Everyone likes to see a giant fall. Too many people are excited to see SC experience things that prove the institution is not indestructible. What they don't realize is that USC Trojan Football is good for college football. More importantly, those fans of other PAC TEN schools need to realize is that SC is good for the PAC TEN. Below is an article from Nick Daschel's blog:
Throughout the Pac-10, hands are furiously rubbing together in glee. Tongues are working overtime.
You know that theme is playing out in sports bars and locker rooms in Eugene, in Seattle, in Corvallis, in Berkeley, in Tempe. Pete Carroll is gone and so is USC as the Pac-10’s immovable object. Finally, the nation is going to notice the Pac-10 for being something other than USC and the nine dwarfs.
First, it’s not a foregone conclusion that USC’s dynasty is finished. The Trojans still have the Pac-10’s best recruiting classes from 2007, 2008 and2009. If USC hires a first-rate coach, there’s reason to believe the Trojans could string together two or three consecutive Pac-10 titles.
Even if athletic director Mike Garrett hires someone in his likeness – a bozo – USC will spoil more than few Pac-10 dreams just because of its talent.
But more importantly, why do many want to see the Trojans fall on hard times? A strong USC football program is good business for the Pac-10. When the Trojans are down, the nation considers the Pac-10 to be down.
It’s like Lakers-Celtics in the NBA, the New York Yankees in baseball, theDallas Cowboys in football. Love them or hate them, when those franchises are going well, so is business at the box office.
Let’s use the ACC as an example. This just in: the ACC is a BCS conference. But few around the country take the ACC seriously as a football league, even though as a whole, it has fared quite well in out-of-conference games in recent years. The reason the ACC is an afterthought is the lack of a superpower. When Florida State fell on hard times, so did the ACC.
The same is true with the Big East. It doesn’t have a bellcow football school, a program that is considered truly elite. Like the ACC, the Big East holds its own in non-conference games, but without a marquee program, it gets lost in the noise.
USC is the only program in the Pac-10 that can carry the water of a national power. Oregon may have sex appeal and the money bags of Phil Knight, but it’s a relative new shooter without a large television market. Washington is located in a large metropolitan area with a large TV base. But the Huskies have been down for so long, they’ll have trouble recovering even a small piece of their former status as a national program. California can’t win the Pac-10 title, let alone the nation. UCLA is only good for so long, and then basketball season starts.
The last time USC football was down for a period was the late 1990s through early 2000s. It might have been the worst period of football the Pac-10 has seen in decades. How else can you explain Tyrone Willingham winning a Pac-10 title (1999, Stanford) and Washington State getting to the Rose Bowl twice in five years?
If you want to see the Pac-10 become as irrelevant as the ACC and Big East, go ahead, root for USC to fall apart.
So, Shut up and root for SC to dominate once again. We all will be the better for it. FIGHT ON!!!
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