‘UCLA now runs L.A.’

By Art Spander 

LOS ANGELES — They were in separate rooms — well, a room for one, a tent for another, the coach unsure of his future, particularly the way his USC team played against UCLA, the quarterback unsure of his future, particularly the way UCLA played against USC.

The game didn’t mean much, not compared to Auburn-Alabama, not compared to Ohio State-Michigan, but then again it meant everything, this Bruin victory over the Trojans, 35-14.

“This win,” said the quarterback, UCLA sophomore Brett Hundley, “really validates what we did last year. You can wear your UCLA stuff proudly now. UCLA now runs L.A.”

An overstatement, an exaggeration, an emotional outburst. And well understood.

There at the other end of the Coliseum, the oversized replica jerseys of the six USC Heisman winners, spread out on the stairs below the glowing fire of the Olympic torch.

There on the walls of the tunnel that leads from the locker rooms to the field, the huge painted tributes to Trojan national championships and All-Americans.

It’s been a USC town, Los Angeles. Even with eight straight Bruin wins in the 1990s. Hadn’t the Trojans won 12 of the last 13 from UCLA before Saturday night? Hadn’t the Trojans won seven straight from the Bruins at the Coliseum?

Now the streak is severed. Now UCLA, 9-3 overall, with a quarterback who is going to consider entering the draft — even though he’s not ready — has won at USC’s home after in 2012 winning at its own home, the Rose Bowl.

A non-sellout crowd of 86,037 was there, the majority USC partisans who glumly began to file out with five minutes to play, cheers from the small UCLA group painful to their ears.

Not since 1997 had UCLA won at the Coliseum, and nobody in blue, players or spectators, was going to leave quietly. Some didn’t want to leave in any manner.

“This is a big win for us,” said Hundley.

How big a loss it was for USC (9-4) is yet to be determined. Under interim coach Ed Orgeron the Trojans had won five straight and six of seven. His players are so intent in having him named permanent coach that moments before kickoff they formed a circle, an “O” for Orgeron, to show their support. Had USC won, he would have had the job. He still might have the job, but the defeat was a negative.

“It’s our worst performance since we’ve been back together,” said Orgeron, a roundabout way of saying since he had been elevated to the position at the end of September, replacing Lane Kiffin.

“We weren’t able to run,” he conceded. “We couldn’t stop Hundley on the quarterback draws. We tried everything. We started blitzing; they started sprinting past the blitzes. Nobody played well enough tonight to beat a rival team, and that was my responsibility.”

His counterpart, Jim Mora, can take responsibility for bringing UCLA out of the sporting wilderness. Mora took control before the 2012 season, and while the Bruins are far from what he wants — they haven’t beat Stanford, they couldn’t slow Arizona State — UCLA Mora is 2-0 against USC.

“The stuff he brought to the team,” said Hundley, who in his own way brought plenty of stuff, “and the way he flipped around against USC, 2-0, the aura of the program has changed. Everything’s changed, and we’re seeing it.”

What Mora saw was a vision of the past.

“That was a heck of a game and a lot of fun,” said Mora. “It reminded me when I was a kid coming here when my dad was coaching at UCLA (as an assistant in 1974) and watching both teams in their home uniforms.”

That, certainly, was a great part of the game, allowed, finally, by the Pac-12 and NCAA.

“I had flashbacks,” said Mora. “What a great night. Both teams were so competitive . . . to come in here on a Saturday night and get this win tells you where this program is headed.

“We’ve had some good wins. The Nebraska wins have been big. We beat Southern Cal last year. But this one, on the road and coming off the ASU game (a 38-33 loss eight days earlier), to come in here where they’ve won and where Coach O has done a great job, I’d agree this is our biggest win ever.”

Hundley ran for 80 yards net and two touchdowns, and passed for 123 yards net. UCLA had 396 yards to USC’s 314, but USC also had a 15-yard punt, and UCLA's Ishmael Adams had 130 yards in kickoff returns.

“It’s been a while,” said Orgeron, asked when the last time an opposing quarterback had played as well as Hundley did. “Especially a quarterback running the ball. It seemed like everything we tried, they countered.”

Orgeron said he had no idea about his future at USC.

