Jim Alexander: I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that Saturday’s USC-Oregon game in Eugene is the most important of the season for both sides, by far. Oregon is No. 7 in the latest College Football Playoff jockeying for position, USC is No. 15, and there’s a good chance the winner moves into the top 12 and the loser falls out of it. And if it’s the Trojans who lose, they’re done regardless of what happens the following week against UCLA. (Oregon gets Washington next week in Seattle.)
And I guess for these teams – and a lot of others going into the final weeks who are maybe/kinda/sorta on the bubble – the overall expectations have changed dramatically from what they used to be. And Mirjam, I’m interested in your take on this: If your team, whoever it is, doesn’t make the playoff field, is the season automatically a failure? Or does it depend on what was expected at the start?
Mirjam Swanson: Might be the most important game left this regular season, period.
There’s some jockeying happening in the SEC, but without the heightened in-or-out stakes of this showdown in Eugene – wait, give me a second.
OK. I had to look – and it looks like it’s going to be a nice day in Eugene, actually partly sunny with only a 10% chance of rain (even though it “never rains at Autzen Stadium” … as they like to say up there).
So that shouldn’t affect the game, which I’ve heard people refer to as something akin to a “wild-card” matchup, and it does feel like that. Win and you’re in – or almost in.
The Ducks are mighty tough to beat at home, 31-2 over the past five seasons. If USC can do it, Lincoln Riley’s crew definitely deserves a spot in the CFP.
I’ve liked, though, how Riley has been embracing this stretch of the season, talking up the notion of a big, important matchup as not Just Another Game, but as moments that mean a lot, that should be enjoyed for that.
Part of that might be a little bit of PR, reminding critics that, oh, by the way, my team is playing important games late in the season. But this team has had healthy swagger all season. A real resolve that it will need against Oregon in what could – and I hope – is a slugfest.
Riley has seemed really to like this group despite some of its deficiencies, to believe in it, and the group has felt different, too. Even coming out for every home game in matching USC warmups instead of treating those entrances into the Coliseum as NBA-esque fashion fit checks said something about this squad and its approach.
Riley is enjoying being able to talk his talk after a couple disappointing years, this week clapping back at the College Game Day crew: “These are all the same people that thought we were going to suck.”
Of course, in 2023 Riley bristled at outside expectations being too high: “We don’t come in every single week talking about winning a national championship, going to the playoffs. I don’t know where that narrative starts. If you let the outside set expectations, you’re always being measured up against that …”
Some people are never happy! Heh.
But if the nation’s third-highest-paid coach can steer the Trojans into the 12-team playoff tournament, he’ll be able to shut up even his most vocal critics … for a minute. But if he doesn’t, then he can go back to complaining about the people complaining about the Trojans underachieving.
Definitely a big game. Now if they can just avoid another of their ill-timed ineligible man downfield penalties.
Jim: It’s nice to see that USC has its swagger back, but I’m going to take the 30,000-foot view here. These teams moved into the Big Ten at the same time. One moved quickly into the league’s top tier – remember, Oregon won the Big Ten championship game last year, beating Penn State – and the other found itself a mid-level team in an 18-team conference. This is USC’s chance to ascend to, or at least get closer to, that top tier of the Big Ten.
And consider that both teams slogged their way to victories over Iowa, through inclement weather, in back-to-back weeks. Oregon did so at Iowa. The Trojans rallied at home through a rainstorm.
I’m still not ready to treat these teams as equals, though. Oregon has been dominant, both in the Pac-12 and now in the Big Ten. If this game were in the Coliseum, it might be a more even fight, but Oregon is 15-1 in conference games since joining the league, as Substack columnist John Canzano noted. USC is 6-1 this year after going 4-5 last year, but even with its swagger, is it ready to take down the tallest tree in the forest? I don’t think so. I think Oregon will win easily.
Moving right along, after watching LeBron James’ season debut for the Lakers the other night against Utah – and shaking my head at those who wondered if adding him to the mix might dilute what had become a solid combination – this was the part that impressed me the most. He’d had … what, one practice with many of the new guys before Monday night? Yet the chemistry was nearly perfect, and those passes he zipped to guys like Deandre Ayton and Jake LaRavia turned into baskets, not turnovers.
You were out there, Mirjam. Did it look even more impressive in person than it did on TV?
Mirjam: It was definitely impressive.
LeBron has been talking about his newborn baby lungs and needing to get his wind back – but that 40-year-old man looked fit as heck. Maybe he’s not elevating like he once did, but he’s as fast and strong and as quick-thinking and present as ever on the court.
