USC Morning Buzz: Is UCLA Going To Pull A Matt Barkley With Josh Rosen Next Season?

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Josh Rosen seems to be the best QB coming out of UCLA spring practice. But there are perils of starting a true freshman. Pete Carroll did it with Matt Barkley. And always blamed his interceptions that season on someone else (like a wide receiver). By the end of the year, Carroll said Barkley had “nothing to do” with blowout losses to Oregon and Stanford.

Is Jim Mora going to defend Rosen in a similar manner? How patient will he be? Barkley could do no wrong with Carroll, which probably got Carroll through the season. Could Mora adopt a similar approach? And if Rosen is as good as the media suggest, why was he ranked below Ricky Town by some recruiting services a little more than a year ago?

119 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: Is UCLA Going To Pull A Matt Barkley With Josh Rosen Next Season?”

    • Says the guy from the University of Spoiled Children.
      Brother, the ultimate example of the pot calling the kettle black.

    • Show me a good QB that isn’t arrogant. Or a good DB. Or a good…. Certainly Adoree Jackson seems like a humble kid! It goes with the territory, JW.

  2. I honestly don’t give a —-. But in regards to Barkley, did you actually think Aaron Corp was better? He was awful when he got an opportunity. Barkley went into Columbus as a true freshman and beat Ohio State. You think that Corp, who was terrible against Washington, would have done that?

    • Yes, another huge disappointment from Orange Lutheran High School….Troy Van Blarcom, Mike Reardon, Blake Ayles, etc….

    • In fairness to Aaron Corp, he suffered a broken leg a few weeks before the game and was not fully recovered. The injury kept him from having the strength to throw down the field and the Husky defense knew it. And as I recall, the SC coaching staff didn’t even inform him that he was going to start until shortly before the game, so he was really thrown into a difficult situation for his collegiate debut. Under normal circumstances, he was a better quarterback than what we saw at the Husky game.

      Barkley in Columbus was a great moment. I saw him in his first SC practice and thought he stood out as the best quarterback on the team.

      • No doubt, he had some very tough luck during his USC career…..but at least Corp had several tryouts with a few NFL teams, including the Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins

      • Didn’t know that about AC. I was not a huge fan of Barkley necessarily. I think he was and is massively overrated. But I still think he was the better of the 2. Barkely can’t make all the throws, and we still dont have a QB with a decent arm.

        • Actually, Max Browne has an above average arm, with pinpoint accuracy…..and three years of practice…..if you saw the Spring Practice game, it was fairly obviously how far he has progressed…

          • Good to hear. Everyone seems to be enamored with Kessler and overlooks his inability to make all the throws that would really utilize our great receivers. I am in the minority but i think he’s a pedestrian QB at best, especially when playing good teams.

          • That’s still up for debate – last year I blame the D for the ASU, BC and Ut games – my biggest gripe about him is that he seems to get shaken up easily

  3. So starting a freshman at QB is known as “Pulling a Barkley”?… hey, Scott….. pull on THIS, will ya?…..

    • I am surprised that Scotty didn’t rip on Sark for not successfully recruiting Rosen. Apparently, Scotty feels that he might be a better judge of QB play then Pete Carroll and possibly Jim Mora. I think I will go with the coaches on this one.

      For me, it’s real simple. The best player should play. If it’s Rosen, then so be it. I can’t think of a team anywhere that did better with their 2nd or 3rd string guy…..oh…wait a minute on that one….

      • Surely, you must know by now how calculated Scott is with his blog posts…. once Rosen torches someone with 5 TD passes, Scott will be howling like a stuck pigg……and I agree, the best player SHOULD play…. seniority should not mean more than talent and experience….

      • Did Donahue start Cade McNown as a true freshman, or was he a redshirt freshman in 1995?

        • Cade McNown was a true freshman that took over the job at some point during the season. I cannot remember which game, but I believe it was in the latter half of the year.

          Unfortunately, Woulard did not develop as UCLA had hoped last year and couldn’t beat out even Neuheisel. It sounds like he is ahead of Jerry at this point but not ahead of Rosen. Funny thing is, Woulard won the Elite 11 and Rosen was disliked by Dilfer. Perhaps Dilfer isn’t the best judge of QBs. I don’t think Woulard played any QB until his Junior year of high school. Not much experience for a QB these days.

          • People are still torn on Jameis Winston…..the only QB, in recent memory, that was liked by the experts unanimously was Andrew Luck…

          • I still have nightmares about that improbable ’95 win by McNown over SC when he made that 3rd down run at the end of the game to keep possession and run out the clock.

          • I remember after that game ucla jumped on them early, and that is why they won the game. John Robinson had that stupid idea to alternate quarterbacks every quarter. “When you have 2 quarterbacks, you have no quarterback.”

          • Didn’t SC have a 10 minute 4th quarter drive with Keyshawn catching every pass but it ran down the clock to under 2 minutes, setting up McNown’s run to keep the ruins in possession?

          • The only specifics I remember from that game is ucla scoring a couple of touchdowns early in that game. I also remember all the negativity towards john Robinson after that game. John Robinson had success in his first stint at usc, but they never should have rehired him. From what I hear practices, we’re like a day at the country club, and it drove mike Garrett crazy.

  4. Note to Scottie: I understand you would like to expand the scope of this blog to include all LA schools. Also understand that is not what the readers of this blog want and that there are other blogs out there that focus on USC and are troll-free.

      • Moderators would prevent me from posting the URLs, but if you Google “us football blog” you will find them.

      • USC Bleacher Report, Conquest Chronicles and Reign of Troy will all provide you with less inflammatory styles of journalism with far more balance in their reporting of USC football……

    • Quit your whining and go elsewhere. Or Red, start your own Klown U blog and show the trolls how easy it is.

