Remember that old joke in Hollywood with the punchline of “if you can fake sincerity,” you’ve got it made? We seem to have found the culprit of that joke, and damned if it isn’t Southern California’s prolific coach, Pete Carroll. He has to be faking, right? Nobody, but nobody can match his passion and calmed admiration for his own team, right?

(Only at USC is this a good idea in the middle of the football season.)

Well, yes and no. It turns out that some can match it - they just so happen to be his subordinates. Thus, with USC preparing for Notre Dame in - arguably - the Trojans’ most critical matchup of the year (and certainly Notre Dame’s most important), Carroll and the USC coaches marked the occasion by, errr, slip-and-sliding on the wet Los Angeles turf. Damn your self-assured person, sir. Damn it. At the very least, we have video after the break.

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Late Monday night, L.A. sports anchor Curt Sandoval reported on Stafon Johnson’s recovery from a weightlifting injury: “USC’s Stafon Johnson won’t play this year after freak accident - but IS expected to make a full recovery!”

Sandoval added on-air that the emergency surgical procedure lasted seven hours and “could’ve cost Johnson his life.”

While it was left unsaid, the implication of a “full recovery” is that Johnson will play football again.

The L.A. TIMES reports that a source close to the family said “surgeons had planned to realign Johnson’s larynx and they were hopeful that he would regain his voice.”

More background info on Johnson’s injury and condition after the jump. Read more…

Some Web sites offer you “insider” information on which teams to put money on during the week’s big football games. But only Sports by Brooks has the ultimate insider: Jesus Christ. That’s right, each week Our Lord and Savior will descend from Heaven to offer His insight into the week’s top games. And with over 60 percent of all college and NFL players attributing their success to Him, no one is more qualified to pick winners.

I know a lot of people wrote into me (bigbettinjc@godmail.com) to give me grief for going 2-3 last weekend. To the people who doubt my wisdom, I can just say that this is a journey and not a short trip. Or as Proverbs 19:11 says, “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.” So instead of asking how your picks did, we’ll just use our knowledge gleaned from last week’s games to make better picks.

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After USC’s wild - and maybe undeserved - win over Ohio State, the Trojans shift their attention to the Washington Huskies, while the media still ooh and ahh over true freshman Matt Barkley, who might not even play this weekend. More on that in a second, though.

(When asked why Polk’s arms were Caucasian, Adobe Photoshop responded, “Shhhhh.”)

For the 21-point underdog Huskies (underhuskies? no, probably not, let’s scratch that one), though, the game’s all about finding some personal affront to build off of, even if it’s just about the dumbest thing in the world.  To that end, Washington tailback (and noted USC de-commit) Chris Polk is outraged - outraged, we say! - over the unforgivable slight of having been photoshopped by some bored USC fans. Wait, really?

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All this week, one of the top stories in college football was about the resurgence of the University of Miami football program after their Labor Day victory over Florida State. They were ranked in the Top 25 for seemingly the first time since Bernie Kosar was behind center, and people were talking about how head coach Randy Shannon had turned the moribund program back into players on the national stage.

Which meant only one thing: The ‘Canes were due to crash and burn last night on ESPN against Georgia Tech. After all, they would certainly be dealing with a team-wide outbreak of swollen heads after their “program changing” win against the Seminoles. Plus, they would have to deal with the Yellow Jackets’ screwy triple option offense, which is tough under any circumstances. All the signs were there for a total meltdown: in fact, it had to happen.

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• Jay Culter’s debut as Chicago’s QB was completely em-Bear-assing.

• A fired high school basketball coach decides to spend her new-found free time suing over the fact that girls have to play on school nights while the boys get to play on weekends.

• We knew the New Jersey Nets were losers, but we didn’t realize it was $50 million worth.

• It’s nice when a mother & daughter work together. It’s not so nice when they’re working together to beat up a cheerleading coach.

• Utah’s Kyle Korver & Deron Williams jazz up a charity event with a little dodgeball action.

