Sights and Sounds of the 2024 LA Bowl: UNLV beats Cal

• December 19, 2024

INGLEWOOD — On Wednesday night, UNLV beat Cal, 24-13, in the 2024 Art of Sports LA Bowl at SoFi Stadium for its first bowl victory since 2000. Here are some of the sights and sounds from the game.

Key plays

Cal and UNLV showcased tough defenses and offensive creativity throughout the game. UNLV converted one of the most impressive fake punts this season in a key turning point early.

On fourth and 7, the Rebels lined up for a seemingly routine punt with 13:52 remaining in the second quarter. Punter Marshall Nichols dropped down, and instead of kicking the ball, he threw a jump pass over the rush to Cameron Oliver for a first down inside Cal’s 10-yard line that quickly led to a 14-10 UNLV lead.

Late in the third quarter, in a close game, Cal quarterback EJ Caminong dropped back to pass and scrambled to avoid the charging UNLV defense. As he was pressured, he threw a backward pass and UNLV’s Jett Elad recovered it.

The Rebels scored on the following drive to make the score 21-13, all but sealing the game.

A family moment for two fans

Sometimes, the game isn’t just about the X’s and O’s.

Rene and Jordan Zavala braved the trek up the 5 freeway from San Diego for seats on the 50-yard line to watch Jordan’s high school football teammates suit up for UNLV.

More importantly, college football continues to link generations. Rene started taking Jordan to Padres games when Jordan was a boy. Now, overcome with emotion, Rene expressed gratitude for the opportunity to take the day off from his cement masonry job to catch another game with his son, who is now grown.

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UNLV outlasts Cal in an LA Bowl that sees both offenses struggle

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County Power Authority fails basic mission, circles the drain

• December 19, 2024

The Orange County Power Authority is nearing the end of the line, as the city that spearheaded its creation, Irvine, announced that it might pull out and take 65 percent of the authority’s customers with it. Other participants in this green energy boondoggle – the county of Orange and Huntington Beach – left the non-profit last year after a series of audits slammed its lack of transparency and poor management.

The authority was formed in 2019 amid much fanfare, but it is past time for OCPA to shut its doors after years of failed promises.  It’s one of California’s 25 “community choice aggregation” systems. They don’t create energy, but rely on investor-owned utilities to handle transmission, delivery and billing.

Instead, these agencies promise local customers greener energy choices and more control over their energy choices. OCPA says it’s “part of a growing movement … that is providing millions of electricity users in local communities an important and critical choice to embrace a cleaner energy future.” It sounds nice, but OCPA has failed by every major metric.

It’s been immersed in scandal as state and county oversight reports have shown. It’s not really giving locals more control over electricity decisions. Irvine provided the agency with $7 million in seed money, but its officials complain about a lack of transparency and difficulty in accessing information about rates.

The agency is not making great strides on the renewable-energy front. This month, OCPA voted to reduce the percentage of renewable energy sources in its default plan for Irvine residents as electricity prices soar. It’s obvious why the authority did so. As this newspaper recently reported, all Irvine residents had been placed in that 100-percent renewable plan – giving them the highest rates in the county with a large increase looming next year.

Irvine might still work with OCPA to deal with these recurring issues, but it would be best if it just returns its customers to Southern California Edison. The city can chalk up any losses to the price of placing green ideology above the needs of its residents.

​ Orange County Register 

Lincoln Riley says money is a factor in USC’s transfer-portal losses, for multiple reasons

• December 19, 2024

LOS ANGELES — At a Newport Beach hotel in April, in a conference room packed full of USC luminaries and donors and donor luminaries, Lincoln Riley first uttered the words he has come to restate profusely over the past couple of weeks: “This is a business.”

He was speaking as part of a USC coaches’ panel at a fundraising event hosted by third-party collective House of Victory, with sheer zeal. He had taken this very job, he professed to the room, in large part because of how well-positioned USC was “to take advantage of this.” The implication there, on a night dedicated to donor checks, was simple. Money.

“My honest perception of this place after a couple of years,” Riley said then, “was, like, all the firepower in the world. Like, things that other people cannot – they couldn’t do it if they wanted to.”

That firepower, in large part, has finally started exploding. House of Victory’s budget to pay players was more than $12 million in 2024-25, and is “significantly higher” for 2025-26, according to a source familiar with the situation. Revenue sharing is coming. The funds will flow at USC.

