HARBAUGH'S COVER-THE-SPREAD OFFENSE

USC, which was tied with Stanford 17-17 at halftime, scores four consecutive touchdowns in the second half. The last Trojan touchdown comes with just 1:32 remaining, a 3-yard burst up the middle by Stephon Johnson. That made the score 45-17 in USC's favor.

You can argue that USC should have just taken a knee at that point--it was 2nd down and they could have run out the clock. On the other hand, the Trojans ran the ball all ten plays of their drive. They certainly weren't calling plays as if they were trying to run up the score.

Cut to Stanford, mounting a drive of its own, a meaningless drive (or so you'd think) in the closing seconds. With six second left and the ball on the USC 31, Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh calls a timeout. "Oh my God," I'm laughing to myself when the Westwood One play-by-play man (never got his name) says this. Did Captain Comeback really call a timeout with six seconds left?

 No, he di'unt.

Yes, he did.

And then Stanford completed a 13-yard pass to the 18--to former Notre Dame tight end Konrad Reuland, no less, who stepped out of bounds.

Three seconds left. And Harbaugh sends in his field goal unit.

No, he di'unt!

Yes, he did.

So--and this is why Pete Carroll is my favorite football coach-- USC counterpunches by calling a timeout. To ice Stanford's kicker. With a 28-point lead and three ticks on the clock.

Jim, Pete: Why not just get a tape measure, drop trou and get it over with? I mean, seriously.

So, okay, you're going to ice my kicker? Then I'm going to send out my offense again and take a pop toward the end zone. Which the Cardinal does. And they find a Stanford receiver pretty wide open in the end zone for six. Touchdown, Cardinal!

Game over. But touchdown, Cardinal! And that makes the final score 45-23.

And what happened next made me laugh out loud. Or, as the kids say, "LOL". Because I was thinking it, but I never dreamt that the announcer would say it. But he did. And this is what he said: "THAT JUST MADE A LOT OF PEOPLE IN NEVADA VERY UNHAPPY."

No, he di'unt.

Oh yes he did.

See, USC was favored in this game by 24 points. So if you bet on USC to win you loved when Johnson scored a meaningless TD with 1:32 remaining, because USC's lead went from 21 points to 28. And I've done some stories on gamblers before, and believe me, almost every one of them would tell you that USC's coaching staff knew exactly what the spread was and that figured into their call.

But of this I can be absolutely certain: You could never convince any seasoned gambler that Harbaugh's last-second touchdown was motivated by anything other than a desire to beat the spread. I am not alleging that it was. And I'm certainly not alleging that any member of the Cardinal coaching staff or player roster bet on this game.

But you'll never convince a seasoned gambler that Harbaugh wasn't influenced in some fashion by the spread. Meanwhile, somewhere in Las Vegas tonight there's a guy who can lay claim to having put more money on USC minus the 24 points than anyone else in the city. Maybe 5 G. Maybe 10.

And right now that man has flames in his eyes. And tonight in Las Vegas, that dude may be even more lethal than Brock Lesnar. 

The Associated Press did not mention the spread in its game story. SportsCenter did not mention the spread in its recap. Both organizations noted the late-game shenanigans, but neither alluded to how they affected the spread. You can bet that on gambling message boards right now this ending is already taking on legendary proportions.

And while it may have just been a case of gamesmanship between Harbaugh and Carroll, two alpha-alpha males, the Pac-10 should at least broach this matter with the two of them. Because, while neither coach is accountable to the bookies and their sucke--um, bettors--, the ending of that game sends up a lot of red flags.

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Beech, as he hears a report that Troy has gone up 31-3 on LSU in the 3rd quarter, somewhere near the New Brunswick exit: "It's not enough."
Beech, as he hears that LSU is up 34-31 on Troy in the 4th quarter as we near the George Washington Bridge: "College football is the greatest sport."

I agree.

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Hate to sound like a broken record, but how psyched are you for the Texas Tech-Oklahoma game next Saturday? Do you remember hearing that Alabama was trailing Mississippi State in the 2nd quarter and thinking, When is the next screen crawl coming with an update?

If we had a playoff, trust me, neither of those games would be such a big deal. Tech-OU wouldn't even determine the Big 12 South winner outright, not yet, and that would be just one of six to eight spots available in a playoff. And so what if Alabama had lost to MSU? They'd still be SEC West champs. They'd still be going to the SEC Championship game with a berth in the playoffs on the line.

You want a playoff? Then most regular season (and there is no "regular season" per se in college football; the "playoff" begins on opening weekend...but I realize that's just semantics) games of "importance" have the same juice as today's North Carolina-Maryland game. A close game, for sure. Two pretty good teams with a solid shot of becoming the ACC champ.

 But neither one great, and neither one deserving of being called the best team in the nation.

Yet, if we have a playoff, UNC-Maryland is every bit as "big" as Texas Tech-Oklahoma. Because the stakes are the same: a berth in the eight-team playoff.

I feel sorry for playoff advocates more than anything else. I feel sad that supposedly intelligent people cannot understand, as they find themselves captivated each and every Saturday (even this one, a supposedly "boring" weekend of college football), that the every essence of what captivates them is the alchemy of the unknown each week. Institute a playoff and you destroy that.

Institute a playoff and you'll forever crush those moments when your friend phones or texts saying,"Are you watching the USC-Stanford game?"
Because, see, the Trojans may not win the Pac-10 this season, but they still could go to the national championship game. So, when it was 17-17 at the half, everyone interested in the national championship was invested, not just Pac-10 fans. But if we had a playoff system, well, it would have only impacted the Pac-10. And, well, how closely did you follow the Cal-Oregon State game? Exactly.