USC Morning Buzz: Weaknesses Exposed During Scrimmage

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Here is my analysis off Saturday’s scrimmage where the offense struggled.

Excerpt: The wide receivers were not exactly tearing it up either. If you want a hidden concern going into the season, ask yourself what receiver is going to be a deep threat? Who will stretch a defense so that Jones and Carr can find more running room? Who will allow Darnold to air it out during a game?

Is it really this hard to find a kicker? With all the private tutors and kicking camps these days, it feels sometimes like kickers are getting worse. Michael Brown chose USC over Cal and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo while Chase McGrath is a walk-on from Mater Dei in Santa Ana.

Full story here

51 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: Weaknesses Exposed During Scrimmage”

  1. Scooter, you write the same story over and over and over every year. From your columns and blogs, USC should have lost every game since you started writing for the Daily News. Guess what Scooter, SC will be fine. The defense has seen the offense for the last two years. The defense has stepped up its game and Pendergast is building a dominant defense. Let us see what happens in the Stanford game and then come back and tell us the sky is falling routine.

    • HAWR-HAWR!!! Scotty has FORGOTTEN more about SC foosball than you’ll ever KNOW!!

      last year he was the ONLY one who pointed out Brownie was the second best QB on campus, but of course all of SC has to disagree with anything Scotty says!!

      cost you a Natty last year…i WONDER what the cost of ignoring Scotty will be THIS year???

      • You’re a lying bore wimp boy. 90% of all USC fans knew Darnold was killing it in practice compared to statue boy Browne.

        Get off the roids, get out of your cage and go to a ucla game, if you can stand yet another home field defeat. Hah, hah, hah. Personally, I love Morton’s corner, where STAN broke you again just last year.

        Will you little gutties make a crappy bowl game this year? What are the odds? Please ask Scotty. We’re all dying to know after last year’s bruin face plant.

        • untwist your panties, Trranny boy! i think you need to cut down on those female homones! they are making you an EASY MARK!!

          #AngryTrranny

          • Ah, the old “angry trranny” fallback. That’s what you always say wimp boy. You’re like your little gutty football team – predictably crappy every time out. Nothing new. Same old sh*t.

            Here’s some anger for you wimp boy. Scoreboard. Doesn’t that just drip with anger? Scoreboard.

            It’s good to own L.A., like USC owns ucla. Hah, hah, hah. Bend over wimp boy. A very angry November is headed your way. Hah, hah, hah.

      • Scottie has forgotten more about everything….big deal, doesn’t mean he knows anything..

        • Speaking of wide right..how are you? I see your Angels are in the mix again. Quietly moving up the standings, wouldn’t it be weird if they came out of nowhere and won it all…crazier things have happened!

          • What I want is to meet NYY in the wild card and for the 3rd time knock them out of post-season. The crooked commissioner’s office screwd the LAA in 2009 allowing Girardi to post-pone games so he could rig his rotation. Scoscia blew his top and following 2009 that is no longer allowed.

            Were the LAA to remove NYY you wait and watch for the networks, talking heads, ESPN go nuts because THIS is all they’ve got – no college football – ‘the princess’ collapsed all Catholic competition (save Boston College) when they moved to gut Fordham, St. Mary’s, Loyola (Los Angeles) — the NYY is all they’ve got even with a decent NYG NFL team – they live breathe and die for the NYY and nothing is sweeter than to shove the shiv in and then twist it before you take your boot and push the hump off the blade.

          • Excuse me, but I just have to say that it’s not good to hold in your feelings. I sense by your comments that something lurks beneath the surface…let it out. Nothing good ever comes from holding back and the tension just rises..nothing like a good fart to relieve the pressure.

          • I amuse you do I? Well sir then let’s settle this once and for all….Wednesday morning at 6:00 am sharp….WEHO City Hall….we’ll get the crowd started by having you cavort you know the drill…somersaults…back flips…the whole ‘Cirque De Soleil’ routine then I’ll pop up and, with a bull horn at my mouth, say “I give you peanut butter!….tuna….egg salad…pimento loaf….hamburger” That’ll be your cue to suddenly stop and you’ll say ‘Where’s the ham?’ Then we’ll both bust out laughing and as thing calm down break into a duet singing “Poke Salad Annie”!

            Yeah man that’ll be enough to get you committed and me well I’ll be tellin’ all them thar’ fools it was you all the time….

          • Well Mr. Pudly I rather think my tweaking of said ballad is more concise account of what actually and finally happened…what say thee sir?

          • I have a sneaking suspicion that you would have been one of General George Patton’s real favorites, Alv. You never forget and you never forgive. Your memory is awesome.

      • I think Bobby got nailed both wide right and wide left.

        It was cruel to watch him squinting into the abyss of another tough loss at the hands of a nervous kicker!

        • The reason he was squinting was he couldn’t SEE that far, Jack —-he didn’t know at that exact moment whether he was looking into the abyss or not.

          • That’s for sure, but he had that sinking feeling and I think the crowd noise was a tip.

            I met Bobby once. He was a good old boy whose welcoming nature put you immed at ease. Quite a guy, actually. I thought he deserved a little better, but the Kicking God’s felt differently.

