The Audible: On USC and UCLA in Big Ten football, Minasian’s extension and Dearica Hamby

Jim Alexander: I suspect local college football fans, especially those who show up for games at the Coliseum on Saturdays, are about to experience some major culture shock when the season gets underway in a week. We are used to USC and UCLA being significant, if not dominant, significant players in their conference, and I’ve always felt – and written – that as the Trojans and Bruins went, so did the national perception of the Pac-12.

I guess that’s as true as it ever was. The Trojans and Bruins went, and the Pac-12 has all but disappeared. (Sorry, Corvallis. Sorry, Pullman.)

But now I wonder if USC and UCLA are truly wading into the deep end. They enter a Big Ten that already has a passel of established powers – Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, just to name three. Worse, of the four West Coast schools joining what is now an 18-team conference, they may be No. 3 and 4. Washington is coming off a national championship game appearance, albeit with a new coach in Jedd Fisch, and it’s actually Oregon that might be the biggest threat to the established powers.

In fact, the game to watch in the early part of the Big Ten schedule may be Ohio State at Oregon, Oct. 12.

As for the locals? I’m betting that DeShaun Foster will have the Bruins rolling eventually, but it’s going to be a massive project and a lot of pundits have them at or near the bottom. USC came within a bad hamstring (Caleb Williams’) of the four-team playoff in Lincoln Riley’s first year but slid into mediocrity in 2023, and there are now questions just how good a coach he really is and how capable he is of dealing with this new minefield of a schedule. It starts next Sunday against LSU in Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium … the same building where Williams’ hamstring betrayed him in the Pac-12 championship game against Utah.

So my question? Are we looking at a long, arid stretch of college football in L.A. as the Trojans and Bruins adapt to Big Ten football?

Mirjam Swanson: I don’t think it will be quite so stark.

I think the move is going to prove a big ol’ challenge and that it could certainly be ugly in spots, but the boogeyman that is the Big Ten also might be a shade overblown. I was looking at all-time Pac-12 vs. Big Ten matchups, and it’s actually relatively close, though Big Ten teams are 9-6 against Pac-12 foes in the 2020s, and 5-0 in bowl games.

But West Coast kids can ball too. Last year, when the NFL put out its annual breakdown of rostered players, California produced the third-most with 173, to Florida’s 178 and Texas’ 187.

But it’s impossible to predict, because there are just so many unknown variables to solve for if you’re the Trojans and Bruins.

How will Miller Moss fare in place of Caleb Williams at QB for USC? How much better will D’Anton Lynn’s defense be? What was up with that report that Lincoln Riley wanted out of this LSU opener, and that he might want to end the grand tradition of facing Notre Dame, telling reporters recently: “Is the juice worth the squeeze, right, in terms of playing these games?” What happened to that swashbuckling coach who arrived in L.A. and immediately started talking about winning championships?

Across town, how will DeShaun Foster do in his first season as a head coach? And how effective will Ethan Garbers be piloting Eric Bieniemy’s offense? Are they deep enough to withstand the tough new schedule? It includes a three-week gauntlet that’s probably the toughest stretch in the nation this season: At No. 14 LSU on Sept. 21, home against No. 4 Oregon on Sept. 28, and then at No. 12 Penn State on Oct. 5.

All those questions don’t inspire confidence, necessarily. More so curiosity. But I have a hunch the L.A. schools will do better than many expect – which isn’t to say they’re going to run the Big Ten today, but I think they could hold their own.

Enh?

Jim: When the expectation – especially at one end of town – is still to win the conference, I’m not sure holding their own is enough to satisfy the masses, even given the circumstances.

However, consider how well the Pac-12 teams played a year ago in their conference’s final death rattle. I started to say “punch above their weight,” but I’m not even sure that’s correct. Washington, in particular, won a bunch of close games down the stretch to get into that championship game, and there’s a school of thought that maybe by the time they got to Michigan in the final the Huskies were just worn down.

There’s also this: The best quarterbacks in the conference might even come from the new schools, possibly including USC’s Moss and UCLA’s Garbers. Big Ten Network (and former Pac-12 Networks) correspondent Yogi Roth – and that column on that transition is coming, promise me – told me that at Big Ten Media Days, five teams sent their quarterbacks as representatives and three were former Pac-12 teams.

Still, the old adage of ground and pound in the Midwest and air it out on the West Coast was simplistic then and might even be more so now.

And now we have breaking news: Our own Jeff Fletcher reports that the Angels and general manager Perry Minasian have agreed on a multi-year contract extension, with details to be announced this afternoon.