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For the college football fans among us, if you haven’t already, you’ll want to check out the complete dismantling of the Jim Tressel offense featured on DR. SATURDAY today. It’s as thorough a damnation of the system in which Terrelle Pryor toils as you can imagine, and it highlights just how remarkable it is that Ohio State actually let USC win last Saturday’s game. No offense to Matt Barkley or anything, but seriously: OSU should have won handily.

(Ho hum.)

Anyway, one of the points that SMART FOOTBALL’s Chris Brown (no, not him) makes in the aforementioned article is that “one of the problems with a plan that relies on fitting square pegs into round holes is that it makes the players look really bad,” or in other words, if a player’s not put in a position to succeed, you’re not going to think he’s very good.

Perhaps, then, that’s the reason for triumphant USC coach’s Pete Carroll’s comments earlier today as he looked ahead to this week’s game against Washington, casually dismissing the notion that Pryor’s the best player his team will face in September.

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We knew there had to be a reason for ESPN to ban its employees from Tweeting about stuff that might affect the Mother Ship. A case in point came on Monday, when ESPN THE MAGAZINE senior writer Bruce Feldman took a shot at NEW YORK DAILY NEWS hobbit Mike Lupica via the Twitter Machine.

Feldman had taken exception to something Lupica said on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters,” and did what few in the sports media have the backbone to do these days — take Lupica to the virtual woodshed. That he did it via Twitter is both unfortunate and hilarious. Let’s take a closer look. Read more…

Nov. 21, 1998.

(Brady’s ‘98 performance @ OSU inspired GPS technology we know today!)

I stood on the sidelines at Ohio Stadium on that miserably cold, gray day, witnessing the above play out over, and over, and over … for 3 1/2 looong hours.

That is, watching then-willowy Wolverine Tom Brady, a junior at the time, get sacked (3:09) seven times while taking the most vicious beating I’ve seen a quarterback endure in my entire 20+ years of covering college football. (In addition to bludgeoning Brady, OSU won 31-16)

(Saturday: Will I need to locate Brady’s owie towel for USC QB in Columbus?) 

Saturday at the L.A. Coliseum I watched a slightly less courageous performance by USC true freshman QB Matt Barkley. In a first-and-only cram session before his ‘Shoe debut, Barkley oversaw an offense one could generously ascribe as ‘basic’ in the Trojans’ trucking of embarrassingly undermanned San Jose St.

If you think I’m island-bound in that assessment, read the L.A. DAILY NEWS’ less-than-enamored accounting. Then read Barkley’s postgame quote about an Ohio Stadium crowd he’ll attempt to stand down in seven days. Read more…

Saturday I spent the afternoon in the broiling sun at the Los Angeles Coliseum, watching the USC Trojans’ final full-speed scrimmage before opening the season against San Jose State on September 5.

(No old media, hype-machine analysis from me after I eyeballed Barkley Sat.)

Why did I blow a perfect, sunny Saturday SoCal beach day for an afternoon in the bowels of the decrepit Coliseum? Earlier in the week, USC Coach Pete Carroll made the surprise announcement that true freshman Matt Barkley would start at QB for the Trojans in the home opener against SJSU. Carroll’s curious decision has made the largely-unknown Barkley the most buzzed-about college football player entering the season. And is also the reason 5,000 other folks fought with me for a spot in the shade under the Coli press box two days ago.

It’s pretty common knowledge here in SoCal how Barkley struggled his senior year at Orange County’s Mater Dei. He was picked off an astonishing 18 times in 2008, and his struggles have largely continued in fall camp with the Trojans. But despite that, Carroll announced last week that he was going with Barkley instead of junior Aaron Corp. Corp has shown considerably more polish at the position than Barkley, but clearly doesn’t have the upside potential of the rocket-armed freshman.

(Solace for SC Fans: at least the band, parking trolls were in midseason form)

So that’s where we stood as Barkley took his spot as starter last Saturday. He ended up handling 80% of the plays on the day, leading the first team and second team offense against a black-shirted scout team defense consisting of a rag tag collection of walk-ons and 3rd and 4th-stringers.

And to the surprise of no one, Barkley didn’t exactly blow away the competition.

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