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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For past two seasons, the once-mighty Michigan-Notre Dame rivalry has been mighty crappy. There was ND’s 35-17 wipeout of the Wolverines in South Bend last season, and then there was UM’s 38-0 a$$-whooping of the Irish in Ann Arbor the season before that. So you’d figure that today’s matchup in the Big House would be a big bore.

Big mistake to assume that. Like two aging heavyweights whose glory days appeared to have been behind them, Michigan & Notre Dame traded punches all afternoon (figurative, not literal) as the score see-sawed back & forth. But it was the Maize & Blue who managed the final knockout blow, as Tate Forcier tossed a 5-yard TD pass to Greg Matthews with 11 seconds left. So Hail to the Victors in a 38-34 thriller.

(Time to get those Charlie Weis-bashing billboards back up.)

Speaking of knockouts, another top-5 team from the Sooner state took another tumble on the field in an upset loss.

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PC RUNNING INTERFERENCE FOR INCOMPETENT ASSISTANT: Adam Rose of the LOS ANGELES TIMES records Pete Carroll admitting that he “blew it” by allowing quarterback John David Booty to finish the USC loss to Stanford this season despite a “broken hand“:

“We really blew it against Stanford. We screwed it up because we played a guy that was hurt. I made a mistake on that. That was me. That wasn’t Norm or Lane or Eddy-O, or any of those guys. That was me screwing it up and not recognizing it, and sitting on the football at the end of the game. We kept throwing it with a guy with a broken hand.“Pretty contrite, eh? And if you don’t know anything about USC football, you would think Carroll is legitimately owning up to his own mistakes. But what he’s really doing is covering for under-fire offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian. Why else would Carroll mention former offensive assistants Norm Chow and Lane Kiffin in his denial?

Like we said, that works well for the masses outside the 213, but if you really know what the hell is going on, you understand that Carroll’s inability to hire quality assistant coaches has been the major on-field downfall of the program.Norm Chow made the careers of Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart and based on his USC, NC State and BYU accomplishments, may well be the most-decorated assistant coach in college football history. Here’s what he told Scott Wolf of the L.A. DAILY NEWS last year about the competence of Sarkisian and Kiffin (in relation to UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker): “I know DeWayne Walker may be better than both of those guys.”

And we all know what happened last season at the Rose Bowl.If Carroll really wants to own up to the true error of his ways, he should fire Sarkisian. Because since they are such close friends, that won’t happen. But you can bet Carroll will be working hard to get Sark a “promotion” this offseason - much like the black hole Kiffin has since been sucked into in Oakland.