USC Morning Buzz: More Blitzes This Week Vs. Arizona State

jones-hitUSC’s generated little pass rush this season and intends to blitz more against Arizona State on Saturday. I look at that and some personnel issues, like why cornerback Jack Jones (above left) has not played much this season.

Excerpt: Clancy Pendergast made it clear Wednesday that Jones needs to improve.

“He played against Utah State and gave up a big play,” Pendergast said. “He and the rest of the defense has to do a better job understanding situational football.”

Maybe Jones is raw but USC hyped him up enough to give fans the expectation he would be another Adoree Jackson, who started the third game of his freshman season. Jones is the third-string corner in his fifth game.

If he can’t make an early impact on defense, try him at wide receiver. USC is one of the nation’s worst teams at explosive plays, and Jones on offense might mean Jackson can remain solely on defense.

Full story here

44 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: More Blitzes This Week Vs. Arizona State

  1. There is no game on the SC schedule that I would feel is a “free ride”. I wonder what Hellton thinks.

  2. How about coaching the kid up Clancy? How about coaching the whole defense up?

    I guess it’s just easier to make excuses about no depth.

    • Nah, Clancy is old school, and probably wants to teach him a lesson at the expense of losing games. That’s usually the protocol of unemployed coaches

      • Exactly, The talent level is well short of what Clancy had in 2013. It has a lot to do with depth and experience. Clancy is a good coach.. and obviously his rotation changed when the program lost Masina and Hill. Many of these kids were fast tracked too early, playing early and basically learning to play football at the next level. The experience gained early for some might be good, for others the learning curve may take longer to.adjust.

      • Clancy will go on to great success like all the other coaches who land on their feet after leaving arrogant U i.e. Peter Carroll, Lane Kiffin, Justin Wilcox….

  3. The truth is the whole team feeds off of the energy of its head coach. Since Gomer has no balls to be aggressive when he needs to be and keeps calling plays not to lose, instead of going for the kill, the whole team’s demeanor has become soft and hesitant. The funny thing is the newest kid on the starting roster – Sam Darnold – seems to be the only guy in the team with the right mentality and attitude to win. Would that be enough to save Gomer’s “soft” bacon? We shall find out soon enough!

  4. The talented Jack Jones sits on the bench, because he gave up a big play against Utah State, a team that they beat? Wow! I guess Clancy Pendergast showed him who’s boss with that 1-3 record.

    • So it might be pretty safe to say Gomer has a way of ruining all these five-star recruits by being unable to coaching them up, right? Look what he has done to Max Browne. Hasn’t Gomer been his QB coach and offensive coordinator since he came to USC? That should show everybody how poor a coach he really is!

      • Well, Browne isn’t that good. Where Gomer made the mistake is not playing Darnold from the get go.

        • Yes, I agree. Browne isn’t that good. But who was his personal coach from the day one to up till now at SC? Have you heard of someone called Gomer? LOL!!!

          • Some of these 5-stars obviously aren’t what they are cracked up to be and can’t be coached into anything other than mediocre. We all watched Browne give it a try. Darnold is obviously better with significantly less coaching than Browne.

            So, if you’re suggesting Gomer ruined Browne, then I guess Darnold has already seen his best days.

          • If I remember right, Darnold was not that highly rated. There again, ratings are only scientific wild-ass guesses anyway.

          • Darnold was a highly-regarded 4-star QB with offers from people like ORE, UTAH, NW, ORE ST, TENN, et al. He committed to USC very early before STAN became interested but never offered because he indicated he was sticking with USC. He was generally regarded as a top 200 prospect in nation.

            As of Aug 2014, the big shots out west were Josh Rosen, Blake Barnett and Ricky Town. The mere fact that Town was ever ranked substantially higher than Darnold shows the total inaccuracy of many of these prep evaluations we get from the fan boy sites. Darnold missed most of his JR year.

            Scout was so off base it even ranked Town as a better QB than Darnold based on their Army AA game practices.

