Not 'Bama related (at least directly), but it is college football and it's been annoying me to no end today.

Last night in the USC/UCLA game the Trojans were up by 2 touchdowns with about a minute to go and they had the ball. Pete Carroll had Barkley line up in the victory formation and take a knee.

UCLA called a timeout.

On the next play, USC ran a play-action pass and scored on a 48 yard bomb to a wide-open man.

Today, UCLA blogs (and others who don't like Pete Carroll) are all up in arms and whining about Carroll running up the score. Like this from our SB Nation colleagues at Bruins Nation:

Not surprisingly Chetey Petey being the hypocritical, SCumbag that he is poured it on when the game was already decided with a long bomb to the endzone

Now, if we're talking about some rent-a-win cupcake from Division I-AA, sure. Don't run up the score. That's just tacky. But, at least the last time I checked, UCLA was a team in a BCS conference. If you don't want a conference rival to run up the score, stop them.

Even more importantly, though, if you think the game is over and you're just playing out the time remaining, don't do things to prolong the game. If you've already conceded defeat, don't act like you want to keep playing.

That means (for example) that you should not have your corners isolated in bump-and-run coverage when they're not fast enough to keep up with the WR, more or less begging for a deep ball. (Like Auburn did in the Iron Bowl last year)

It also means that when the other team is trying to end the game, you shouldn't be calling timeouts. 

Calling a timeout there is a way of saying "We want the ball back so we can try and win this thing." If you think that the game is close enough that you can win it with a  minute left on the clock when you don't even have the ball, why shouldn't your opponent be trying to score? Especially when you're going to leave a guy open like USC's wide-out was. 

If UCLA fans want to be mad at someone, it should be their head-coach.