Sam Darnold Named Pac-12 Offensive Player Of Week

USC quarterback Sam Darnold, left, gets a slap on the helmet from a coach after he combined with wide receiver Deontay Burnett to score a touchdown against Stanford in the third quarter in Los Angeles on Saturday, September 9, 2017. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Big surprise! Sam Darnold was named Pac-12 offensive player of the week. By the numbers:

• Darnold completed a career-best 80.8 percent of his passes (21-of-26) for 316 yards with 4 touchdowns.
• Darnold completed his first 11 passes.
• It was the sixth time in Darnold’s career he threw at least three touchdowns and fourth time with at least four touchdowns. It was the 12th consecutive game Darnold threw for at least 200 yards and the fifth time in his career for more than 300 yards.

72 thoughts on “Sam Darnold Named Pac-12 Offensive Player Of Week

  1. What I like the best is the lack of showboating. For instance you never see him “swing for the fences” And he actually acknowledges his receivers as a part of the passing package.

  2. Great Trojan! Future great NFLer. He’s already better than Eli Manning who stands back in the pocket like a fence post waiting to go down. If Darnold were on the Giants right this minute, they’d be better.

    Was Sam’s new “Freedom to Create!” the secret of his success this week? That’s what SW would have you think, even though Sam’s been “creating” at will since his first snap as the USC starter.

    Darnold For Heisman! Should be a great race.

    • While Sam is on the rise and a top tier college QB, I can’t compare him to Eli, as Eli has been stellar when he has a good O Line and a good receiving core, he hasn’t had much of that lately.

      • Eli’s part of the old guard of QB and I agree, he doesn’t have much support. He just looked so bad in the Dallas loss. Hope he gets a 2nd wind.

        Will be interesting too see how much the return of Beckham fixes the woeful Giants, with their bad o-line. At least a QB like Darnold could create or extend plays where Manning is basically immobile.

  3. And Burnett’s two great catches had a lot to do with it. If your receivers don’t catch the ball, you struggle (see week 1).

    • Hey, I think Sam knows that. His passes to Green were always on his chest. He started taking chances with Mitchel (hence the interceptions). He leads and takes any chance with Burnett. Sam’s decision making is next none!

  4. The WRs showed some heart and made great catches. The line opened holes and the RBs ran the ball well. When a QB has that kind of support, it takes some pressure off his shoulders feeling he alone has to win the game. He did throw 2-picks trying to make something happen, which you have to let the QB do when he is Sam Darnold. Lets hope the team continues to give Sam good support.

      • That other QB has 9 TDs, 0 Ints, more yards, more ypa, higher QB rating… no, Rosen has not faced Stanford, but then again, Darnold had two picks and 0 TDs against a MAC school. Great player, but he has no chance at the Heisman if he throws 20-25 picks this season.

        • I don’t know how others feel about this —-but I hope Sam doesn’t care about the Heisman. In my humble opinion, it goes to the best player in the nation less than a third of the time. And Sam can’t do anything about that. What he can do something about is beat every defense he plays against (particularly yours) and take the Trojans to a National Championship.

          • He doesn’t care, nor does Rosen. Darnold has a great head on his shoulders, so it won’t be a distraction.

  5. Dear Sam
    Pleeeaaasssseee come back next year. And practice your baseball slide. You’re the one guy that we can’t afford to lose to injury.

  6. For everyone who is so accepting of Sam’s interceptions and letting him do whatever he wants to do, he’s on pace to throw close to 30 picks this year. That number takes into account post-season games, but it’s not like you’re going to any if your QB throws 24 interceptions.

    • Darnold is going to throw picks because he takes a lot of risk. Brett Farve averaged 17 int a year and is a hall of famer with Super Bowl ring. Darnold will end the year with 12-15 int

    • As you and I have discussed, Sam IS gonna have a bunch of picks this year. Probably not 30, more like 20 (he’s still getting used to this corps of receivers). But, Clay, have you noticed how much safer he is with the ball when he’s backed up to his own goal? He plays with a different mind set.
      And he’s gonna end up with 40 or over TD’s, too —that buys us a lot of playoff possibilities.

