The Sports Report: USC looks ready for prime time, UCLA does not

From Ryan Kartje : Five years ago, when USC first scheduled this 2025 season opener, the plan had been to go big, to test itself with a marquee, nonconference opponent that not only bolstered the Trojans strength of schedule but also captured the attention of college football.

So, at the time, USC agreed to a home-and-home meeting with Mississippi, when Lane Kiffin , the Trojans former coach, would make his much-anticipated return to the Coliseum.

That matchup, of course, never came to fruition.

The entire landscape of college football was upended in the meantime.

Lincoln Riley became the coach.

USC left the Pac-12 for the Big Ten.

And the meeting with Mississippi was canceled, the rationale from USCs leaders being there was no sensible reason, in the age of the expanding College Football Playoff, to test your team with top-tier nonconference competition.

Which is how Missouri State, in its first-ever matchup as a Football Bowl Subdivision program, wound at the Coliseum on Saturday, watching helplessly as USC stopped just short of stealing the Bears lunch money in a 73-13 season-opening beatdown.

It was the most points USC had scored in a football game since 1930, when it put up 74 points on California.

But how much could USC really take from trouncing a team that finished fourth last season ...

in the Missouri Valley Conference ? Before that, Missouri State had just one winning season at the FCS level over their previous 14.

Its a good start, Riley said.

Its nothing more than that.

Its nothing less than that.

Its a really good start.

Its always great when youre able to play a lot of guys right there in the beginning.

Its healthy for the football team.

Continue reading here Q&A: USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen: No one wants to succeed more than Lincoln Riley USC box score How the top 25 fared Big Ten standings UCLA FOOTBALL From Ben Bolch : From the first snap of training camp, DeShaun Foster tightly controlled any narratives about his team.

Reporters never knew how much or little of UCLA s practice sessions they would get to watch, one day being limited to eight minutes of stretching.

Mostly they saw individual drills, field goals and in recent weeks one snap of the full offense going against the defense.

Photography and video were banned, even at a Rose Bowl practice open to spectators who faced no such restrictions.

Foster preferred to let the teams social media posts and internally produced video series suffice as the story of his team.

As of late Saturday night, the story could no longer be kept secret.

The Bruins dont appear to be any good.

In a clunker of a season opener, they couldnt tackle on defense or consistently move the ball on offense behind new quarterback Nico Iamaleava .

While its important to throw in the caveat that its just one game, UCLAs 43-10 loss to Utah at the Rose Bowl represented a giant step backward after the Bruins had closed their first season under Foster with four wins in their final six games.

Continue reading here UCLA box score How the top 25 fared Big Ten standings DODGERS From Kevin Baxter : The Dodgers have won 71 games since Tyler Glasnow earned his last victory.

That was March 31, 152 days ago.

The season was six games old then.

No other pitcher with at least 13 major league starts has gone longer without a win this season.

Yet Glasnow was never deserving of a better fate than he was Saturday, when he took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and a shutout into the seventh, only to wind up with the loss when the Dodgers fell 6-1 to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

With the Padres beating the Minnesota Twins, the Dodgers lead in the National League West is back at one game.

Continue reading here Hernandez: Everyone can stop wondering.

Mookie Betts isnt moving back to right field Dodgers box score MLB standings ANGELS Oswald Peraza hit a two-run single in the ninth inning to help the Angels break a three-game losing skid by beating the Houston Astros 4-1 on Saturday night.

Peraza entered the game as a defensive replacement in the seventh inning and hit a bases-loaded fly ball to deep right field that eluded the outstretched glove of Cam Smith .

It was the fourth straight hit off Astros closer Bryan Abreu (3-4), who had not surrendered a run in his previous 12 appearances.

The Angels third run of the ninth inning scored when Mike Trout walked with the bases loaded.

Continue reading here Angels box score MLB standings HORSE RACING From John Cherwa : Journalism , running for the first time against older horses, ran to a valiant second place in the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Saturday.