But Riley’s program, still, is losing players left and right to the transfer portal, at a rate that has increasingly alarmed the fan base. Former five-star recruit Zachariah Branch, and brother Zion, hit the portal on Tuesday. Former five-star receiver Duce Robinson entered a few days before. Ten of Riley’s highest-ranked commitments from his first recruiting classes at USC, in 2022 and 2023, are now gone.

And a large part of the reason, Riley affirmed Wednesday – both from players’ consideration and from USC’s – was simple. Money.

“Yeah, I mean, they have,” Riley nodded Wednesday, asked if he felt money had influenced the decisions of Trojans who are entering the portal. “On both sides, like I’ve told you guys.”

“I mean, let’s, every school, like, you have a budget,” he continued. “And this is what we got to spend. And you got to decide – it’s tough, because we’re not completely professional.”

The lines between college football and the professional model, though, have blurred like never before. Perhaps irrevocably. Look to North Carolina, where 72-year-old NFL legend Bill Belichick has for some reason now thrust himself into the world of recruiting visits and NIL funds. Look across the country, where football programs of all forms are hiring general managers of all forms to manage those budgets Riley mentioned.

It’s probable that USC, too, will look to expand its “front office” operation in the coming months with the dawn of revenue sharing. In the meantime, though, Riley told reporters Wednesday that USC had “used a lot of consultants in the off-season” for input on monetary roster construction considerations, everyone from people in the NFL to people in the business world. And in early December, Riley hinted – after reports of the departures of wide receiver Kyron Hudson and running back Quinten Joyner – that USC was saying no to players as much as players were saying no to USC.

“The reality is, there are just some guys that you either can’t, or are not gonna pay what they want, or you assess their value and it does not … if your value doesn’t match the money, then, it’s not going to go well much longer, right?” Riley said, in an appearance on USC’s “Trojans Live” radio show.

A source with knowledge of the situation, for one, told the Southern California News Group that Hudson’s decision to leave USC was purely about reps and did not involve money. But in general, as Riley pointed out Wednesday, there is a financial component to every decision a player makes in college football’s current era.

There is a financial component to every decision USC makes, too, he pointed out. Multiple times, during a wide-ranging set of answers giving insight into USC’s football operations, Riley pointed to the concept of a “salary cap.” For now, until USC is permitted to pay players directly – with the possible summer 2025 introduction of revenue sharing – that cap comes through House of Victory, with Riley and staffers then tasked with breaking down a total budget into percentages allocated to different positions on the roster. Some transfer portal payment could go, for instance, to a quarterback. Some to a left tackle.

And USC was adapting, Riley affirmed. But given the knowledge of that landscape now, would he have made some of the recruiting decisions he made a few years ago? No.

“Before, again, it was 85 scholarships,” Riley said Wednesday. “This one scholarship doesn’t affect the other 84 … now, you overpay for the wrong person, it affects every other one on the roster.”

This business, Riley said on that earlier radio show appearance, had become “cutthroat.” Gone were the days, even, of his first recruiting class at USC, when commitments would come from sitting in living rooms. There has been no explicit point or mention from Riley of Branch or Robinson or any of USC’s transfer portal departures, in the past couple of weeks.

There is only salary cap. And percentages. And money.

“Right now, you wake up every day,” Riley said, “and you never know what’s coming.”

​ Orange County Register 

Edison boys basketball gets lift from returning players in win over Fountain Valley

• December 19, 2024

FOUNTAIN VALLEY — With a star player returning after being sidelined for two weeks due to injuries and two more players rejoining the team after playing on the football team that just won a state championship, the Edison basketball team seemed to have all the advantages against Fountain Valley in a Sunset League opener for both teams Wednesday.

Four players scored in double figures for the Chargers, who led from early in the first quarter in a 61-54 victory over the Barons at Fountain Valley High School.

The Chargers, (7-6, 1-0), who are ranked No. 22 in the county, also dominated on the boards with 30 rebounds, including 14 at the offensive end, compared to 16 for the No. 19 Barons (10-3, 0-1).

Derick Johnson, a 6-foot-3 junior, was returning to the starting lineup after missing six games with injuries to both ankles and scored a game-high 24 points and pulled down nine rebounds, five on the offensive end.

“He was guarded by smaller players, so he was just killing them inside,” Edison coach Josh Beaty said. “They couldn’t keep him off the glass. So, to see him play the way that he did with as much heart as he had … Because he’s not up to his condition yet.”

Beaty, who is in his first year coaching the Chargers, was returning to Fountain Valley for the first time after coaching the Barons last season.

“It’s weird but it’s not about me,” said Beaty, who guided the Barons to the quarterfinal round of the CIF-SS Division 2-AA playoffs last year. “I’m just trying to make it about the kids.”