“We set out to go eight weeks in a row, one week at a time, one game at a time,” he explained. “Obviously we are disappointed, especially when you don’t beat UCLA and Notre Dame. That is what a head coach at USC is supposed to do.”

Answers missing on Janikowski’s misses

By Art Spander
 
OAKLAND -- The answers were not there, at least from the people who needed to give them, the field goal kicker, his holder and even though it’s his job to protect the men who play for him -- no matter their lack of performance -- the head coach.

The Raiders, well, still are the Raiders; a team of almosts and could-have-beens, a team that when presented a chance to take a resounding step out from the depths of mediocrity remains notably incapable.

Tennessee got a touchdown pass, a 10-yarder from Ryan Fitzpatrick to Kendall Wright with only 10 seconds remaining Sunday, and came back to beat the Raiders, 23-19. And so Oakland is 4-7, and the good thoughts after last weekend’s win over Houston become worthless.

Especially with a game at Dallas on Thanksgiving.

The man once called the premier place kicker in the NFL, Sebastian Janikowski attempted six field goals for the Raiders, tying his own team record, which tells you something about the Oakland offense, able to score only one touchdown.

Janikowski, “Seabass,” missed two of those attempts, one from 32 yards, which tells you a great deal about Janikowski, who at age 35 and playing his 14th season as a pro, no longer seems reliable.

As a kicker, that is. He’s never been reliable as a post-game interview.
    When the media flooded into the Raider locker room at O.co Coliseum, both Janikowski and his holder – and the punter – Marquette King conveniently had fled the scene, thereby avoiding any queries about what happened on the misses, especially the figurative chip-shot, the 32-yarder.
   It was reported after that one, tried with four seconds left in the half and Oakland ahead, 9-6, Janikowski told sideline reporter Lincoln Kennedy – the former Raider lineman – he was not pleased with King’s hold.
   This is the first-year for King, who replaced Shane Lechler, but this was the 11th game of the season.
     Dennis Allen, the Raiders coach, probably wished he didn’t have to face the music or the media, but that is a requirement of the job. That doesn’t mean Allen has to disclose his true feelings or symbolically throw his athletes under the bus.
    So Allen, looking and sounding particularly glum, conceded “There’s several things that you can look back on – we missed two field goals, we let them come out and get the lead at halftime, third downs weren’t good enough . . . ‘’
    Not at all. The Titans had 18 third-down plays, and made first downs on 10 of them, two times on third and 11. Fitzpatrick, Harvard educated, outsmarted or outplayed the Oakland defense. Tennessee hung on to the ball. The Titans time of possession was almost 36 minutes.
    But if Janikowski hits those fielders, the Raiders win. Indeed, as the adage tells us, if wishes were horses beggars would ride. Grudgingly we try to forget the “what-ifs.”
    Still, Seabass is paid big money to make little place kicks, especially little ones.
    He hit on field goals of 52, 48 and 24, but missing that 32-yarder – wide left – just before intermission was a blow psychologically as well as numerically. You’re six ahead as you prance off the turf, and you’re feeling particularly satisfied. This was unsatisfying.
   “We’re not making them,” said Allen, “not consistently enough.”  “We,” in effect, might mean, “he,” as in Janikowski, but successful place kicking requires all sorts of individuals, the snapper, the blockers, the holder and not least the kicker, in the Raiders case the left-footed Janikowski.
   “I feel like Sebastian is going to work through this,” Allen said. “I have all the confidence that when I send him out there it’s going to go through. So it’s just something that we have to go through and get better in that area.”
    His explanation is known as “coach-speak,” words which when linked together tell us very little.
    Matt McGloin, the undrafted rookie from Penn State, was the Raiders starter at quarterback for a second straight game. He had four passes knocked down, and because he’s listed at only 6-foot-1 and pro teams like their QBs at least 6-4, one might sense a reason McGloin was not picked in the draft.

McGloin did make a nice throw to fullback Marcel Reece who ran down the sideline for a 27-yard touchdown with some six minutes left in the game to give Oakland a 19-16 lead.

“I thought Matt played well,” said Allen. “He led us back when we needed a touchdown, got us the touchdown to give us the lead. We just couldn’t hold it defensively.”

