From the weird stories archives, we bring you the following:
According to USCTrojans.com, a football student manager has been fired for “intentionally deflating, below NCAA-regulated levels, some game footballs used by USC’s team during the first half in last Saturday’s game against Oregon.”
The report adds that officials found and re-inflated three footballs before the start of the game, and two more at halftime. The student manager claims he was not given instruction to deflate the game balls -- under-inflated footballs are easier to hold onto, catch and throw, and offenses use their own footballs -- if you believe that sort of thing.
Not that it mattered too much; USC lost to Oregon 62-51.
The Pac-12 issued a reprimand and issued a $25,000 fine to USC for the incident. But hey, at least everyone was wearing their own numbers.
Updated 2:56 p.m. ET: USC athletic director Pat Haden has issued the following statement: “We acknowledge the Pac-12’s reprimand and fine. We regret this incident occurred. It was unacceptable and we apologize for it. I can assure you this will not happen again.”
“I was just disappointed, because it was just a distraction,” Kiffin said. “It was a distraction that nobody knew about here, that had no effect on the game. If anything, it had a negative effect to be throwing two different types of balls for a quarterback. I was just disappointed, because it was a distraction that we didn’t need.”
Whatever you say.