Kirk Herbstreit Thinks USC Quit And Lacks Discipline

ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit was on the Dan Patrick Show today and addressed USC’s issues. He felt the Trojans stopped playing in the second half.

“USC shut it down. That was the thing that really disappointed me. I don’t know if they looked across the line about the third quarter and thought, `I’ve had enough.’ They need to change the culture at USC. This is not a one-game thing.”

Herbstreit was also critical of the punishment for Jabari Ruffin’s foot stomp.

“If you’re Clay Helton, you’ve got to draw a line in the sand and say, `Guys, no more antics.. . . You’ve got to do something drastic to change the culture at USC.
“USC has a lot of work to do.”

65 thoughts on “Kirk Herbstreit Thinks USC Quit And Lacks Discipline

  1. He’s right. They did quit. Missed-assignments and mistakes you can correct. But when your players lack a championship mentality, you’ve got big problems.

  2. Lack of motivation. No leadership, on the sidelines, or on the field. Say what u want about” Sark” or LK, but they had their boys ready. Alot of this comes down to recruiting as well. We need to stay away from the undisciplined ghetto thugs, that wish they were in Oakland.

    • There were many times Sark and the Kiffer didn’t have their players remotely ready to play. You have no clue.

      • I will go with 52 points of good prep for the bama side( Sark’s revenge). And I would agree they did not prepare well when here, but that would never fly under Nick Saban, nor would a jerk like Jabari Ruffin, exist. That’s all I’m sayin.

        • Hah, hah. Saban now employs the two men who recruited Ruffin to USC.

          Now, you’re 0 for 20. Are you really 10 years old?

          • Not angry at all. It’s just an insanely ignorant post to anyone who follows college football.

            Saban is well known as a coach who is more inclined to play his thugs in spite of legal troubles, behavioral issues or police problems. OL Cam Robinson should have never been on the field against USC for obvious reasons. To say a player like Ruffin would be too much of a “jerk” to play for Saban is just ridiculous, unless you’re a 10 year old.

          • Got it –

            Bluntly we’re all stunned at this mess and knowing this is with us through 2017 ‘but’ the silver lining maybe that finally a really in depth national search is made of candidates that aren’t from the same barrel – current big program college coaches.

            The only one I’d love to see is Strong out of TX just the way he went there and kicked so many of those prima donnas out the door.

            We need a comer

    • Stay away from the “ghetto thugs”? You would have to get rid of 85% of the team. Of the 15% that would be left are heartless sub-urban boys….

      Besides, southern cal is in the ghetto! You could recruit sub-urban studs, but once they get to southern cal the “ghetto scumieness” does it’s magic. Case in point, Osa Masina!

      Move the campus to Oakland! Can’t be worse then South Central! You can call yourself UNC! Oh shoot that is also taken by another school too?? Oh well… I guess it will have to be northern cal!

  3. They do have a lot of work to do and the culture needs to change, too bad they hired a guy that ” the players love “, think he’ll bust some chops ? Uh, nooooooooooooooooooooo.

    USC could have kept Orgeron, they could have and should have hired Petersen, but they settled for a known drunk and then Haden fumbled again by hiring Helton instead of Tom Herman.

    How many times can you F up ?

    • The University of Minnesota was a Powerhouse back in the 1930’s. Use them as a benchmark on how many times and for how long you can F up. Or another measure, if Pete Carroll never came to USC, the Trojans would already be staring at 35 years of near National Irrelevance and counting. Swann needs to take quick action because the perception of future recruits is already in severe decline.

      • Ok, does he go after Gruden? Herman ? Or another ex USC assistant? I hear Yogi Roth is available

        • The next hire will be a nfl guy, that hire will change the culture and want to put his stamp on the program.

        • You go after who Jim Harbaugh went after when he was on staff at SC, and that’s Michigan’s O line coach, and offensive coordinator, Tim Drevno. I would take a good look at him if it’s an assistant your looking for. If not go hire a head coach away from a University, like Tom Herman

          • You need to hire someone who is going to have a Spring Practice from hell and run off all the dead weight that this program has accumulated under the Frat Boys, Kiffin and Sark, and the Substitute Teacher, Helton. Whoever is left, that’s who you build your program around. Bear Bryant did the same thing at Texas A&M when he got there and two years later won a conference title.

      • Ya, I’m sure USC’s in danger of becoming MINN football. Not.

        If Nick Saban hadn’t finally come to ALA, they were in danger of being irrelevant since DuBose, Franchione, Price, Curry, Perkins, Shula and Kines all couldn’t coach worth a lick.

        You think Swann’s gonna fire Helton now so he can prevent USC from becoming the next MINN?

        Well, USC will never become another MINN, no matter who coaches us. Slightly different talent base and foothold on the game. Everyone knows a strong USC is good for the game. That’s not gonna change in 50 years, if football is still being played then. MINN could be shoved out of the Big Ten tomorrow and it would make no difference to college football.

        • Replace the name Saban with Carroll and the other Alabama names with the likes of Tollner, Smith, Hackett, Kiffin and Sark and you made my point for me. The attendance for most of the conference home games in Pete’s first year were in the mid-40,000’s. No one wants to admit it, but USC was irrelevant at the start of the BCS era and without Pete Carroll would still be today.