          • Exactly right about the crowd noise —-Bobby was hoping one thing, and hearing another.

          • Reminds me of the end of the 1989 game against the ruins. Where we were sitting we couldn’t tell if the field goal was good or not as time ran out.

          • Don’t feel bad, gt. Velasco had the best seat in the house and he couldn’t tell either.

  3. Scrimmages are ideal for Scottie’s brand – if the defense dominates, it’s woe is me re: the offense. If Darnold dices up the defense, it’s “oh no, the defensive sky is falling.” Which is why the last 9 games of the year last year were so tough for the Scottie – tough to find those negatives.

  4. Although it’s a lot easier to blame Scott for yesterday’s showing on offense, I think everybody who wants to see USC in the playoffs needs to recognize that Ronald Jones is a good but not great runner —who has spent good portions of many games bottled up behind the line of scrimmage. I’m pretty sure—-given the talent we have along the o-line— that all will wind up fine in that department. And the same goes for the receivers —we’ll find the right combination there, too. But our running game could be a problem if Rojo is given the majority of carries through the first 3 games. Both Stanford and Texas have what it takes to limit him to very few yards. Time for a Plan B in the running game.
    #NotBasedOnScrimmageButWholeCareer

  5. ‘Maybe just maybe’ this is as AL has always stated they are – the toughest opponent they faced was their own defense.

  6. Spot on as always Scott! $C fan boys just don’t like to admit what everyone else sees. God forbid you are right. Smh.

  7. Who was the speed receiver last year? JuJu was hurt most of the year and was average. This year we have a group of talented TE and group of receivers that no team in Pac 12 would trade with. Other than needing to fix the kicking game this team is deep and good.

  8. No other team in America has any weaknesses, just USC typical Wolf drawing on the negative. I am sure that other top team ten teams have their respective issues, no team is complete.

  9. Kickers are getting worse.

    What these camps do is take marginal athletes from wealthy families and to allow them a chance to compete athletically with true elite high school athletes in the off chance that they can get a partial high school scholie and/or play with a major college program.

    The strongest, quickest kickers, the one with strength and leg speed, are playing soccer. Not kicking in high school football.

    Back in the day, high schools asked kids like Ray Guy or Russell Erxleben or Tony Franklin, excellent athletes in themselves who starred as position players, to also kick the ball. Today, with hyper-specialization, schools like Mater Dei do not have the time or patience to develop kickers. Whereas once upon a time a second-string lineman or linebacker might have been asked to start kicking the ball, today schools just look for the camp kids who don’t need remedial training and can contribute right away by kicking off consistently inbounds past the 20 yard line, and making 85-90% of extra points. That usually all that is asked of high school kickers. High school kickers by and large suck.

    Also, there are a lot more sports to chose from. If you are a good athlete, perhaps a quick and strong pound-for-pound linebacker with good footwork and quick legs, but a tiny bit on the smaller side and buried in the depth chart behind a four or five star athlete, you might ditch football and play lacrosse. Or soccer. Or baseball. If you are an excellent swimmer, why not water polo?
    Think about it.

    But unless you are a rich kid whose parents can afford camps, you are not going to be asked to kick for your elite high school team. And if you do start kicking for a team that isn’t a D-I feeder school, no one is going to have the time to teach you the fundamentals of kicking. Coaches at these schools are already pulling double-duty as teachers, counselors, etc. The rich kid who isn’t good enough to star in baseball or lacrosse or water polo but can can afford to attend these camps for years can learn to be competent enough for a strong high school program, because 99.9% of high school games are not decided by kickers.

    Yes, kickers do suck. It’s the worst part of college football.

      • Erxleben was perhaps the most dominant kicker in college history. Now he’s a twice convicted financial grifter. Sad,

      • I mean, that’s a huge reason college kickers tend to be middle-class-to-wealthy white kids. Don’t seea lot of kickers coming from the City Section, for instance.

  10. The little gutties don’t even dream of football NCs. bruins live in a football nightmare that never ends.

    They don’t even dream of playing in the Rose Bowl game any more. Their goal is strictly Alamo or Weed Eater. Amen!

      • Oh, I really wish they had the guts (and the sense of humor) to call one of the mid December bowls by that name.
        #UCLAWouldHaveOpenInviteEveryYear

      • Yes…..but, strangely, that’s not the way THEY look at it, marv —-for them, everything is fine and they “own” the town……

  11. lookin’ for a kicker…the JC ranks are a decent proving ground…invest some time scouting top JC teams

  12. Let me translate the Wolfman’s blog post for you dummies.

    Maybe southern cal defense is so good the offense can’t get anything done…nah SOUTHERN CAL just sucks!

  13. They ‘re called “gamers”- players that thrive in the spotlight and don’t wilt under the big lights during a real game. Think the opposite of George Farmer. Someone will step up at WR and on the OL.

  14. What you do is throw a bomb pass every so often hoping a Velus Jones can get under it for a catch and that gets the attention of the opponent’s Defensive coordinator & HC. All of a sudden there aren’t so many plays where the DBs crowd the WRs at the line of scrimmage. Not rocket science…

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