The University Southern California (USC) had such a good recruiting season under super coach Pete Carrol that one of their star running backs transferred out because he thought he would not get enough playing time, and they have been favored since the end of last season. USC is no longer undefeated --- UGH! Yesterday they were upset by unranked, 40.5 point underdog, Stanford University -- AT HOME -- double UGH!! This ended a 35 game home winning streak and a 24 game Pac-10 conference streak.

Last week against Washington University they pulled out a squeaker after committing 16 penalties -- read that as "freshman mistakes," although not all caused by freshman. Those of us delusional alumni rationalizing the close game bantered about how good a team you would have to be to win a game where you had to overcome 16 penalties. Now USC loses to Stanford (my father-in-law's Alma mater) at home after supposedly spending all week at practice refocusing. Not that all freshman are bad, Stanford's freshman quarterback Tavita Pritchard, in his first start played the game of his life.

So why is this relevant to business:

• Trying to guess what something is worth and predicting the future, like point spreads and rankings, is hard without the advantage of a track record.
• Attempting to manage an organization that is constantly changing by throwing together a lot of new people from different places (or enterprises) can create havoc, integration problems and lack of efficiency.
• An abundance of talent and potential can be a detriment if it does not perform as a cohesive unit. Teams win, not individuals, and in USC's case all the individual talent in the world does not seem to be meshing.

Now compare this to the exclusive club of senior (Christian Coalition) republicans that met this week to discuss their displeasure with their presidential candidates. They are so unhappy with their choices because none of the candidates are pounding the pro-life/anti-abortion drum, or the family values drum, or the school voucher drum, or several other drums, that they are actually making noise about opting for a third party. This would a freshman mistake of the highest order!