we can say a nice Thanks to the NFL draft, in which dimbulb sportswriters obsessed with the SEC, the Big 10, the Fabulous Longhorns, the...well, with anything, actually... have input only as spectators. Same with self-serving college coaches whose focus remains adamantly on promoting the media value of non-Left Coast teams on their schedule through 2025 or something. When you are hiring people for actual work, you run their actual numbers rather than "evaluate" what has been written or said about them by people who need to attract audiences, sell advertising and so on.

So, we return to our four finalists for the NCAA Champeenship. Who had the best players in terms of their testable virtues and potential value in the sport (NFL f'ball)that most closely resembles the one they've been playing? In the first two days of the draft, we see the following teams provide the following numbers of draftees:

Florida 3; Texas 4; Utah 5; and USC...11.

No, this doesn't "prove" anything. It doesn't have to, speaking eloquently for itself as a measurement of one senior (or final) class. But talk about inidicative...

The annual cliche is true: SC doesn't recruit, it reloads. It gets most of the greater LA h.s. talent it wants, draws very well in the Valley and NorCal (as with the lamentable OJ), pulls in inordinate numbers of Islanders (hence the nickname USLA, for Univeristy of Samoa at Los Angeles) plus the annual smattering of mega-talented kids from Flyover Land who are USC obsessed from bowl results, Heissman winners and so on.

It's discouraging for conference rivals to watch, of course -- but you have to respect USC's program, and it makes life all the sweeter when you can actually beat them, which does happen ocasionally (even by a 41 point underdog!).  In any case, watching "experts" from the press and coaches who don't have to play them vote the '08 version of this continuum second, third or even fourth best in the country is pretty amusing. Ch'-yeah, ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ight....