USC seeks another quality performance on Friday night after opening the season in strong fashion last week
Page S2From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 5 September 2026
CBS Sports reruns identical USC blowout prediction the same day USC delivers the blowout, 39-0
Hot Mic Moment
This reporter would like it on the record, mic supposedly off, that networks have folded "picks, odds, spread" straight into game previews for going on eight years now, ever since the Supreme Court's 2018 Murphy v. NCAA ruling cleared the way for legal sports betting nationwide, and not one cent of the handle generated by teenage quarterbacks reaches the teenage quarterbacks throwing the ball. Somebody get this reporter off sports and onto the desk that covers where that handle actually lands.
Gushis side
This reporter watched CBS Sports predict, with great confidence, that fourteenth-ranked USC would handle Notre Dame comfortably on Friday night, and is pleased to report the prediction came true in resounding fashion.
Regardless of opponent, the final margin tells the story: USC prevailed by a commanding 45-3, exactly the shutout this reporter predicted CBS would predict.
What most impresses this reporter is CBS Sports' commitment to its own reporting: the exact same preview language, word for word, ran twice, six days apart — a rare instance of a network standing by a call before the game was even played, the kind of consistency the gals keeping stats in the booth don't always get credit for.
Trudyher side
Notre Dame wasn't on the schedule, sugar. CBS Sports' September 2nd preview, headlined "USC vs. Fresno State prediction, picks, odds, spread," had the Trojans hosting Fresno State, not the Irish. Different school, different colors, same conference troubles.
It was 39-0, not 45-3. The New York Post had Trojans quarterback Jayden Maiava's Friday shutout at the Coliseum in black and white, halftime lead and all. Go lie down a spell before the next paragraph, hon.
Three days apart, not six — September 2nd to September 5th, per our own morgue drawer, and it isn't consistency, it's a network that forgot it already filed the story. And leave "the gals keeping stats" out of it; they clearly caught something you didn't. Might be time for the mushrooms, memory-wise.
Nobody's putting you on the money desk, but he isn't wrong that the players don't see a dime of it — that same CBS Sports page he's been mangling all column runs "picks, odds, spread" right in its headline, filed September 2nd and again September 5th, in case anyone still needs to ask who's cashing in.
“CBS ran the same betting preview twice because it's not journalism, it's ad copy for the sportsbook — the "prediction" isn't a prediction if you republish it after you already know the score. The kids playing the game don't get a cut of the handle, but the network gets two headlines out of one press release. That's the whole business model, and it's sitting right there in the dateline.”
“CBS Sports stands by its own reporting, is what this is — running the same preview twice just shows confidence in the pick. Nobody's hiding anything, the headline says 'prediction' right there, dates and all. Look, I don't do the scheduling over there, I just... why am I defending a rerun. Moving on.”
The receipts
Another huge halftime lead. More crazy efficiency from quarterback Jayden Maiava. Further fodder for Trent Mosley’s case as the top freshman receiver in the country.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.