      • They won the NC in 1960 and the Vikings arrival was deemed 2nd best – but I get your inference.

  4. Unfortunately alot of these kids are Sarkisain recruits. Sark was always good when he was routing teams on the sideline, but once the pressure existed in close game or big losses he didnt handle it well. Petersen at Washington says it took about 3 yrs and his own recruits to really change the culture

  5. This is all good to hear about USC. Helton, Swann, Nikias, et al – they can’t ignore the fiasco at USC now. Love all this immense, external pressure to change because internally, squat wasn’t happening.

    Thank you Herbstreit! Advice money couldn’t buy.

  6. The culure won’t change until they get rid of the requirement that you had to play for USC or previously coached there to even be considered as coach. Country Club. No outsiders allowed.

    • Alabama did the same thing, and in comes Nick Saban, then everything changes. You don’t need an SC guy to coach USC football, but Pat Haden did not understand that basic, logic.

  7. bozo u did not quit, that’s just another whiny bozo loser excuse.

    bozo u lost simply because they didn’t have the horses to compete with Alabama – The Polish Cavalry vs the Panzer Blitzkrieg as it were.

    Had the bozo’s lost 100 – 6, than you could make the a quitting case

  8. Herbie never said this when Kiffy’s team quit ( ASU 62 pts, Sun Bowl etc ) or Sarky’s team quit ( every other game at udub and USC ). Of course, Herbie is right about Gomer’s pathetic team but hope he mentioned these quitters were recruited by none other than his little coaching hero Sarky.

    • Not all the Sark and Kiffin recruits are bad, some of these kids are bad character kids, Hill, Masina, Ruffin.. Problem is these kids don’t care and know their head coach is a temp coach anyway, Outside chat from Espn voices who live on the SEC bandwagon will create issues for USC and their recruiting efforts… The football team needs a NFL guy to come in and lockout all outside media sources and take control of the program ..

      Expectations of success will always be there if the media is around..

      USC will eventually turn it around, but not with media blasting them at every turn.

  9. Please stay off this blog if you do not know anything about college football LOL.. 😉

  10. Where was Herbie last year when his buddy Cutty Sark was here? Why no criticism then about changing the culture? Why all of a sudden is Herbie speaking his mind now? It’s the same team for the most part! Herbie needs to come correct from the beginning like all of us have been doing since the beginning! It’s obvious now!

    • Great point. I’d forgotten Herby loved and I mean loved our drunk. But, it’s pile on time. We’re gonna have to just own it and suck it up. Part of the deal, and we do have to fix a lot.

      No sense bringing peashooters to a gunfight, like little gutties do every day here.

      • Sarkisian fooled lots of people, but the ones he didn’t fool were his peers. He struggled to put together a staff, because all of the top quality coaches knew the type of coach he was. Bob Connelly was Sarks third choice for a O line coach, because everybody else turned him down. That alone should have raised Pat Haden’s brow, but it didn’t , and he agreed to over pay the coaches that agreed to join Sarkisian, most notably, defensive line coach, Chris Wilson.

        • He was always fishy to me. I still remember the news sprouting that Haden had suddenly chosen Sark after we had all been primed to think Petersen had our gig from press reports, and it didn’t feel good. Turned out even worse.

          The biggest weirdism is that both the Kiffer and Sark are now hooked up with the nation’s best program. Even Wilcox and the HB winner Badgers are suddenly doing much better. So, they’re all still fooling people while USC’s low as ever, with a horrible team, players in trouble and crotch-kickers on board. Things can sure change fast.

  11. You can’t change the culture at USC if you name an assistant coach who was nothing more then a gofer from the previous two staffs, as your head coach. Pat Haden has single handedly destroyed Trojan football with his horrible judgement of character, and his meddling , controlling ways. Haden is nothing but a greedy, entrepreneur who doesn’t have the guts to stand by his hires . The little Dweeb hides from the media like the little gutless man that he is!!!!!!!!

    • Agreed – and I can’t wait to see the final outcome of the renovated Coliseum. While other schools updated stadiums are now state of the art – the renderings of the Coliseum show an eyesore – the architects are probably golfing buds with Pat “the closet domer” Haden and given the recent findings of his management of Trust funds, he’s probably getting a kick-back.

  12. SC Football is in the tank. Let’s please stop PRETENDING it isn’t.

    We have become The University Of Southern (fill in the blank…but it ain’t CALIFORNIA).

  13. I respect Herbstreit’s opinion and I agree…

    That all stems from coaching (Helton/staff).

    COACHING…

  14. The discipline thing is easy to correct. You just take the Charlie Strong approach. It will take a few years but then things begin to turn around.

  15. “They need to change the culture…”. Many of us have been saying this since before PC left. The problem is, there is no one at the university with a strong vision for Trojan Football, no understanding of how CFB has changed, no grasp of the idea of parity, no authority or influence to make necessary change happen, and – curiously enough – no sense of urgency.

    The combination of arrogance and apathy is embarrassing. Without leadership, SC deserves to flounder.

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