliance budget has grown to $1.2 million.

Unlike Monopoly, Oklahoma's not getting out of jail for free. This action sort of raises the ante towards any kind of "get off our back" costs that will be associated with USC when/if the Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo situations ever get resolved.

Something light on this fine Tuesday mid-day: USC football coach Pete Carroll walking around campus asking staff and students what they know about USC football.

Surprise! Not everyone realizes they're talking to the head coach. No wonder Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo's alleged indiscretions flew under the radar. Regardless, time to boost those Q scores coach.

(H/T: The Wiz)

You know the commercial.

Anyway, while flipping through this week's The Sporting News, there was a blip inside about the boys from Troy:

The NFL already has a team in L.A. It's USC. Seven former Trojans were drafted during the first two rounds. How did USC lose two games last season?

I've been scratching my head the last two years trying to figure that out. It's just one writer but he's expressing something I think a decent number of pundits may eventually be asking about USC if they have another 10-win season with the kind of talent they've amassed while riding on the legacy of the 2003 (yes, that did happen LSU fans) and 2004 title teams.

That curiosity, that sentiment, is but one word: dude.

The larger issue isn't just those two losses, but USC's declining overall body of work. Stanford and the 2006 UCLA loss are disasters unparalleled by anything since Carroll arrived at USC. The Oregon loss was to a good team, but what was USC doing struggling with Washington, Arizona, a tanking California squad, and offensively against UCLA and Oregon State? That's more than half the schedule with an absolutely loaded team.

Same thing in 2006: the aforementioned UCLA loss, a loss to a good Oregon State team (at one point rallying from being down three scores), Arizona, Washington State, Washington and California.

I'm less concerned with them not going undefeated. There's always a little bit of good fortune that goes into that. Regardless, they certainly could play a lot better than they have these last two season, especially given a ridiculous amount of talent on both sides of the ball.

Opinions are like ... well, you know. Here's our smelly take.

WHAT NFL SCOUTS ARE SAYING

Pro Football Weekly's 2008 NFL Draft Guide

Is clearly well-coached, with very sound mechanics. A pure pocket passer with functional arm strength, Booty is a West Coast, rhythm passer who will need to play in an offense that features a lot of short crosses and slants to be effective. Could develop into a solid backup, but would handicap what an offense could do as a starter.

Bonus Moment of Contradiction

Keeps his poise under pressure and does not pull the ball down to run.

Two sentences later:

Shows little awareness for pressure and can be rattled.

PROBABLY GETTING DRAFTED ...

Second day, in the third, fourth or fifth round.

GUY WHO WATCHED HIM FOR FIVE YEARS IS SAYING

One of the draft's most vexing prospects, Booty did the near impossible in transforming himself from a marvelous high school gunslinger in a shotgun system to a pure pocket passer running an NFL offense. He's one of the rare quarterbacks to successfully transition out of a system that produced highly regarded future flame-outs Josh Booty, Brock Berlin and Brent Rawls.