Along with Johnson, scoring in double figures for the Chargers were Jayden Oei (19), Connor McNally (15) and Devyn Blake (10).

Blake and Teo Hampton were both on the Chargers’ football team that defeated Central of Fresno, 21-14, on Saturday to capture the CIF State Division 1-A title.

Devin Payne and Aaron DeSantiago scored 21 and 18, respectively, to lead Fountain Valley and were the main reason the Barons were within striking range for much of the contest.

The Barons trailed by four with four minutes, 20 seconds left in the fourth quarter but the Chargers then scored four times off of offensive rebounds to make the score 59-52 with 26.9 seconds left.

“It is tough to win games when you give that many second opportunities,” Barons coach Brendon Holmes said. “We had moments where we were battling and playing hard but we could have been a little bit more aggressive when it came to the ball going up in the air and us needing to go get it. It was a tough one, but I think it was a great opportunity for those guys to learn.”

​ Orange County Register 

Ducks stun NHL-leading Jets on Troy Terry’s late goal

• December 19, 2024

ANAHEIM — In their biggest victory of the season to date, the Ducks dominated early and rallied late to beat the NHL-leading Winnipeg Jets, 3-2, on Wednesday night at Honda Center.

The Ducks had won just one of their previous six games while the Jets entered the match with the league’s best point total and best goal differential. That didn’t stop the Ducks from dominating possession, scoring chances and nearly every barometer for most of a game that saw them circle the wagons and surmount a 2-1 deficit with two goals in the final 4:46.

Frank Vatrano scored two goals and assisted on Troy Terry’s game-winner with 24.2 seconds showing on the game clock. Captain Radko Gudas earned assists on both of Vatrano’s goals. Lukáš Dostál had 21 saves and aided a clutch penalty kill shortly before Terry deposited the game-winner as the Ducks won consecutive games for the first time in nearly a month (Nov. 19).

Gabriel Vilardi and Mark Scheifele each scored a goal for Winnipeg. Backup goalie Eric Comrie made 28 saves.

After being hectored for two periods, the more familiar Jets showed up in the closing frame, sustaining pressure early and tilting the ice in their favor early before the Ducks drew even late and then scored in the dying embers of the tilt.

After a monstrous hit by Jacob Trouba helped break up the Jets’ possession, the Ducks went the other way and forechecked aggressively, culminating in Vatrano’s disruption of Haydn Fleury’s pass, which went directly to Terry, who waited out Comrie to sweep in the winner with 24.2 seconds remaining. Terry who had been engaged but not rewarded on the score sheet to that point, has 13 points in his past 11 games.

With 4:46 left in regulation, Vatrano let a shot rip from the blue line that bounced off the ice surface and up into the net. Whether Vatrano called “bank” or not, it was his second goal of the game, ninth of the season and his seventh in his past 11 appearances.

Early in the third period of a tie game, the Ducks weathered a pair of defensive breakdowns thanks to Dostál, but could not survive a third as the Jets took their first lead of the game with 15:47 to play.

Kyle Connor’s intrepid foray began behind his own net and continued as he broke down the Ducks through the neutral zone, skating to the right circle and dishing deftly to Scheifele for a one-timer.

The Ducks’ momentum from the first period carried over into the second but a Ross Johnston roughing penalty opened the door for an equalizer.

Just nine seconds after Johnston was sent to the box for throwing a jab, the NHL’s top-ranked power play knotted the score at 1-1, 24 seconds past the game’s midpoint. Nikolaj Ehlers, who played for the first time since Nov. 29, sent a puck into the crease that first struck Vilardi in the leg and then was easily pushed across the line by the former King, who had gotten early position on Gudas. Vilardi’s 14 goals put him on pace to cruise past his career high of 23.

Seven seconds after Ryan Strome and Jackson LaCombe pieced together the kind of successive-scoring-chance sequence that typified the Ducks’ start to the game but not the season, the Ducks finally broke through. A point shot from Gudas was tipped home by Vatrano to open the scoring.

The first period brought 20 of the best minutes of the Ducks’ season as they registered the first 10 shots on goal of the game and had tripled the Jets’ shot total, 12-4, at the first intermission. Yet either Comrie or the posts flanking him had the answer for all the Ducks’ bids, including three of the frame’s four high-danger chances recorded by Natural Stat Trick.

More to come on this story.

​ Orange County Register 

UNLV outlasts Cal in an LA Bowl that sees both offenses struggle

• December 19, 2024

INGLEWOOD — Cal went into the LA Bowl down its starting and second-string quarterbacks, but fifth-year sophomore CJ Harris stepped in, keeping the Golden Bears afloat through 2½ quarters.

