Never were good enough

Dear Gushing,

Here’s what happens when a really bad team (Illinois since almost forever) starts to be a slighter better team (the Illini of now).

They become much more marketable as the Little Engine That Could. And the ever popular All- Those-Slick-Hipsters-in-LA-Think-We-Midwesterners-Are-Hicks line of merchandise.

Swami has been to the sports rodeo before and usually can tell when sportswriters create a logic without much substance. Swami would suggest the tired old criticism that it’s “to sell papers” but actually most newspaper writers don’t care if they sell newspapers.

What they do like to do is create heroes and villains because it’s easier to write a plausible story when no real evidence is needed. And so, for the home folks, the arrogant Southern Californians come pre-packaged for useful villainy. But it’s all hokum, and merely a not so clever style for writers who have no wish to dig any deeper than us-against-them scenarios.

Hey, it's sports writing. Does Swami have to draw diagrams?

Hasn’t anyone here ever seen pro wrestling? Good guys, bad guys?

So, when USC smashed Illinois 49-17 in the Rose Bowl, it wasn’t California against Illinois. It wasn’t our good guys against their rude, insufferable bad dudes.

Southern Cal just had a lot better team, a fact that was apparent to anyone with more than beans for brains. Way, way lots better.

Besides, nobody with any sense wants to play USC in January EVER because the Trojans have had a month to soothe any physical ailments that had kept them from playing for the national title.

It was a grand irony that Illinois got to Pasadena for this assault through Columbus where the Illini beat Ohio State. And the prize for that victory? You get your head pounded into pulp by Southern Cal which might actually be the best team in the country.

Meanwhile, Ohio State gets to avoid playing a virulent USC and instead gets LSU for the national title (much more beatable for Ohio State, but we still like the Tigers to win that one, too). Never has losing a game been so good for the loser.

As for the good guys -bad guys motif, here are facts to keep in mind.

Though USC is hot stuff on the West Coast, the Trojans have just as many hometown detractors (mostly UCLA fans) who would be just as thrilled to see them lose. The far bigger proportion of citizens there don’t care one way or another. There may have been far more people on the West Coast in favor of the Illini than the Trojans.

As for how many people in Illinois really care, that’s open to question, too.

But how many people in the stands like you in football is about as important as how many people hate you. Only what happens in the game really counts. If you’re good enough, you win. If you’re not good enough, you lose.

All the rest is silliness.

The Illini weren’t good enough to win the Rose Bowl and never were. Anyone could see that, if they had wanted to look closely enough.