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USC began this season overrated, just as it began the past six seasons overrated. The effect of the NCAA scholarship penalties handed down in 2010 is just now ending. And yet we continue to fall for the hype.It has everything to do with Trojan tradition and how much all of us bought into what Pete Carroll sold so well for nine seasons. He has been gone for seven years, and the two decades before he arrived werent so hot, either.We spend a lot more time talking about the Trojans than their play has warranted. With that, the first three items in this column mention USC. Fight On?1.?Wisconsin?and USC?benched their veteran quarterbacks this week for redshirt freshmen backups, and Im not surprised at all. For one thing, both the Badgers Alex Hornibrook and the Trojans Sam Darnold provided a spark off the bench in the first three games. More important, coaches are conservative by nature. They are going to start with experience. It struck me that in the case of both Wisconsin fifth-year senior Bart Houston and USC fourth-year junior Max Browne, neither had been able to win playing time before this year for a reason. I say that in full hypocrisy as someone who decries quarterbacks transferring the minute they dont get to play.2.?Nebraska?head coach Mike Riley tossed off a comment Monday that he coached against?Northwestern, the No. 20 Huskers opponent Saturday, in the Rose Bowl. He didnt just coach in that game 21 seasons ago. USC coach John Robinson said Riley, his offensive coordinator, made the difference in the No. 17 Trojans 41-32 upset of No. 3 Northwestern. In Cardinal and Gold, the recently published oral history of USC football written by my ESPN colleague Steve Delsohn, Robinson said Riley came up with the idea of going shotgun and no-huddle against Northwestern. That was one of the better coaching efforts that I remember anyone on my staff making, Robinson said.3. Last week, USC head coach Clay Helton said?Stanford?is the model for his program. This week, the?UCLA?that welcomes the No. 7 Cardinal into the Rose Bowl (ABC, 8 p.m. ET) looks very much like Stanford in one important way. The Bruins average possession time in the fourth quarter in their three games?this?season is nearly ten-and-a-half minutes. Everything in Stanfords game plan points toward wearing down teams so that they are easy pickings in the fourth quarter. Against the Trojans, the Cardinal ran the ball 15 times and threw one pass, holding the ball for 9:36 in the last quarter of the 27-10 victory. One other item that makes the fourth quarter relevant: Stanford has won eight straight over UCLA.4. It would be fitting for No. 14?Tennessees?long climb back toward national prominence to include a victory over No. 19?Florida, whom the Vols welcome to Knoxville on Saturday. The Gators have won 24 of the past 30 games in this SEC East rivalry, including the past 11. While you may hear over?and?over that Florida won the past two games by one point each, eight of the other nine victories came by at least two-score margins. If Tennessee can exorcise these demons, that will bode well for No. 1 Alabamas visit three weeks later. The Crimson Tide have won nine straight over the Vols.5.?Oklahoma?freshman quarterback?Austin Kendall?called the Ohio State defense basic, and after the Buckeyes thrashed the Sooners 45-24, Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops called Kendalls comment ridiculous. No, whats ridiculous is Stoops using Kendalls mistake as an excuse to?withhold?younger players from contact with the media in the future. Im sure Kendall is mortified, and Im sure he wont do it again. And Im sure his teammates understand that. Teach the young guys what to do and move on. What does a media ban teach them?6. The father of?Iowa?junior linebacker Ben Niemann will see him play Saturday for the only time this season. The Hawkeyes play at?Rutgers, where Jay Niemann is the defensive coordinator. This is the only regular-season game Jay Niemann will see Iowa play because Rutgers and Iowa both?have Oct. 29 as their open date. On Tuesday, Hawkeyes head coach Kirk Ferentz said he still felt uncomfortable about luring away Ben from playing for his dad, who was on the Northern Illinois staff at the time. I felt awful, Ferentz said. I mean, it was a really painful conversation in some ways, just because I know as a coach how special it is to have a son on the team. Ferentzs three sons played for him at Iowa; Brian Ferentz coaches the Hawkeye offensive line.7. Of course its more complicated than this, but I cant remember an offense as dependent on a dual-threat quarterback as Gus Malzahns spread at?Auburn. When Malzahn ran the offense in the 2010 national championship season, Cam Newton led the Tigers to 499 yards and 41 points per?game. The next season, without Newton, production fell to 338 and 25.7, respectively. When Malzahn came back as head coach and had Nick Marshall running his offense for two seasons, Auburn averaged 493 yards and 37.5 points per game. Since the beginning of last season, those numbers have fallen to 386 and 