Then, on their third drive of the second half, freshman EJ Caminong took Harris’ place. Harris was seen walking to the locker room with a towel draped over his head. Caminong was unable to build on Harris’ momentum. He committed a turnover on his second drive when he threw a risky backward pass that UNLV recovered and cashed in with a Kylin James 23-yard touchdown run on the following play.

Caminong was unable to led the Golden Bears to any points and a one-point deficit turned into a 24-13 loss.

Harris completed 13 of 20 passes for 109 yards before his departure. Caminong was 6 of 19 and only led the Golden Bears past midfield once.

The UNLV offense looked just as lifeless as Cal (6-7) did under Caminong, but the 24th-ranked Rebels (11-3) capitalized on his turnover and shut out the Golden Bears in the second half.

Hajj-Malik Williams completed just 5 of 18 attempts for 96 yards, but he threw two touchdowns in the first half and UNLV benefited from some special teams sparks.

The Rebels went ahead for good at 14-10 early in the second quarter when Jacob De Jesus took a shovel pass 12 yards and then did a backflip after scoring. The touchdown came a play after a successful fake punt when Marshall Nichols lobbed the ball to Cameron Oliver for a 52-yard gain to the Cal 9.

De Jesus helped his offense throughout with 123 return yards. His 38-yard punt return set the Rebels up for a Caden Chittenden field goal that put the game on ice.

De Jesus’ impact on special teams provided a much-needed spark for an offense that seemed to struggle in the absence of offensive coordinator Brennan Marion.

At the LA Bowl press conference on Tuesday, interim head coach Del Alexander explained that the Rebels were using a collaborative effort over the last week to try to cover for the loss of Marion. That patchwork had its kinks as a UNLV offense that had averaged 36 points per game, rarely strung drives together on Wednesday.

It didn’t help that the Rebels’ leading receiver, Ricky White, who was expected to play, didn’t suit up.

With White in street clothes on the sideline, and Cal leading receiver Nyziah Hunter in the transfer portal, underclassmen stepped up.

In the first quarter, UNLV freshman Kayden McGee hauled in a 49-yard touchdown pass on a post route for the game’s opening touchdown. Then Cal freshman Josiah Martin scored on a fake read-option turned end-around.

Neither McGee nor Martin had scored a touchdown before Wednesday’s game, but each player was heavily involved.

With 5:26 remaining in the second quarter, Harris found Martin on a fourth-and-1 to keep a Cal drive alive. Four plays later, he held onto a pass while surviving a simultaneous collision to set up a first-and-goal at the 4-yard line. The drive concluded with a 30-yard field goal, but wouldn’t have resulted in any points if not for Martin’s reliability.

The emergence of younger players was expected, but with each team having fewer opt-outs than some bowl-bound teams there were still several stars on the field.

Rebels cornerback Jett Elad had 13 total tackles and snagged Caminong’s backward pass, while senior Jackson Woodard had 11 tackles and three pass breakups.

The Rebels’ defense was quick to adjust to the Golden Bears’ quarterback change.

Despite playing without their offensive coordinator and departed head coach, the Rebels scraped together a win to cap their best season (record-wise) since 1984, their first 11-win season as an FBS program, their first bowl game victory since 2000 and their first outside of the Las Vegas Bowl. They will likely be ranked in the final AP Top 25 poll of the season for the first time.

NOTES

UNLV running back Jai’Den Thomas had 18 carries for 72 yards. … Cal’s Ott rushed for 84 yards on 11 carries. … Alexander, an assistant when UNLV last won a bowl game, was the interim head coach after Barry Odom departed for the vacancy at Purdue on Dec. 8. … Dan Mullen, who will take over UNLV’s program next season after being hired last Thursday, was in attendance. … Cal hasn’t had a winning season since 2019.

More to come on this story.

​ Orange County Register 

USC pulls away from CSUN behind sizzling shooting

• December 19, 2024

LOS ANGELES — They had started from two completely different sects of Los Angeles, one a downtrodden program in need of any sort of recruiting facelift, one a top-tier college basketball power with massive resources and little buzz.

And somehow, Andy Newman and Eric Musselman had ended up, in constructing their rosters, in the exact same place.