Those who don’t follow the club or only see their record – 54-73 and tied with the A’s for last place in the AL West as of this morning – or their continuing non-playoff streak might look at this and shake their heads. But the Angels were very obviously rebuilding from the start of this season, even if they wouldn’t officially say so, and this is an endorsement from Arte Moreno that he feels the project is on the right track.

In other words, he trusts the general manager to keep promoting guys he just drafted to the majors. Christian Moore, this year’s Angels first round pick out of Tennessee, has a .388 average and 1.154 OPS in 67 games in Double-A. I’m betting he’ll be in the majors before the rosters expand (from 26 to 28) on Sept.1.

So, should this mollify Angels fans who have been just about ready to break out their own “SELL” T-shirts for several seasons?

Mirjam: I fathom Angels fans will be split – the news would feel better if the team was actually, you know, winning.

But as you point out, the Angels seem, at least, to be pointed in the right direction. Which is saying something for that franchise, which hasn’t had a winning record since 2015, when Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” was the biggest hit and the first “Inside Out” was in theaters. …

Still, the Angels are trending positively; after playing .356 ball for the first couple months of the season, Ron Washington’s young club – these guys are learning, he’s promised, every time I’ve been down this season – has been at or around .500 since.

Of course, to keep improving, the Angels need to both stay the course and invest – not in big names for the sake of selling some tickets, but in the infrastructure necessary to really develop talent and establish the organizational depth that could pay off not just on the field at the big league level, but in terms of move-making when the moment calls for it. Extending Minasian seems like Moreno might actually be willing to go that route, maybe.

Jim: I get that Arte might have been frightened to come right out and announce a rebuild, since that doesn’t seem to be something that would entice SoCal fans to come to the ballpark. But the Angels have already topped the 2 million mark and are averaging 30,630 for 67 home dates. A year ago they averaged 32,599 for 81 home dates with Shohei Ohtani.

And I suspect most of those fans who have already spun the turnstiles at Angel Stadium have known from day one exactly what the plan was. They might not like it, but they understand the situation. And, since about mid-June, they’ve been rewarded with some decent baseball from the kids.

Last item of the day: When’s the last time you remember a player – any sport – facing an opponent that he or she is also suing?

The Sparks’ Dearica Hamby faced that the other day when L.A. faced the Las Vegas Aces, her former team. Hamby filed suit against the organization a week ago, alleging discrimination and retaliation and saying the Aces mistreated her and eventually traded her because of her pregnancy. Aces coach Becky Hammon refuted the allegations – in her postgame remarks after the Aces beat the Sparks Sunday night in ‘Vegas – and the home fans booed Hamby, which drew a response on the player’s behalf from former WNBA star Sue Bird and retired women’s soccer legend Megan Rapinoe on their podcast.

Your thoughts?

Mirjam: I don’t know that Hammon has ever come out and specifically refuted the notion that they traded Dearica to the Sparks (basically, L.A. got a Olympian and now three-time All-Star for pennies on the dollar) because she was pregnant. But Hammon did seem to take issue with the idea that anyone had “bullied” Dearica. Hammon made the point the other day that she’d never had an HR complaint in her NBA or WNBA career. No, but she has now been subjected to a federal lawsuit, so …

I’m super-interested in seeing how this plays out in court, but I’m also super – I don’t know … disappointed? Grossed out? Aghast? at the fans’ reaction. I wasn’t there, but I watched on TV and read about how incessant the booing was, and … dang.

Fandom is fascinating, of course. The tribal aspect of it, the community and familial place it holds, the idea that you invest emotionally in people you’ll never really know and might not like at all if you did … it’s all very rich and complicated.

And so fans ride for their teams, no matter what, unconditionally … even, sometimes, when it was your team who traded the player (as opposed to a player who leaves in free agency and/or demands a trade). And, apparently, even when the player has done what, typically, women would be supportive of – standing up for herself as a mom and a woman, standing up against the league and the team – the system – that she believes discriminate against her, that served to oppress her earning power, that diminished her professional stature.

I expect Aces fans want Dearica’s assertions that her former team reneged on alleged perks before shipping her off not to be true. That they want to believe their coach when she says no one mistreated Dearica.

But even if then, outright booing? It’s complicated, fine, but you don’t have to cheer. Sit on your hands.

Because booing the woman who not only helped you win a title and who now is bravely taking a stand for what those same fans normally would cheer someone on for? … weird.

Jim: But that’s the tribal aspect you referred to, and it permeates everything, not just sports: My side good, your side bad.

And I give Dearica credit for this: She was willing to file the lawsuit because she believed she was right. And she was willing to face those fans in Las Vegas, and I’ve gotta believe she knew exactly what was going to happen. That’s a form of courage, and belief, and my hat’s off to her for it.