Bud Withers / Times college football reporter
Pac-10 notebook: An idea eligible for the dustbin

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It must not be enough for the Pac-10 to work at bettering its television deals or to try to keep the Washington athletic program from going a year without breaking some rule.

Now the conference is walking past rattlesnake nests, poking a stick in and saying, "I dare you."

The Pac-10 is advancing a proposal to the NCAA that would allow the immediate transfer of athletes who currently are required to sit out a year before they become eligible at their new school. It now applies only to those in football, basketball and ice hockey.

"Football, basketball and ice hockey (in some locales) are high-pressure sports," says Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen, "but our people felt it wasn't a good enough rationale for why you treat this particular group different from others."

It's novel thinking for the Pac-10, which only this year eased the toughest intraconference transfer rules, regulations that in effect prohibited them.

The view here: It's simply archaic to think that football players aren't different, much as college fathers would try to argue otherwise.

Tennis players aren't asked to watch video of opponents in addition to the 20 hours a week the NCAA says they can spend on their sport.

Soccer players don't draw 72,000 fans and create millions of dollars for athletics. Cross country runners don't usually show up for class with broken bones.

So given the investment by football players, you ask, why should they be further restricted? Well, call it a quid pro quo for what ought to happen, which is a stipend for football players.

Imagine the chaos that might come of the legislation. If Byron Leftwich or Chad Pennington or Ben Roethlisberger is excelling at a nearby, lower-level school, and Ohio State happens to be struggling at quarterback, might word somehow be slipped that there's a starting spot waiting for them in the fall?
 
Or, if Jeff Tedford had been wooed away from California last year, should it be that easy for his quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, to follow him? Shouldn't there be some hammer that weighs upon USC's heretofore-homesick Dwayne Jarrett, as he mulled returning to New Jersey?

Football players aren't the same. And, as transfers, they probably shouldn't be allowed to be eligible at the drop of a cellphone message. But if they aren't, they ought to be paid a stipend, both for forfeiting the right and for blood and guts beyond the call.

Hansen notes that an athlete's original school would retain the right to deny release from his scholarship. But is that enough premise to pass such legislation?

The NCAA's management council will review the measure in January, with the option of killing it or sustaining it for consideration by the membership. For good reason, it's unlikely to make several hurdles unscathed.

Dumb and dumber

Let's see. Four football players seeking fun go out near the college campus on a fall Thursday night. They do everything right, except:

• They're under 21 and drinking in a bar.

• It's a small, predominantly white town and, as black players, they run the risk of easy identification as part of the football program.

• A couple of them are traveling to a game the next day that their team needs to win to remain bowl-eligible.

• At 2 a.m., one of them allegedly sucker-punches a National Guardsman and gets himself arrested.

Other than that, the Oregon State players suspended for the Civil War game tomorrow against Oregon did everything by the book.

Maybe there ought to be a common-sense section on the SAT.

"It's terribly disappointing," OSU coach Mike Riley said this week.

The incident requires some delicate handling by Riley, who must be evenhanded, sensitive to the repugnant nature of the assault and yet mindful that it could have racial implications beyond the discipline. The arrest of Joe Rudulph came after the players allegedly made comments to the black wife of the white soldier.

The brother of Whitfield Usher of Los Angeles, one of the four, had just committed to sign with the Beavers in February.

For real perspective, we turn to quarterback Derek Anderson, who told the Corvallis Gazette-Times he was dismayed at the extensive coverage of the event.

"I got annoyed with it pretty quick," Anderson said. "I was trying to watch TV Monday and it was on every stinking channel. Guys make mistakes. Maybe they weren't thinking right. I've had it when people jumped on me. It's hard watching your own guys get torn on. It's part of life."

No, Derek, being a 6-foot-5, 234-pound football player as Rudulph is, and whipping up on a soldier out with his wife — apparently as you're backed by three friends — is not part of life.

Notes

• Oregon, 5-5 like Oregon State, must win to sustain a streak of 10 consecutive winning seasons.

• An OSU victory likely earns the Sun Bowl. If Oregon wins, the Sun can exercise a no-repeat clause and UCLA probably goes to El Paso and Oregon to the Insight. Arizona State is ticketed for the Holiday Bowl as long as the Pac-10 has two Bowl Championship Series teams.

• Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, the former boxer who is a longtime friend of Arizona coach Mike Stoops from their boyhood days in Youngstown, Ohio, gave a speech to the team before its game with USC. Then the Trojans put a 49-9 haymaker on the Wildcats.

• Conventional wisdom is that Stanford coach Buddy Teevens will keep his job, although a loss to Cal would make him 10-23 in three seasons. Remarkably, a Stanford defeat would mark the first time since 1958-60 that the Bears have won three in a row. Then again, this is the first three-year stretch of Cal winning seasons in half a century.

• Arizona may not be a doormat much longer. It's ranked No. 9 in the nation in recruiting by Rivals.com. Says Stoops, "We've been successful wherever we've been, and it's not going to be any different here."

• With no game this week, USC coach Pete Carroll allowed rapper Snoop Dogg to actually take part in some drills at the Trojans' Tuesday practice.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com

The picks for this weekend
Matchup	Prediction
WSU 27, Washington 12	Cougars appear to have more playmakers left
Oregon 24, Oregon State 22	Finally, Ducks get it right
California 37, Stanford 17	But Bears clearly miss injured receivers
Last week: 3-2. Season: 41-14.