40 Acres Sports

4. Southern Cal Trojans

Probably the ugliest best uniform out there. Despite not really being particularly nice to look at (in my opinion), there’s just something right about them. If you saw a high school team with those wide yellow shoulder stripes on the jersey or the double stripe on the pants you’d think they were ugly but [tag]Southern Cal[/tag] somehow pulls it off.

The cardinal red and gold colors are classics as is the Trojan emblem on the sides of the helmet. Not many sports teams can pull off yellow pants, if you’re not careful you end up looking like Iowa State. They’ve managed to tweak and change a few things in the last few years, namely the number design and jersey cut, without messing with tradition.

They’re not pretty but they’re perfect and I’m not sure why.

Check back Monday for our third favorite college football uniform.

College football’s best uniforms

1. Texas
2. Michigan
3. Florida State
4. Southern Cal
5. Notre Dame

AAU basketball and college basketball recruiting is so freaking dirty. In completely unsurprising news ESPN is reporting that USC’s O.J. Mayo received cash, clothes, a tv, and other gifts for himself and his friends and family:

Former USC basketball player O.J. Mayo, a projected lottery pick in this year’s NBA draft, received thousands of dollars in cash, clothes and other benefits in apparent violation of NCAA rules while he was still in high school and during his one year in college, a former Mayo associate told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”

Louis Johnson, who was a part of Mayo’s inner circle until recently, said Mayo accepted around $30,000 in cash and gifts during the past four years from Rodney Guillory, a 43-year-old Los Angeles event promoter. In addition to cash, the gifts included a flat-screen television for Mayo’s dorm room, cell phone service, a hotel room, clothes, meals and airline tickets for Mayo’s friends and a relative, according to Johnson, others with knowledge of the gifts and store receipts.

When Mayo was in high school in Ohio and West Virginia, Guillory was receiving monthly payments from the Northern California sports agency Bill Duffy Associates. Johnson said BDA provided Guillory with around $200,000 before Mayo arrived at USC, and that Guillory used most of the money to support his own lifestyle but also gave a portion of it to Mayo.

In exchange for the payments and gifts, Mayo entered a verbal agreement to allow BDA to represent him when he turned pro, Johnson told “Outside the Lines.”

It was widely known that Guillory “gave” Mayo to USC. There wasn’t even any doubts about it or secrets about how it went down, and yet it took ESPN to investigate and uncover what was happening. It’s absolutely no surprise that money was changing hands. The NCAA is an impotent organization that lacks the stones to strike with what little authority they do have.

The problem with college basketball isn’t players skipping school or leaving early, it is that the NCAA continues to allow people like Guillory and AAU “coaches” to hang around and “help” make decisions. If they don’t step in and prevent these lowlifes from pimping these young men for their own personal gain then they’re not acting in the student athletes’ best interest.

The NCAA needs to come down hard (death penalty?) on USC and Tim Floyd or else this type of thing will continue to happen. They need to set an example of what will happen when you enter these types of situations. They have no jurisdiction over agents so they must punish the schools, the coaches, and the players that knowingly break the rules. It’s the NCAA’s job to protect the integrity of amateur athletics and athletes, I somehow doubt they’ll be up to the task.

Breaking News: ESPN is Not Biased Against Your Favorite Team. Of course that doesn’t mean they don’t suck.

It’s been way too long since we’ve posted a Rose Bowl video, so check out one of the best I’ve seen below:

Makes me want to go watch my Rose Bowl DVD for the tenth time. This video tries to highlight the game itself and not just the Horns, but it still turns out to be much more of a Longhorn video. Not that that’s a bad thing. I could watch the last three minutes of this thing over and over again. The only thing it is missing is the audio from Craig Way’s call of the 4th and 5 play to win it.

Thanks go to jbHorn over on Orangebloods for the link.

This weekend is one of the best times of year to be a sports fan. Wall-to-wall college basketball on television and everybody has a little something extra riding on the games. March Madness finally begins today.

Here are some of day one’s most interesting games:

(3) Xavier vs (14) Georgia – 11:20am
Can the Bulldogs keep any of that SEC Tourney magic going or are they worn out? A lot of people have Xavier going pretty far and I think they win this one easily. Prediction: Xavier

(11) Kentucky vs (6) Marquette – 1:30pm
Billy Clyde Gillispie’s Wildcats started off the season terribly and I thought he might not survive his first season in Lexington. They went on a late conference run and I think it continues today with the upset. Prediction: Kentucky

(11) Baylor vs (6) Purdue – 1:50pm
One of the games I’m most interested in today. Scott Drew has brought [tag]Baylor[/tag] lightyears from where they were a few years ago, can they get a first round victory? I think so. Prediction: Baylor

(11) Kansas State vs (6) USC – 6:10pm
Probably the premier national game of the day pitting two of the country’s top youngsters. Will [tag]Kansas State[/tag]’s Michael Beasley or USC‘s OJ Mayo prevail in this match-up of this year’s top five NBA draft picks? Prediction: Kansas State

(9) Texas A&M vs (8) BYU – 6:25pm
Farmers versus Mormons… fight! The Aggies will go as far as giant freshman DeAndre Jordan will take them. He’s not the best player on their team, but he’s the most important. Prediction: BYU

Related Links

• ESPN scoreboard
• Printable bracket (PDF)
• My Tourney Challenge bracket

Lil’ Romeo and Tim Floyd make USC’s basketball program even dirtier than USC football. Even worse, Floyd seems to know and not care about the ethics involved.

Gun halts deposition in Reggie Bush case. Looks like a member of Reggie’s crew thought it was a good idea to try to intimidate witnesses.

Texas knocked out of NCAA volleyball tournament. Former UT coach Mick Haley and USC top the Horns in 3 games.

USC kicker Mario Danelo fell to his death this winter. To honor their teammate they intentionally took a delay of game penalty with no kicker on the field after their first touchdown against Idaho. Watch the video below:

Watching the video gave me chills. It reminded me of the 2001 North Carolina game when Major Applewhite took a knee to keep the score at 44 to honor [tag]Cole Pittman[/tag]. It was an incredibly touching moment and I felt honored just to be a part of it.

RIP Mario and Cole.

(via the FanHouse)

Matt Leinart is still whining about losing to Texas in the 2006 Rose Bowl, but now it’s actually kind of amusing in a pretty decent new commercial for NCAA Football ’08 from EA Sports:

They could have rewritten the ending of the game a little more realistically, instead of Leinart suddenly becoming a scrambling dynamo. Or for ultimate accuracy, they could have shown him quietly sobbing on the sideline.

This is actually part of a series of commercials for the game with players talking about how they’d rewrite history. Others include Texas beating Oklahoma in 2004 (haven’t seen that one yet) and OU stuffing Boise State’s Statue of Liberty play to win the Fiesta Bowl. NCAA Football ’08 will be in stores on July 17th for current and next-gen game systems.

(via)