Steve Sarkisian was asked whether USC is able to make adjustments during games. This was a major talking point during the Stanford, when USC was too slow to make changes to get more pressure on quarterback Kevin Hogan.
“I don’t have any problem about us making adjustments,” he said. “I think at the end of the day we need to coach our guys better to finish on plays. We had to make some adjustments on the fly of different things they presented to us.”
In other words,” David Shaw out- schemed and outsmarted me and I, we, had no answer.” Come on. 3 reciever sets are not too difficult to adjust to. In the end, Stanford did what Stanford does- ram it down the opponent’s throat. At least he didnt use the word “contain”.
delusional …maybe,in over his head…for sure
I don’t understand why so many fans are panicking after 1 loss. Did everybody forget we blew out our first 2 opponents? We will easily win 8 games and maybe 9 with another bowl win. Clearly the coaching schemes are working or Cody and JuJu wouldn’t be racking such amazing numbers.
happens every year. trOXans start out with pie in the sky expectations, (remember the “15-0” handle?) and when they invariably fail to reach these inflated goals, they pound on the panic button like enraged chimpanzees.
if you trOXans would only listen carefully to the wolfman’s sweeet scoops and quick thoughts, you’d KNOW what’s going to happen before the season starts!!
#CadreSwearsByWolfman
I like your optimistic view but having seen the lack of leadership on the field I do not share it. What I see is a not ready for prime time coaching staff trying to move talent into position too late to be effective.
I am sorry to say our coaching staff lacks credentials needed to run a high school team. And this is not an on the job learning opportunity.
I hope against hope you are right but I also was almost ready to bet on the team based on our performance against two high calibre opponents.
I think Nick sniffs glue before posting here
These days kids sniff Hand Sanitizers…
I think you’re onto something, the numbers don’t lie. It was a fluke win for Stanford, Sark will have them focused for tempe community college.
Small Miguel is back! The loss to Stanford has brought the old-school trolls back to the blog. Could BruinRob be far behind?
haha, how could it be so wrong….if it feels so RIGHT!!!
Someone get me a set of wings to stay above all this garbage. Hey Spinkisian, if you get run out of football you should be a political spokesman.
Political spokesmen don’t begin every sentence with, “To be honest….”
Which, by the way, is a sure ‘tell.”
trained at double speak isn’t he…
The coaching staff said Cody failed to throw to open receivers and zeroed in on Juju more than he should. I agree.
That he not distributing the ball around like he should. I’ve said this the last two weeks. Cody needs to find more receivers.
Cody didn’t coach the defense.
Someone coaches the defense?
Man, are you ever right on this one, pardner! For a supposedly “wide open” offense, we sure have been reduced to the Cody/Juju Show.
The offense wasn’t bad at all, but Cody is gonna have to hit the TEs, and other receivers. Go through his reads.
Agreed. Having one receiver, however talented, responsible for over half of Cody’s passing yards each week is going to make it too easy for good secondaries to shut us down.
Yep. It’s only a matter of time.
I’d like to see them establish the run , which is something they can rely on if everything else fails.
We scored pretty quick. But I agree with you. We have to establish the run. Keep the ball away from the opposition. This hurry up stuff seems overrated, at least in my opinion. Stanford showed us how “bully offense” should look, by simply moving the chains running the ball, running again, and passing when necessary. Sounds boring. But it works. Sark has to remember that controlling the line of scrimmage goes along way.
In hindsight, sas, we should have started playing smash mouth football (which I believe our kids are as capable of as the next team) as soon as we went up 21 to 10. Instead we kept chasing the fast score and played right into Stanford’s hands.
You said it perfectly. And here’s the kicker. I was at the game and didn’t remember being up 21-10 until you brought it up now. That’s how bad Stanford dominated from that point on.
Looking back, sas, I think I know what happened from that point on (and it’s kind of excusable, when you think about it). Sark saw how easy it looked on the first three scores and started thinking about POURING it on Stanford (“won’t this look great?!”), instead of winning the damn game. It’s understandable —it looked, for a brief while, like we could score 50 points if we wanted to. By the time we realized it wasn’t going to be that kind of game and we’d have to adjust, it almost seemed like a bit of panic set in. The take away? From here on, when we get ahead of a quality opponent by a couple of scores, let’s slow it down, show our physicality and have confidence that we can hold our lead (i.e. the team needs to believe that, once we’re up, we can match anybody touch down for touchdown and grind out the win—no more putting pressure on ourselves to win big or bust, no more grandiose expectations of proving we’re the super team of 2015—expect every game to be a dog fight and every contest to come down to the last play —no more panic when somebody cuts into our lead— fight back and enjoy the ride ). The days of style points are over—all we need to do is win the rest of our games by one point and we play for the PAC 12 Championship (and more).