The winner was Fierceness, a multiple stakes winner who was the post-time favorite in last years Kentucky Derby and Breeders Cup Classic.

The race lost a lot of luster when Nysos, the 8-5 morning-line favorite, scratched from the race with a bruise to his right outside quarter hoof.

Its not a serious issue and Nysos may be pointed to the Goodwood Stakes on Sept.

27 at Santa Anita, trainer Bob Baffert told Horse Racing Nation.

Journalism , winner of the Preakness Stakes and second in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes , has not finished out of the exacta this year in seven starts.

In his last start he won the Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park and got a free entry to the $7-million Breeders Cup Classic on Nov.

1 at Del Mar.

Continue reading here THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY 1881 The first U.S.

mens single tennis championships begin at the Newport Casino, in Newport, Rhode Island.

1895 The first professional football game is played at Latrobe, Pa., between Latrobe and Jeannette, Pa.

Latrobe pays $10 to quarterback John Brallier for expenses.

1934 The Chicago Bears and the College All-Stars played to a 0-0 tie before 79,432 in the first game of this series.

1955 Nashua, ridden by Eddie Arcaro, goes wire-to-wire to defeat Swaps, ridden by Bill Shoemaker in a match race at Washington Park.

Nashuas victory avenges his second-place finish, behind Swaps, in the 1955 Kentucky Derby.

1972 American super swimmer Mark Spitz wraps up the Olympic butterfly double with a world record 54.27 in the 100m in Munich, having already won the 200m in world record time 2:00.70.

1977 John McEnroe plays his first U.S.

Open match and receives his first Open code of conduct penalty in a 6-1, 6-3 first-round win over fellow 18-year-old Eliot Teltscher.

1979 Sixteen-year-old Tracy Austin defeats 14-year-old Andrea Jaeger, 6-2, 6-2, in the second round of the U.S.

Open Earlier in the day, John Lloyd defeats Paul McNamee, 5-7, 6-7, 7-5, 7-6, 7-6, in the longest match by games at the Open since the introduction of the tie-break.

The two play 63 of a maximum 65 games in three hours and 56 minutes.

1984 Pinklon Thomas wins a 12-round decision over Tim Witherspoon in Las Vegas to win the WBC heavyweight title.

1985 Angel Cordero Jr., 42, becomes the third rider in history behind Bill Shoemaker and Laffit Pincay Jr.

to have his mounts earn $100 million, while riding at Belmont Park.

1991 Houston quarterback David Klingler sets an NCAA record with six touchdown passes in the second quarter as the Cougars pound Louisiana Tech 73-3.

1996 Oklahoma State becomes the first Division I-A team to win a regular-season overtime game, avoiding an embarrassing loss to Division I-AA Southwest Missouri State, when David Thompsons 13-yard touchdown run gives the Cowboys a 23-20 win.

1997 Eddie George rushes for 216 yards, the second best opening-day NFL performance, in helping Tennessee past Oakland 24-21 in overtime.

1999 The U.S.

Open loses two-time defending champion Patrick Rafter because of injury.

Rafter, bothered by a right shoulder injury, retires after Cedric Pioline breaks his serve in the opening game of the fifth set.

Its the first time a defending champion man or woman loses in the first round in the history of this Grand Slam tournament going back to 1881.

2007 Jeremy Wariner leads an American sweep of the medals in the 400 meters at the track and field world championships.

Wariner wins in a personal best 43.45 seconds, with LaShawn Merritt taking silver and Angelo Taylor getting bronze.

Its the first medal sweep for any country in the mens 400 at the world championships.

2007 Exactly 28 years to the day, No.

3 Novak Djokovic and Radek Stepanek tie the U.S.

Open record for most games played (63 of a maximum 65) in a match.

Djokovic outlasts Stepanek 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5), 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (2), in the four-hour, 44-minute match.

2018 Aaron Donald of the Rams becomes the NFLs highest-paid defensive player.

The All-Pro defensive tackle agrees to a six-year, $135-million deal, which surpasses Von Millers contract in Denver as the new benchmark for defenders.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY 1909 The A.J.