Not untrue. Either is the issue of whether on field goals the ball is being held properly and then kicked properly.

“I’d say it’s a field goal unit problem,” explained Allen. “There are 11 guys out there; it’s not all on one guy. We have to improve in that area – snap, kick, protection. The goal is to get the ball through the uprights . . .

Which the Raiders could do only four times out of six tries and thus lost by four points. That hurts.

Answers missing on Janikowski’s misses

By Art Spander
 
OAKLAND — The answers were not there, at least from the people who needed to give them, the field goal kicker, his holder and, even though it’s his job to protect the men who play for him — no matter their lack of performance — the head coach.

The Raiders, well, still are the Raiders, a team of almosts and could-have-beens, a team that when presented a chance to take a resounding step out from the depths of mediocrity remains notably incapable.

Tennessee got a touchdown pass, a 10-yarder from Ryan Fitzpatrick to Kendall Wright with only 10 seconds remaining Sunday, and came back to beat the Raiders, 23-19. And so Oakland is 4-7, and the good thoughts after last weekend’s win over Houston become worthless.

Especially with a game at Dallas on Thanksgiving.

The man once called the premier place kicker in the NFL, Sebastian Janikowski, attempted six field goals for the Raiders, tying his own team record, which tells you something about the Oakland offense, able to score only one touchdown.

“Seabass” missed two of those attempts, one from 32 yards, which tells you a great deal about Janikowski, who at age 35 and playing his 14th season as a pro no longer seems reliable.

As a kicker, that is. He’s never been reliable as a postgame interview.

When the media flooded into the Raider locker room at O.co Coliseum, both Janikowski and his holder, punter Marquette King, conveniently had fled the scene, thereby avoiding any queries about what happened on the misses, especially the figurative chip shot, the 32-yarder.

It was reported that after that one, tried with four seconds left in the half and Oakland ahead 9-6, Janikowski told sideline reporter Lincoln Kennedy — the former Raider lineman — he was not pleased with King’s hold.

This is the first year for King, who replaced Shane Lechler, but this was the 11th game of the season.

Dennis Allen, the Raiders' coach, probably wished he didn’t have to face the music or the media, but that is a requirement of the job. That doesn’t mean Allen has to disclose his true feelings or symbolically throw his athletes under the bus.

So Allen, looking and sounding particularly glum, conceded, “There’s several things that you can look back on — we missed two field goals, we let them come out and get the lead at halftime, third downs weren’t good enough . . . ”

Not at all. The Titans had 18 third-down plays, and made first downs on 10 of them, two times on third and 11. Fitzpatrick, Harvard educated, outsmarted or outplayed the Oakland defense. Tennessee hung on to the ball. The Titans’ time of possession was almost 36 minutes.

But if Janikowski hits those fielders, the Raiders win. Indeed, as the adage tells us, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Grudgingly we try to forget the “what-ifs.”

Still, Seabass is paid big money to make place kicks, especially little ones.

He hit on field goals of 52, 48 and 24 yards, but missing that 32-yarder — wide left — just before intermission was a blow psychologically as well as numerically. If he makes that field goal, the Raiders are six ahead as they prance off the turf, and they’re feeling particularly satisfied. This was unsatisfying.

“We’re not making them,” said Allen, “not consistently enough.”  “We,” in effect, might mean “he,” as in Janikowski, but successful place kicking requires all sorts of individuals: the snapper, the blockers, the holder and not least the kicker, in the Raiders’ case the left-footed Janikowski.

“I feel like Sebastian is going to work through this,” Allen said. “I have all the confidence that when I send him out there it’s going to go through. So it’s just something that we have to go through and get better in that area.”

His explanation is known as “coach-speak,” words that when linked together tell us very little.

Matt McGloin, the undrafted rookie from Penn State, was the Raiders’ starter at quarterback for a second straight game. He had four passes knocked down, and because he’s listed at only 6-foot-1 and pro teams like their QBs at least 6-4, one might sense a reason McGloin was not picked in the draft.

McGloin did make a nice throw to fullback Marcel Reece, who ran down the sideline for a 27-yard touchdown with some six minutes left in the game to give Oakland a 19-16 lead.

