Nobody asked me, but:

If you missed last Friday’s Marmonte League showdown between league powers Newbury Park and Moorpark, you missed a real old-fashioned defensive battle. The game featured 10 turnovers which cannot be attributed to lousy offense, since both teams have excellent attacks.

Kudos to the Panthers’ Travis Dickey for his 25-yard interception return to a touchdown and his 26-yard pass reception for a touchdown to turn the tide in favor of the first-place Panthers.

Although this was a pivotal game, the league championship is far from settled, with Thousand Oaks still lurking in the background, only a game behind Newbury Park.

The biggest surprise of last Friday night was Westlake’s rout of Agoura, 44-14. Last year’s game featured a zany kickoff return reminiscent of the famous Cal–Stanford game of 20 years ago to win the game for the Warriors. This time they simply ran the ball down the Chargers’ throats.

The Royal Highlanders cruised to victory over a brokendown Calabasas squad in the most predictable game of the night. Kudos to the Coyote defense for making a game of it in the first half with some rugged defensive play.

Speaking of rugged play, how about the play of the USC Trojan defense the last couple of weeks in the face of mounting injuries? They’ve replaced the entire defensive secondary and are still giving their award-winning offense a chance to win.

Look for the USC–UCLA game on Dec. 3 to follow the pattern of the Notre Dame game, with the gutty little Bruins taking an early lead, only to have the Trojans win at the end. Kudos to the Fighting Irish for a great game against USC. In the end, it was the superior team that won out.

Tell Irish coach Charlie Weiss to stop whining about the final play. TV replays both showed game officials made the right calls. As for Reggie Bush shoving Matt Leinert across the goal line—so what? It’s done week in and week out and is never called at any level, including Pop Warner.

Speaking of Pop Warner, how many people know the real Glen (Pop) Warner’s main claim to fame—he was Jim Thorpe’s coach at Carlisle Indian School?

How many of you know who Jim Thorpe was?

It should be interesting to note that in this day of professionals in the Olympics, the heirs of Thorpe—the world’s greatest athlete—have only recently received his medals from the 1912 Olympics, which were taken away because Thorpe received a few bucks for playing semi-pro baseball before his Olympian exploits.

See you next time.