Where California teams win college football titles
The league was in trouble. National news organizations said so. Sports Illustrated put their lead writer for the sport on the case and he delivered a six-page straits are dire story. It ran in no less than the the season preview issue. Labor troubles, declining ratings and player misbehavior were all covered. It was during Continue reading David Stern part 13 Controlling The Narrative
I thought Sacramento State s Sac 12 efforts were dead in the water but I wasn t paying attention. They did indeed manage to move up to the FBS level, albeit in the Mid American Conference. This is the first California football promotion since the glory days of the Cal State explosion of the 1970s. Our plea Continue reading 2026 schedule and some good news
San Diego State pulled it off as we had hoped and became the sixth different cup-winner in the last six years. (This is after 15 years of Stanford and USC trading wins.) Final run: $ python3 ./mcc_schedule.py -vCalifornia 0 at San Diego State 34 on Sep 20, 2025San José State 29 at Stanford 30 on Continue reading 2025 champs
In reading over countless David Stern newspaper clippings and seeing how many different ways he could rephrase his origin myths and get reporters to credulously repeat them I was struck by this one little nugget from 1988. The story, of course, is titled Stern visions of NBA / Commissioner is an innovator. Down around paragraph Continue reading David Stern part 12 Image Control and the Dress Code
We certainly had a decisive game this weekend. San Diego State went into Fresno as a slight 1.5 pt favorite and won the game 23-0. With that, SDSU take control of the cup race and Fresno is out. Current run: $ python3 ./mcc_schedule.py -vCalifornia 0 at San Diego State 34 on Sep 20, 2025San José Continue reading San Diego State is making history
How old is the phrase: the brains of the outfit? Short answer: much older than I thought. It goes back at least to 1874.. But I still don t exactly know and if anyone else does I couldn t find it. In researching David Stern I went idly looking for the earliest instances of the gangster film Continue reading Origin of the phrase the brains of the outfit
I thought I d highlight one particular column I found in my David Stern research. As time passes and memories recede of the fawning Stern journalism that prevailed for three decades, let s open the time capsule and see what oozes out. This particular column has a poignant resonance here in October 2025. I m going to include Continue reading David Stern part 11: The slop we used to deal with
We ve had some interesting games. Cal went to San Diego State as an undefeated 17 point favorite, dreaming of possible glories with an ACC schedule where they somehow miss Miami, Florida State and Clemson. And there they flamed out spectacularly, losing 34-0. Then Stanford and San Jose State played a very satisfying back and forth Continue reading 2025 results
While researching the history of North Carolina s Lake Norman (as one does) I encountered the story of the real life Long Sam. The wikipedia paragraph is so weird that I had to dig up the primary sources, which are ten times weirder. As presented in a full page spread in the Charlotte Observer on August Continue reading Lost America: The Hot Girl In The Woods
Is this the lowest point for California college football ever? There were no California teams in the AP preseason top 25 and only USC managed to even receive votes in the most recent one. Doing an eyeball survey of the preseason AP Top 25 polls archived in wikipedia it took going back to 1965 before Continue reading 2025: Previewing a historical season