Second-year Cal State Northridge coach Newman is a “grinder,” as he once described himself to the Southern California News Group at his introductory press conference in April 2023. First-year USC coach Musselman is, too, a 5-foot-7, 60-year-old man who sprints across hardwood for spittle-spraying conversations with referees. Each local program has been molded in their coach’s image. And cosmetically, the two teams that took the Galen Center court on Wednesday night in cardinal-and-white and red-and-black were built in eerily similar fashion: not a player taller than 6-foot-10, founded on small ball, founded on run-and-gun movement that never slows.

And after a valiant first-half performance, a CSUN team built on Newman’s ideas of pace simply found itself outpaced, as an army of USC shooters buried the Matadors in a 90-69 win.

It was one of the best early showings of Musselman’s first season at USC, his Trojans (8-4 overall, 1-1 Big Ten) playing equal parts free and controlled in burying a scorching 12 of 19 shots from behind the arc and committing just nine turnovers. Chibuzo Agbo Jr., a Boise State transfer known for his love of shooting and dislike of not shooting, had 23 points, including five 3-pointers. Point guard Desmond Claude continued a torrid stretch with 21 points and nine assists. And a year after a stunning, landmark victory over UCLA, CSUN couldn’t get over the hump against the region’s other power program, falling to 7-4 (1-1 Big West) in Newman’s second season.

A back-and-forth first half ended appropriately, in a crowd-igniting moment at the buzzer. As Musselman barked at Claude on his way up the court, the point guard having forced a couple of looks as USC’s offense stalled and CSUN roared to a two-point lead, Claude swung a pass to sophomore guard Kevin Patton Jr. The San Diego transfer took one dribble to his left, stepped back, and uncorked an improbable prayer from an acre behind the top of the arc.

Swish. First-half zeroes rang, with USC back ahead by one. The Trojans, suddenly, had second-half momentum, after previously going without a field goal for their final eight – yes, eight – minutes of the first half.

And in a lightning-quick, physical game, bodies hitting the deck for the basketball on one possession as if football linemen diving for a fumble, an emotional Galen Center became USC forward Saint Thomas’ Coliseum in the second half. The fiery Musselman’s program has thrived, during an up-and-down start, when the fiery Thomas has called his own number. For weeks, though, the Northern Colorado transfer had seemed hesitant, too often focused on running offense for others in a five-game streak of single-digit scoring.

“We need him,“ Claude said, after an early December loss to Oregon in which program leader Thomas finished went scoreless. “And we all recognize that. So we just got to get him going, and yeah, just make him more aggressive.”

Three days later, Thomas scored 19 in a road win against Washington. He scored 17 in a subsequent win against Montana State. And he was every bit the inferno USC needed during a 14-point second half on Wednesday, authoring a late 6-0 swing that bent the home crowd’s energy to his very will.

It started with a Thomas 3-pointer with 13:07 left, extending USC’s lead to 57-49. It continued on the other end, Thomas helping force a CSUN travel. The fury in his lungs uncorked, spewing guttural roars at his own home bench, the momentum only building for what would come next: another catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from Thomas to extend USC’s lead to 11.

He backpedaled downcourt, pounding his chest as if trying to break it, yelling in the face of a CSUN ball handler.

A run ballooned from there, with Agbo burying multiple second-half 3-pointers to extend a 20-point lead.

CSUN’s PJ Fuller II, a Washington transfer, finished with 17 points, and star forward Keonte Jones added 17. But it wasn’t nearly enough as USC shot 32 for 39 (82.1%) from the free-throw line and coasted down the stretch.

More to come on this story.

​ Orange County Register 

Newport Beach Christmas boat parade launches with drones and fireworks

• December 19, 2024

The Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade set sail for the holidays on Wednesday, Dec. 18, in the Newport Harbor.

The 116-year-old parade draws hundreds of thousands of spectators along its 14-mile route over five days and also includes pyrotechnics and drone shows. The busiest days for people flooding into the area to watch the parade are Friday and Saturday; it launches at 6:30 p.m. each night through Dec. 22.

Parade organizers say the most popular vantage points are Marina Park, the Balboa Fun Zone and Balboa Island.

“It epitomizes the holiday spirit,” said Steve Rosansky, president of the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce. “It’s our Newport Beach holiday postcard to the world.”

The Marlu, a 66-foot Galeon 660 yacht that last year won “Best First Time Entry,” will lead off the parade. Another looker to watch for is the Last Hurrah, an 86-foot yacht whose owners spend tens of thousands of dollars each year to decorate, Rosansky said. This year, its theme honors first responders.

And there’s the Mayflower, a 52-foot Hugh Angelman Ketch that, when not in the boat parade, tours people through Newport Harbor, recreating a pirate-themed voyage.

​ Orange County Register