“I thought Matt played well,” said Allen. “He led us back when we needed a touchdown, got us the touchdown to give us the lead. We just couldn’t hold it defensively.”

Not untrue. Either is the issue of whether on field goals the ball is being held properly and then kicked properly.

“I’d say it’s a field goal unit problem,” explained Allen. “There are 11 guys out there; it’s not all on one guy. We have to improve in that area — snap, kick, protection. The goal is to get the ball through the uprights . . . ”

Which the Raiders could do only four times out of six tries and thus lost by four points. That hurts.

Stanford makes points, Cal makes promises

By Art Spander

STANFORD, Calif. — The figurative laundry list for Cal was as as big as Stanford’s point total, the largest by either team in the history of the Big Game, which has been held 116 times.

The Cardinal won this one, destroyed Cal in this one, embarrassed Cal in this one, 63-13, on a sparkling Saturday afternoon in late November.

Attendance was announced as a sellout of 50,424 at Stanford Stadium, although there were plenty of empty seats, perhaps tickets held by Cal fans who couldn’t bring themselves to view a mismatch greater than anybody imagined.

Sure, Stanford, 9-2 and headed for a bowl, whether it be Rose or Fiesta or something else, was a 32½-point favorite. But the eventual spread was 50 — OMG, 50 — and the Golden Bears, after losing starting quarterback Jared Goff with a shoulder separation, couldn’t score a single point after halftime.

It was understood Cal had no defense. The Bears were last in the Pac-12 in that category and then Saturday allowed Ty Montgomery to catch five touchdown passes and Stanford to gain 603 yards.

But supposedly Cal had an offense.

That supposition was disproved, Cal gaining only 383 yards and after the opening four minutes getting only two field goals.

After Cal (1-11) finished with an 11-loss season for the first time in a football history that goes back to the 19th century — yes, teams didn’t play 11 or 12 games until the last few years — head coach Sonny Dykes took the blame and then took a stand.

“My job is to get the team ready,” said Dykes, who was hired last December from Louisiana Tech, “and I clearly didn’t do a very good job.”

Someone tried to get Dykes to allude to the many injuries to Cal players during the season. He made an acknowledgement, then took the high road.

“Yeah,” he conceded, “I can find a bunch of excuses. It is what it is. You guys can look at the depth chart. That’s up to you guys (the media) to draw your own conclusion.

“I think we got a bright future. There’s some things we got to fix. But yeah, we’re going to work tomorrow and get them fixed. Actually we’re going to go to work (Saturday) night.”

After having been worked over by a Stanford team that even with a mammoth lead in the closing two minutes was throwing, backup quarterback Evan Crower hitting Francis Owusu for 14 yards and a touchdown with 1:51 remaining.

Asked if he thought Stanford, which was running up the score, was indeed running up the score, Dykes answered, “Not at all. That’s part of football. Our job is to stop it.”

They couldn’t. They couldn’t stop anything or anyone. In any game, other than one against Portland State, which Cal won 37-30.

Cal gave up 63 points to Stanford, 62 to USC, 55 to Oregon, 52 to Ohio State. 580 points overall in 12 games. Ridiculous.

When somebody wondered what Dykes would say to Cal partisans, he responded, “I don’t have much to say. I wish it was better. It’s on me. That’s all I can say.”

Not all. Visibly dismayed, Dykes promised improvement. Everywhere.

“Blocking,” he began, then halted. “Well, no, we’re going to learn to pick up our locker room. We’re going to learn how to go to class. We’re going to fix our graduation rates.”

Cal, it was disclosed earlier this month, had the worst graduation rate for football players of any school in the Pac-12 — maybe, for the highest-ranked public university in America by several polls, a greater shame than a 1-11 season.

“We’re going to appreciate being a Cal student,” continued Dykes, “be supportive of other Cal students.

“We’re going to get faster, stronger in the weight room. We’re going to get bigger and improve our diet. We’re going to be more committed to getting sleep, rest and recovery.”  

And then the two that actually might make a difference.

“We’re going to learn to play on offense and defense.”

Dykes pointed out he had been coaching for years, been “lucky to be successful,” at every level. Until this year, until a year that terminated with a rout by Cal’s cross-bay rival.