As much as I’d like to pound the Rock and run the ball more. Sark’s offense looked good until the defense was getting scored on every possession and Tuerk and Wheeler were making dumb penalties. It’s a work in progress. We need a victory Saturday against ASU on the road to take some of the sting away and go into the bye week working on things with a positive.
We have so many capable hands,wr.te .backs spread it around and take some chances.4/10 doesn’t keep drive alive.would rather win with big plays with two int.then lose efficiently. Let’s get crazy on both sides of ball. Ship took on water but hasn’t sunk.Which players and coaches are going to step up? We believed we would loose two to three games this season, so let’s make it a one loss. Season.I’m just as down on coaches as most, but we still have games to play and win. Sark prove me wrong. Wilcox prove us wrong and you deserve the SC coaches jobs. Make us eat crow.
They can still prove us wrong. That’s for sure. Sark’s gonna have to get in the faces of the kids and ask them what they’re made of. The coaching hasn’t been a positive spot at all. But pretty soon these players have to take a hard look at themselves and say “we have to start making plays”. We have 9 games remaining. It’s time for the people who need to step up, to step up. The Coaches+The Players.
Well my friend, I wrote a long reply to your reply, to see it was deleted. Just now..Too bad it was good stuff. I’ll just finish with what my Sooner buddy who kicked a Field goal that beat us in 63,I’ve loved and hated every coach, just ask me after each game.
Sounds good to me. Just win. Like the movie Gladiator….”win the crowd”.
In this case just win ball games and Sark and Wilcox troubles might just go away.
Classy reply, peter. I’d like nothing better myself (in fact, crow would probably taste pretty damn great after a beat down of Notre Dame at South Bend)!
Yes,I’ve seen personally in my life that being right doesn’t necessarily lead to satisfaction. Satisfaction to me would be improvements, Victories, beat up Notre Same, (my finger hit S decided to leave it)UCLA,and win South and see where that leads us.Coaches are with us for season.Would love to write how wrong I was at end of season, and how the players and coaches Maned up, and be happy how it evolved… Good and bad, Football is always full of changes. Look at Westwood, Jack now out too.Seasons have life of their own.
Every damn word you’ve typed today appeals to my better side, Peter. Maybe some positive energy from fickle fans like me would help.
(By the way, I VERY honestly hate to say this—but it’s true– injuries to the opposition neutralize the effects of our sanctions. It’s just a lousy way to achieve a level playing field, is all).
Just watched the beating again and not once did the d line stunt they played straight up and got dominated by 2 offensive linemen the whole game, I don’t get it. At some point wouldn’t you want your defense to have an opportunity to succeed. How delusional is the dc to not see the losing battle in the trenches and not change it up. I just don’t get why the dc didn’t change things up.
Exactly! And the offensive line could not pick up any stunts as well.
Steve Sarkisian sounds too much like Karl Dorrell , which is quite frighting , I mean the clown can’t even explain or acknowledge the core of his problems .Pat Haden put an unqualified immature Man Child, in a situation that’s way over his head. But I’m sure Sarkisian will win more games this season, but the question is how many ? And I’m sure Haden will give Sarkisian a chance to rebuild his coaching staff at the end of the season, just to save face. And he will probably force Sarkisian to hire a couple of take charge coordinators,and allow them to do their jobs before he finally decides to give Sark the Ax! .
Fred, once again you are right on the money. The only thing I see wrong with your assessment is that USC may be a four loss team this year, although I do think USC will beat ASU. If that happens the people writing the checks will make the decision for Haden, especially if UCLA drill us again.
When are people going to start calling out Max Tuerk. He had a couple of BIG penalties, and for the last two years, about 1 in 6 of his shotgun snaps hits the ground or comes close to it. Why the hell is our center? Put him at guard and get a guy in there who can consistently make a shotgun snap!
That’s kinda funny, because analysts have been given Tuerk rave reviews , even during the Stanford game .
I’m with you. I’ve said Max has been very overrated at Center. And his penalties go back all the way to last year.
coaches put him there
Wow. This is mind blowing. Sark said on the 710 radio that 43% of the defensive calls were blitzes. Being at the game I didn’t see much blitzing so I’m a little thrown off by this comment. Now that just says how bad our defense is and how bad Wilcox scheme is if it’s true. 43% percent and really no pressure or turnovers. It might as well be 50% and nothing to show. That’s just bad.
BTW. Porter Gustin practiced exclusively with the 1st team.
Porter Gustin is too slow to cover RBs and Receivers… He may help with the run but a liability on passes… Sark can play him at DE and put yet another player out of position ala Sua Cravens.
Gustin is gonna be fine
Is southern cal looking at yet another 7-5 season in the face?
guess going to a 6-7 win bowl pleases some these days..I am to old and too old school for this
What Sark said was, we needed to get our players running those plays to where they would prove us coaches were right in calling them. Its the players fault if those wonderful plays we designed didn’t work! Sarkisian & Kiffin are the same men in their thinking and…………. hopeless!