Obviously they fizzled in the first round of the playoffs last season, but that roster was flawed and LeBron was having to play center. Now they’ve added some key reinforcements so the Luka + LeBron + Austin equation really is going to keep opening up a lot of things for his teammates like Ayton and LaRavia. It’s just going to be a matter of finding the open guy, which those open guys are going to love.
Watching LaRavia, in particular, on Tuesday, I had to look it up to see who his favorite player might’ve been growing up because he seemed to be smiling in an unable-to-contain-it way after every make off a pass from LeBron. I didn’t find anything definitively saying who that was – although we do know his dad was a Magic Johnson superfan – but I would believe it if someone told me it was LBJ, that’s how much it looked like LaRavia was enjoying being on the receiving end of LeBron’s dishes.
And then Ayton had the wonderful anecdote postgame – a “fun fact,” the big man called it – about the lob he caught Tuesday from LeBron being the second in his life. The first came when he was a kid participating in one of LeBron’s camps.
That says a lot about LeBron’s longevity, of course, but also about the respect that Ayton and LeBron’s brand-new teammates seem to have for him. It’s got to be really cool to be running with the guy who might be the greatest of all time.
And, yeah, everyone seems bought in. LeBron does. Luka does. All the Lakers do.
The rest of the season should be fun – and interesting, as it always is in Lakerland.
ESPN’s Shams Charania tweeted that the Lakers are “reorganizing their basketball operations department and terminating executives Joey and Jesse Buss from their respective front office positions, effective immediately.”
And then he added a quote from the brothers, that ended like this: “We wish things could be different with the way our time ended with the team. At times like this, we wish we could ask our Dad what he would think about it all.”
Stunning, honestly.
Because the people who fans trusted most about the team’s front office the past few years were Joey and Jesse, so to see them as the first of the ripples following the ownership change is, well, pretty unexpected.
Jim: Well, when the transaction under which Mark Walter would buy the team was announced, Jeanie Buss was mentioned but nothing about any other family members. My assumption is that Walter and his people want to build out a front office that for years has been a close-quarters operation, about as mom-and-pop a business model as you can get.
These will not be the first changes. I expect that whatever attention is being paid to analytics in the Lakers’ front office right now will increase substantially. And it wouldn’t shock me if Stan Kasten – who was the Atlanta Hawks’ general manager back in the day – assumes a significant amount of power in the Lakers’ front office as well as that of the Dodgers.
After all, it’s the baseball team that has established the most recent championship vibe in SoCal. When Dodgers players show up with the Commissioner’s Trophy, it gets everyone else inspired. The Lakers had their moment a couple of weeks ago. This past Sunday, the Rams had a visit from Blake Snell, who brought the trophy with him, and they continued their own hot streak.
Maybe the Chargers need a visit to get themselves going again..
Right now I would not be surprised to see the Rams back in the Super Bowl, at all. They’re 8-2, their only unavenged loss – to Philly – wouldn’t have happened but for a glitchy kicking game, and they may have taken steps to shore that up. And they’ll have a shot at another division leader Sunday night with Tampa Bay in town. They’ve been excellent in two of the three phases – yes, Matthew Stafford is playing at an MVP level, and even though his numbers were less last week against Seattle he managed the game and did what he needed to do. Maybe with Harrison Mevis handling field-goal and extra-point duties, plus some other adjustments, that third phase will be shored up as well.
As for the Chargers? They’re still in the playoff hunt, but we can only hope that Justin Herbert survives this season, with the beating he’s taken all season behind a decimated offensive line.
I’m not reading too much into last week’s loss at Jacksonville, but coming out of this week’s sorely needed bye, their next three games will be at home against the Raiders (which should be a win), at home for a Monday night game against Philadelphia and at Kansas City. The latter, amazingly, could determine if the Chiefs even make the postseason. Right now the Chargers are 7-4 and the Chiefs 5-5, and who saw that coming?
Mirjam: Definitely two teams headed in opposite directions.
One with the wind at its back, momentum on its side as it ramps up and, as the Rams tend to do, getting better by the week heading toward the postseason.
The other has more of an uphill climb, and though it’ll hardly be impossible – the Chargers have six weeks to win another three games, which looks like what it will take in the AFC – and odds of 64% (per the Athletic), 60% (NFL Next Gen Stats) and 63% (ESPN) of getting in. So it could be worse, but it could be better … much like Herbert’s protection. I’m not counting out the Bolts yet, but, I agree, they could use a visit from the Dodgers, a sprinkling of that aura of success. Couldn’t hurt.