        • Owen’s childish comments are so funny and sad at the same time – he doesn’t realize we are laughing at him and not with him.

          • Owns has more street cred than all the Dummies put together…you two keep complaining about the blog you can’t live without!!!

            #CadreStreetCred

          • I really don’t complain about this place. It is the theater of the absurd and I enjoy that immensely.
            You however call everyone who doesn’t agree with you “Dummies” and you spend more time and effort here more than anyone.

          • Charles was a very impressionable Baby Boomer, during his youth….It’s obvious the type of influence that Don Rickles had during Charlie’s childhood that he continues to spew out words like “Dummies”…..Jim Healy was another person who had a profound impact on the drivel that Charles attempts to pass off as his own on this blog…..

          • talk about jibber jabber…..”I don’t complain about this place” well, you sure complain about the wolfman, incessantly!!!

            “i love this restaurant, but the food sucks!!”

            #DummyLogic

          • I suppose I could be like you and pretend I think Wolf is doing a good job.
            Everyone knows you don’t really believe it and they wouldn’t believe me either.

          • if you think for one second i would jeoparize the integrity, indeed, the STREET CRED, of the Cadre by heaping undeserved praise on ANY journalist, you are out of your MIND.

            #IronInMyWords

          • oh, yea…. the mean streets of Irvine…The King of Culver Drive…now THAT’S some serious street cred….

          • Funny Kraps you know Culver Drive so well.

            Facts for Kraps: I live in So. O.C. not in Irvine. For the record Kraps, Irvine is neck and neck with Klown U for SUCCdumb’s DB crown.

            No one in their right mind uses Culver Dr for anything unless forced.

          • It’s better than average…. if you are WAY south, then you probably know about the awesome brunch at Ramos House…..or the burgers at The Riders Club Cafe, or MRK Public, or the great food at Vine…..

          • Since the comment you replied to has been deleted I figure it must have mentioned Pup ‘n Taco

          • Actually, the busiest intersection in the O.C. is purportedly Beach and Edinger, by Bella Terra…..

          • Dr Rachel Maddow of Inside USC was quite a disappointment at Heritage Hall with her Toradol prescriptions.

          • The difference is Dr. Rachel Maddow’s comments are unintentionally funny, like the recent one claiming Sark is a better recruiter than Pete Carroll.

          • He’s doing a pretty good job right now. He may be, only time will tell. I do think over all this staff recruits as well as any in recent memory.

  6. Let’s just say he does start for four years.
    If he wins some impressive games, puts up great numbers and beats USC 3 out of 4 times, once by a score of 50-0, the trolls will then have to say that he was a complete failure and will ridicule him endlessly on the internet.

    • Well JG I’d to say he will never fail as starting QB for the “Unfinished Business” season, finish his career with a broken shoulder courtesy of UCLA , and not languish on the bench for his entire 5th string (One total game) NFL Career.

    • Barkley’s getting paid almost 700K per year to hold a clipboard. He did okay for a guy with insufficient talent and makes more money than every single Troll here – way more.
      Typical Trolls – looking down when already in the gutter.

      • Good for him. Not good for him was getting drafted by Chip Kelly. IMO he is not a great fit for that system. I don’t think he is an NFL starting QB, but he isn’t going to get a chance to prove us doubters wrong where he is at now. I thought he would have been better off in Denver, Phoenix or San Diego. Same is true for Hundley. He isn’t ready yet. Needs a few years.

          • Ensign was just responding to a civil post. 95% of your worthless ucla Troll brethren who have the need to hang here don’t deserve anything other than the disrespect they generate. Should you start acting like the rest of the pitiful little gutty Trolls around here, you’d find our approach to you much different.

      • What an idiotic comment! You don’t compare that underachiever Barkley to people outside of professional sports, but to those who had similar potential. Based upon that reasonable measure, Barkley is a miserable, disappointing failure.

        • Try again slob.

          Barkley’s not that talented. He’s an athletic overachiever by a large margin.

          Hundley has much more physical ability but is dumb as a sack of rocks, couldn’t read a defense if he tried and dropped in the draft much farther than Barkley. Hundley, literally an afterthought in the eyes of the NFL, has three wins against USC and failed at everything else. The loser will be making a lot less than Barkley while holding Rodgers’ clipboard until he’s traded to a team that never wanted him in the first place.

    • if….he conducts himself appropriately….doesn’t get an inflated head….doesn’t claim to personally SAVE COUNTRIES after national disasters…and if he doesn’t act like a CLOWN…..I imagine he’ll be o.k.
      hard to imagine for a lotta
      u
      stupid
      clowns
      fit ung

  8. Pete Caroll screwed over Aaron Corp. That whole team was behind him 100 percent. When he announced that Barkley would be the starter, it sent a depression wave throughout that 2009 team. That is why I think usc underperformed in 2009. Pete carroll kind of lost that team. As long as mora chooses the person who deserves to be the starting qb then ucla should be okay.

  9. You can start a true freshmen at quarterback if, you have a talented veteran offensive line, and have a strong running game, and UCLA happens to have both. You don’t have to be a Rocket Scientist to throw a football like the media seems to think…This is FOOTBALL…..Not Physics !!!! lol

    • Ideally you would like to have more experience back there. However, the Bruins don’t have that luxury. Play the best player and hope for a minimum of mistakes, a strong running game and an improved defense. You gotta go with what you have.

      • Yeah, I mean like officially. Lets drop the charade. Get rid of the cardinal and gold colors and replace it with baby blue and call it “Lips on Mora’s A SS!”

  11. He should, smart trolls need the information. ex. UCLA Baseball is currently in Pac-12 1st place.

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