Reach Company was granted a patent for its cork-centered baseball, which replaced the hard rubber-cored one.

This change will be particularly apparent in the National League in 1910 and 1911.

1915 Jim Lavender of the Chicago Cubs pitched a 2-0 no-hitter in the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Giants.

1935 Vern Kennedy of the Chicago White Sox pitched a no-hitter to beat Cleveland 5-0.

Kennedy also had a bases-loaded triple.

1937 Rudy York of the Tigers hit his 17th and 18th home runs of the month to set a major league record as Detroit beat Washington 12-3.

1950 Brooklyns Gil Hodges tied a major league record by hitting four homers against the Boston Braves in the Dodgers 19-3 rout.

Hodges also added a single for 17 total bases and drove in nine runs.

Brooklyn pitcher Carl Erskine singled in the second, third, fifth and sixth innings.

1959 Sandy Koufax struck out 18 Giants for a National League record as the Dodgers beat San Francisco 5-2.

1965 Boston catcher Russ Nixon tied a major-league record with three run-scoring sacrifice flies in the second game at Washington.

Boston won 8-5, after taking the opener, 4-0.

1974 In a Northwest League game, Portland manager Frank Peters rotated his players so each man played a different position each inning.

The strategy worked for an 8-7 win over Tri-Cities.

1990 The Griffeys 20-year-old Ken Jr.

and his dad, Ken, 40 made major league history, leading Seattle to a 5-2 victory over Kansas City.

The Griffeys were the first father and son to play together in the big leagues.

1998 Cubs OF Sammy Sosa ties Mark McGwire by hitting his 55th home run in Chicagos 5 - 4 win over Cincinnati.

Sosa has hit 30 of his homers at Wrigley Field, three short of Hack Wilsons Cub record and tying him with Ernie Banks.

2001 Pitcher Danny Almonte, who dominated the Little League World Series with his 70-mph fastballs, was ruled ineligible after government records experts determined he actually was 14, and that birth certificates showing he was two years younger were false.

The finding nullified all the victories by his Bronx, N.Y., team, the Rolando Paulino Little League All-Stars, and wiped out all its records including Almontes perfect game and an earlier no-hitter.

2004 Omar Vizquel went 6-for-7 to tie the American League record for hits for a nine-inning game in Clevelands 22-0 victory over the New York Yankees.

The 22-0 beating, was the largest loss in the history of the Yankees organization.

Cleveland matched the largest shutout win in the major leagues since 1900, set by Pittsburgh against the Chicago Cubs on Sept.

16, 1975.

2005 Floridas Jeremy Hermida became the first player in more than a century and the second to hit a grand slam in his first major league at-bat, connecting in the seventh inning off the St.

Louis Cardinals Al Reyes.

2005 Albert Pujols hit an RBI triple in St.

Louis 10-5 victory over the Florida Marlins, giving him 100 RBIs this season.

Pujols became the first player in major league history to hit at least 30 home runs and drive in 100 runs in his first five seasons in the majors.

2010 Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman reached 102 mph during one perfect inning, and Cincinnati beat Milwaukee 8-4.

Chapman joined the Reds bullpen and matched the hype his first time out, throwing four pitches clocked at 100 mph or better.

2011 Two milestone home runs Chipper Jones 450th and Derek Lowes first gave Atlanta the early lead and Lowe combined with three relievers on a three-hitter in a 3-1 victory over Washington.

Craig Kimbrel pitched the ninth for his 41st save, setting a major league rookie record.

2019 Minnesota Twins hit six home runs in a 10-7 loss to the Tigers to break an MLB record by hitting 268 home runs in a season.

2022 Shohei Ohtani adds another item to his ever-growing list of achievements when he homers off Gerrit Cole of the Yankees in the 6th inning of the Angels 3-2 win.

With that, he becomes the first player ever to hit 30 homers and record 10 wins in the same season, a feat not even Babe Ruth managed to achieve.

Compiled by the Associated Press Until next time...

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