USC Football

• In case you missed it, Mark Sanchez was named starting quarterback. I relegated this to Hot Links because it wasn’t exactly news to anybody except Mitch Mustain. That’s no
  knock against Mitch — he needs to keep that mentality all the way into
  the fall to keep competing and trying to pass Sanchez for the starting
  job. Ultimately, the first game is a long way away.
• Now that the quarterback race has cooled off, time to focus on the really interesting logjam: tailbacks.
• Sunday Morning QB’s "Absurdly Premature Assessment" series has tackled USC’s first opponent: Virginia.
• The U.S. Army All-America Bowl is up to four USC commits.

USC Basketball

• More hype is building about DeMar DeRozan’s "freakish athletic ability."

Other USC News

Bobak emailed us some interesting admission stats from this year:

• UCLA (4/14/08): "the university was able to admit 22.7 percent of all
  those who applied, compared with 23.6 percent last year."
• USC (03/28/08): "21.0 percent were accepted this year, compared to 24.8
  percent in 2007."
• So it’s official … USC now has a lower admission rate than UCLA. But 15 years ago, USC admitted a whopping 70% of applicants.
  

Assorted Gossip

• Always protect the ball. Florida learned the hard way — to the tune of $4,000. They broke their BCS trophy.
• Hey, at least it can be replaced. Alabama misspelled their team captains name. In cement.
• As part of ESPN’s quest to dub a city Title Town, USA, Eric Neel made an argument for LA.
• Want another reason to hate artificial turf? How about lead?