27.3, respectively. Not to mention 8-8 overall, 2-7 in the SEC and 1-5 vs. ranked opponents.Under Armour Wholesale Canada . Miikka Kiprusoff had just announced his retirement after a decade-long run in Calgary and it would be up to Berra and Ramo to fill the void. Discount Under Armour Canada . It is a cliché dragged out by fans and pundits regularly when discussions take place around which teams are better than others. http://www.underarmoursalecanada.com/ . MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez also will attend the session, which was announced Monday. The league has discussed placing its next two expansion teams in Miami and Atlanta. Under Armour Sale Canada . Haas said he "felt a lot of pain" in his right shoulder when he slammed his racket to the ground in frustration after losing his serve at 3-3 in the first set. Under Armour Clearance Canada .J. -- Marty Brodeur beat the Pittsburgh Penguins yet again.Poor Lewis Hamilton. Its one thing to lose what looks like being a guaranteed race win when you have yourself to blame -- making a mistake and putting it in the wall, or colliding with a backmarker when blue flag frustration becomes too much to bear -- and another thing entirely when your loss looks to have been an act of god.Mechanical failures are the worst way to retire, feeling as though the wheel of fortune has spun you from top to bottom so rapidly that theres nothing left but the twin senses of injustice and despair, and perhaps a little nausea on the side.When reports of Hamiltons post-race statements in the TV pen began to filter into the press room -- someone doesnt want me to win -- the initial assumption was that the Mercedes driver was referring to some form of celestial power, be it god, the universe, or karma.But once the full selection of quotes had been transcribed, it rather looked as though Hamilton was pointing the figure not at the big guy upstairs, but at nefarious forces within his own team. He may not have used the word himself, but the implication was more sabotage than it was shoddy luck.My questions are to Mercedes -- we have lost so many engines, Hamilton told the BBC immediately after the race. There are eight drivers and mine are the only ones who has failed. Someone has to give me some answers and it is not acceptable. Something or someone doesnt want me to win this year.Its a brand new engine, he added. Ive done one race with it. I did P3 with it, qualifying, its a brand new engine from the three that I had. Its just odd. Theres been like 43 engines from Mercedes [this season] and only mine have gone.But an hour or so later, having had time to reflect, Hamilton told his open print media session that his comments referred not to the team, but to some form of higher power or celestial being.It feels right now that the man above, or a higher power is intervening a little bit but I feel like Ive been blessed with so many big opportunities, firstly being here with all these people around here, the opportunity in this great team winning the last two championships. Lots and lots of big trophies and recordss that Im breaking time and time [again].dddddddddddd..While Lewis can hardly be blamed for feeling himself to be a victim of a string of reliability issues that have plagued car #44 -- and only #44 -- since the start of the season, it is unfortunate that the Briton felt the need to make comments that appeared to ask questions of his own team (and the associated Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, based in Brixworth). Fomenting discontent within the ranks -- even unwittingly, and even in the passionate heat of 25 points lost -- rarely does anyone any favours.That this latest failure came at a race which would have seen Hamilton equal Nico Rosberg in the championship standings will have been a real kick in the teeth. That it took place at a grand prix paid for by Mercedes team sponsor Petronas wont have helped matters either. And the fact that when Hamilton drew his stricken car to a stop it was on the very part of the track painted with Petronas branding will have been good news only for the right place, right time snappers now able to command high prices for their photos of the incident.Toto Wolff burying his head in his hands on the global television feed says it all about the feeling in the Mercedes garage on Sunday afternoon. This could have been the weekend in which Mercedes sewed up the constructors championship, and now that most profitable of moments will be delayed by at least one more race weekend. The fact that the WCC is essentially inevitable -- and has been since what feels like the dawn of time -- hardly helps.Following Hamiltons understandable yet undesirable outburst, Mercedes will head to Suzuka with a sense of discomfort within the ranks. Winning races and titles is very much a team effort, and despite the praise Hamilton heaped on his own race crew, the very fact that one of the teams drivers is publicly asking questions that imply (at best) bias and (at worst) outright sabotage is only going to lower morale in a team that should be celebrating their most dominant season yet. ' ' '