          • You have a point there, Jack, but it’s also true that Gomer isn’t exactly a super chef that cooks tasty dishes from mediocre ingredients.

      • Gomer is an extension of Steve Sarkisian, minus the alcohol. It wasn’t the liquor that made Sarkisian a horrible coach, it was his lack of leadership skills, and his inability to develop players. And not to mention, his refusal to establishing a running game.

      • realtrojan. USC’s LAST QUALITY QB COACH was Norm Chow, who will go down in NCAA History as THE VERY BEST !!! Since Norm was asked to leave, the Trojans have had “Jack” coaching their QB’s.

    • Right, because lord knows Biggie Marshall hasn’t given up any big plays (and he continues to regularly start). I now know why they call him Biggie. His name should be changed to Iman “Gives up Big Plays” Marshall.

      • USC brings in a lot of super-hyped guys (hence the over-inflated recruiting rankings) but many of these guys have flaws that are never remotely addressed by the fan boy sites. Biggee’s a good football player. But he can’t cover consistently, and that’s always been his game. You beat SC’s corners by sending anyone out on Biggee and a tall guy out on Adoree. in either case, you’re gonna beat the Trojans.

    • Fred, have you seen Jones play any? What do you base his talent level on? It is about time someone on the staff started to act like the boss instead of being the players friend. Perhaps some discipline will result in the players doing a better job.

      • I don’t believe sitting a player on the bench for multiple games will discipline him, because it hurts the team, and his personal development. There are a thousand different ways for a coach to get his point across, what ever happened to running extra laps, pushups after practice , etc etc etc ?

        • Good point, playing a little devils advocate with you. I am glad to see someone acting with some authority though.

  5. Ya right, USC really needs another WR. First thing they need to do is get Jones to muscle up and put on a little weight. At 170 pounds he is a little light at cornor. Then he needs to be schooled on how to play DB, not like AJ, but like a good cornor plays it. AJ is great at recovery but is still hurting at coverage. After he learns his reads, rotations, and zones of coverage perhaps he will be ready to start. I am inclined to think Clancy may know a little about what he is doing.

      • Based on what he did on his previous tenure at USC, yes I do think he knows what he is doing. He is way better than what we just previously had. It seems you are one of those that want instant national championships. USC didn’t get screwed up over night, it won’t get fixed over night. And no, I do not think Helton was the correct hire, but I said that last year.

  6. If USC is going to win another game, then this would be it, because Arizona State doesn’t play defense, and are a up and down, team. But if they lose the game? Uh oh! !!!

  7. Can the D blitz effectively? Can they blitz without making coverage mistakes? ASU averaging around 500 years of offense per game, and they throw to Ballage (who scored 8 TD against Texas Tech) coming out of the backfield. Boy, this could backfire…

  8. Wolf, this blog slowed down and — you know what, I’m about to say it — it got a bit boring over the past couple of days. You can see it in the smaller number of comments overall.

    Come on, Wolf, make us laugh! You’re awesome at that. There is plenty of material to go around.

    youtube (dot) com/ watch?v=zFI2PgRIgD4

    #clowncollege #OnBrokenElbows

  9. Isn’t it just a little ridiculous to have all these receivers on the roster and still have people talking about moving someone over from defense to play WR? Why do we have so many receivers on the roster if only 2 or 3 are capable of making an impact?

  10. The depth issue of the defense (due to the ignorance of the last few USC HC’s heavily recruiting on the offensive side) has put Pendergast in a bind . Look at what he has to work with. He doesn’t have the ability to give 1st stringers a lot of blows when the 2nd stringers are too far behind in talent. You look at who Helton has been recruiting (3-star wonders) and it isn’t going to get that much better in the future. I would be thrilled if soneone like Les Miles wound up at USC because you know he would create a defensive physical monster here. So what if you didn’t score 40-50 points a game (like has to be accomplished today to win a game), the opponent wouldn’t be scoring much.

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