Tradition restored

Tradition and history are what make college football the greatest game on the planet. I love all of them ... from dotting the "I" at Ohio State to touching Howard's Rock and storming down The Hill at Clemson to Chief Osceola and the Flaming Spear and the Running of Ralphie.

But one tradition that escaped me, until this week, was the wearing of home jerseys by USC and UCLA when they play each season. It seems this one hasn't happened in about 25 years, but it will return this Saturday thanks to the cooperation of Pete Carroll and Rick Neuheisel (in more ways than you may realize).

Carroll said his Trojans were going to wear their cardinal jerseys even if it meant losing a timeout each half (stupid NCAA rule). The NCAA relented a bit, announcing today that USC would be penalized just one timeout. Neuheisel, who played at UCLA, wants the tradition restored so much that he made a gentleman's gesture by committing to wasting a timeout at the beginning of the game to put the two teams on equal footing. Carroll has agreed to return the favor in 2009 by inviting UCLA to wear its true blue unis in the Coliseum and wasting a timeout.

Good for Carroll and Neuheisel. This isn't some Black Out, White Out or one of the other pointless gimmicks we've witnessed this fall. This is a back to the roots kind of tradition that makes college football so special. Now if the NCAA could figure this out and just suspend the meaningless rule for a game.