The world according to Jim:
• With everything else taking place in Southern California sports this week, there were two stories that offered a reminder of what I consider a huge mistake.
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The reaction to acres of empty seats at the Coliseum for last week’s USC football opener against San José State – even though much of it was social media-driven hysteria by people from flyover country sensing yet another opportunity to take shots at California – was one. UCLA’s firing of athletic director Martin Jarmond was the other. And the commonality goes back to that last day of June in 2022, when USC and UCLA announced they were bolting the Pac-12 and joining the Big Ten. …
• San José State basically was the replacement on the schedule after USC backed out of – excuse me, took a hiatus from – the Notre Dame rivalry. And Lincoln Riley’s reason for avoiding the Irish, or at least not wanting to play them later in the season, was the difficulty of the Big Ten schedule.
In other words, a historic rivalry was sacrificed, even if temporarily, because it might risk a berth in a College Football Playoff that USC hasn’t come close to since joining the Big Ten. …
• How many fans who didn’t show up at the Coliseum for a noon game with a 110 heat index against San José would have risked heat stroke if Notre Dame were the opponent? Given USC’s parameters for resuming the series, that will be an early season game from now on. Bring sunblock. …
Or, as we suggested a couple of weeks ago, make USC-Notre Dame the season opener in Dublin. The temperature last Saturday, about the time TCU and North Carolina kicked off, was in the low 60s Fahrenheit. …
• Jarmond – whom UCLA hired away from Boston College in 2020 – was let go this week after presiding over an athletic department that had run huge deficits. Jarmond gave an extension to football coach Chip Kelly, who didn’t want to put in the work, and he hired DeShaun Foster, who was in way over his head, before finally getting it right, we think, with Bob Chesney. …
• Jarmond and then USC athletic director Mike Bohn pulled the ripcord at the same time – although I still believe that UCLA was the follower – and while the increase in rights fees from the Big Ten put a small dent in those deficits in Westwood, the move from (and decimation of) a regionally based power conference did no favors to every sport on campus but football.
And that sport has also turned out to be a far heavier lift for both programs, both in travel miles and degree of difficulty. …
• Representatives from those schools won’t say it publicly, but I’ve got to think there are people in the athletic departments at USC and UCLA – and Oregon and Washington, fellow defectors to the Big Ten, and Cal and Stanford, now in the Atlantic Coast Conference – who believe their programs, and especially teams in the Olympic sports, would have been far better off staying put. …
• Kudos, by the way, to UCLA and Cal for reinstituting their football series Saturday night in Berkeley, a subtle reminder of what we lost. Call that (Former) Pac-12 After Dark.
Meanwhile, we have the Legacy Pac-12 against the New Pac-12: USC-Fresno State Friday night at the Coliseum, and UCLA-San Diego State next week at the Rose Bowl. We’ll try not to speculae how Fresno and SDSU might have fared in the real Pac-12, but it’s tempting. …
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• This week’s quiz: Before Friday evening’s game at the Coliseum, what was the most memorable football meeting between Fresno State and USC, and when did it take place? Answer below. …
• Even (and maybe especially) in this era of utter chaos in college sports, the institutions whose leaders actually pay attention to their athletic programs have a better chance of success.
Gene Block seemed to display benign neglect toward athletics in his term as UCLA chancellor – and trust me, that’s not an isolated instance in the University of California system – but current chancellor Julio Frenk is far more attentive. That’s a good sign for UCLA fans and alumni. …
• The placement of former Lakers executive (and UCLA alumnus and former Bruins soccer goalie) Tim Harris as CEO of athletics and interim athletic director is a positive sign. He had been a consultant on a pro bono basis, but Bruin Report Online reported that the CEO position will be permanent and a new athletic director will likely report to Harris.
The idea is to run the athletic department like a business, which it is. In today’s environment, how can you not? …
• Quiz answer: That memorable USC-Fresno game was Reggie Bush’s show, the night in 2005 that the future Heisman Trophy winner amassed 294 rushing yards, two touchdowns, 513 all-purpose yards and one memorable stop-and-go move along the sideline on a 50-yard touchdown run in USC’s 50-42 victory. …
• When we discuss the Arte Moreno era in Los An– oops, I meant Anaheim, those division titles and playoff appearances in the early years were in part attributable to the on-field talent and front office staff originally put together under Disney ownership. Say what you will about The Mouse, but that 2002 World Series championship was on their watch. …
• The final wild card spot in the National League – and, maybe, the Dodgers’ opponent in the Wild Card series – might come down to an end-of-season three-game series: Diamondbacks vs. Padres in San Diego, right after a final week Dodgers-Padres series in L.A. You really want to play either one in a best-of-three, even at home?
• I’m for more such end-of-season divisional showdowns, frankly. I say return the schedule to 18 games each against division opponents, six each against the other 10 league opponents and more limited interleague play: six against the natural rival (Dodgers-Angels, Mets-Yankees, Cubs-White Sox, etc.) and three each against eight others on a rotating basis. …
• Today’s reminder that trading prospects at the deadline can bite you: Yordan Alvarez, now contending for a Triple Crown and an American League MVP award, was traded by the Dodgers to Houston for reliever Josh Fields on August 1, 2016. Fields was 8-2 with a 2.61 ERA and four saves in two-plus seasons with the Dodgers.
Outfielder Zyhir Hope and pitchers Brady Smith and River Ryan, sent to the Detroit organization in the Tarik Skubal trade last month, might be scrutinized for years to come. But that’s part of the importance of player development.
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Hey, no risk, no reward.