“Never seen anything like this,” said Dykes. He was referring generally to the season, but neither Cal nor Stanford fans had seen anything like Saturday. No team in the Big Game ever had scored more than 48 points. Now one has scored 63.

“I haven’t been a part of it,” sighed Dykes. “Obviously haven’t done a very good job dealing with it. It’s on me to figure out how to deal with it, and go from there.”

He knows the problem. The solution will not come quickly.

The day the music died

By Art Spander

The radio in my TR4, a British sports car, couldn’t always be heard clearly over the noisy four-cylinder engine, but I sensed from the gravity of the announcer’s voice that something was wrong. I pulled over to the curb and turned up the volume.

“ . . . The president has been taken to Parkland Hospital in Dallas,” was the somber message. “We are awaiting word on his condition . . . ”

Fifty years ago, Nov. 22, 1963. America’s age of innocence was at an end. Camelot had fallen.

It was the weekend of the college traditionals, and the next day I would be covering the USC-UCLA game for the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, a publication no longer in existence. I was driving to the office, three blocks from the Pacific.

I stopped. So did America.

John F. Kennedy, the 35th president, had been assassinated. And nothing would ever be the same.

In the half century that followed, other leaders would fall, the World Trade Center would be brought down with a massive loss of life, one horror after another. This was the beginning.

They still argue about the killing of JFK, still posit conspiracy theories, still insist it was more than a single shooter, still point out that everything we’ve been told and seen has either been fabricated or whitewashed. The New York Times the other day had a story and photo of the blood-spattered pink suit worn by Jackie Kennedy as she sat with her dying husband.

Fifty years ago the scenes were of the Texas School Book Depository, of Dealey Plaza, of a country in mourning and sport in a muddle.

The nation didn’t want to play. It needed to weep.

The Outlook was a p.m., a pure afternoon paper. The advance story for a Saturday afternoon game was Friday. The first edition was on the streets. I changed a few words, and the revision made it for the late editions. Then we waited.

The Big Six, as the conference of Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA, Washington and Washington State was known, announced postponements. As did the Big Ten. As did the American Football League, which was three years from a merger with the NFL.

But not Oklahoma or Nebraska. Or any games of the NFL.

At first, it seemed as if USC-UCLA would be held, if without card stunts — remember card stunts? — or bands or any type of normal celebration. Just football.

But John McKay, then the Trojans' coach, was opposed. “I can’t believe you’d play a football game," he said, “where there was only half the enthusiasm.”

We didn’t. For a week.

I composed a story that only a few hours earlier never could have been imagined, about a game that was so important now so unimportant. Then I went on the streets, a reporter, and interviewed people whose disbelief was no greater than mine.

Color television was only for the wealthy in the early 1960s. Most of us sat, numbed, watching the repetitive images in black and white, the widow helped on to Air Force One, the caisson rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, the world leaders from Charles de Gaulle to Haile Selassie in the procession, 3-year-old John Kennedy Jr. saluting as the coffin moved past.

Pete Rozelle was the NFL commissioner and was unsure of staying the course, allowing the usual Sunday grouping of games to be played 48 hours later, or deferring to reality.

Rozelle, who died in 1996, and Pierre Salinger, Kennedy’s press secretary, had been classmates at the University of San Francisco. They talked. Although it was more complex than that, Salinger persuaded Rozelle that to play games as scheduled would provide a sense of normalcy and perhaps relief to a country desperate for both.

The teams played. Rozelle rued his decision. “It’s the one thing I would change,” he later said of his 30 years as commissioner. “If I could do it again, we wouldn’t play.”

The games were not televised. They were reported. And criticized. Pete Rozelle, more for his suspensions of Paul Hornung and Alex Karras, would be selected Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year.

The following Friday, Nov. 29, in a repeat of sorts, I created another advance story for the game, rescheduled for the next day, Saturday, Nov. 30, suggesting a 40-6 USC victory — hey, those were the Trojans of “Student Body Right” — but the final score was 26-6.

What do I remember about the game? Virtually nothing. It was anticlimactic. We had been through a torturous few days that for our generation would stay forever. As Don McLean’s song of the early 1970s would remind us, it was the day the music died.