        • First let me amend that number down to 15 —there will be a couple of games where he throws zero picks. But I do suspect he’s gonna end up averaging a little over a pick a game. It isn’t okay —it just is what it is.
          And, more to the point, I don’t think Sam will win or should worry about the Heisman. If he beats EVERY defense he goes up against and takes us to the National Championship game, he’ll be a hero in my and most other people’s (including NFL scouts’) minds.

          • I think he’ll work to clean the interceptions up and end up with substantially less than 15 picks. He’s bound to have fewer attempts per game this year because we don’t have to rely on his arm so much to win. His ints should not be going up substantially this year for any good reason and I look forward to several pick-less games in the very near future. The VERY near future.

          • Clay, he is not throwing to Darreus Rogers or Smith-Schuster anymore.

            Juju was amazing in traffic, route running or anything you name.

            Darreus only needed the ball within 5 yards. Throw it up in the air and he gets it. Remember the Colorado game. I am scared of Colorado secondary. They were fast and we couldn’t get a separation last year. Hence the Darreus’ pick from an interception.

            This year is different. You have Deuntay Burnett that has a psychic connection to Darnold. Then you have others that Darnold hits their hands or chest, but they can’t catch. Then the other team intercepts from a deflection.

            I still take Darnold over anyone with his interceptions.

            Please don’t fix what’s working wonderfully!

          • You make a good point about Sam having better targets last year, but I think it’s just a matter of time before people start stepping up at receiver. I know there are guys in that group who are kicking themselves for not doing more when they got a sniff. Everybody wants to get in on what’s going on, but someone has to take it and someone will.

            Both picks Sam threw Saturday were just garden variety picks. There were no special circumstances, just balls out in the open that were rightfully picked. Sam wasn’t forced into those picks and it wasn’t bad luck. NFL potential guys just straight out picked him off. Not good.

          • It’s been years since you could make this claim, but UCLA arguably has the better, more sure-handed receiving corps this year with Darren Andrews, Caleb Wilson, Theo Howard, and Jordan Lasley. You’d have to go back a few since the WR corps strength nodded toward the Bruins.

          • Encinitas, I have to watch a UCLA game to fully agree with you. But from a USC stand, you are absolutely right. We have Burnette and others as the WR corps. But I haven’t seen a Darnold caliber QB at USC. We always faced them.

        • It’s s great point. Darnold is a rare talent–reminds me of Cade McNown. 4 picks and 4 TDs thus far is just so-so, however, and the Heisman watchers do look at those stats. In comparison, Rosen has 9 TDs to 0 Ints, more yards, more YPA, and a higher QB rating. Fun to have two of FBS’s best QBs in the same town.

          • Ucla is in a much better position to feature Rosen because that’s really all they have. The heisman for Rosen is the only realistic goal for UCLA this year. Interest in the LA QB heisman race is more of a UCLA thing because it’s the only race you guys are in. Everyone at Troy would trade heisman consideration for Sam in lieu of realistic team goals.

            With no running game and a shaky offensive line, I’d be willing to bet Rosen’s heisman train derails and it may be injuries that do it.

          • My friend, truth is often brutal and therefore despised as are those foolish enough to deliver it.

          • USC has a better chance of winning the NC than Darnold does of winning the Heisman. Rosen has always been a Bruin, so the Stanford thing’s a moot point. I don’t care much about the Heisman–overblown publicity show usually. I just want to win, which will be tough with UCLA’s line unless they fix the run issues before P-12 play.

          • I was just responding to your post about Rosen’s heisman credentials and your comparison of Darnold’s and Rosen’s chances to win the heisman. I couldn’t discern from your original post that you really don’t care about the heisman. My mistake.

          • I won’t be upset if Rosen were to win it, don’t get me wrong! Just love watching both these great QBs play. It’s been a very long time since both teams had such high-caliber quarterbacks. Barkley-Hundly was good, as was McNown-Palmer (though Partner was just a freshman when they plYed each other in ’98. Really, you have to go back to Maddox-Marinovich–27 years ago.

          • I’ll certainly care about that matchup when the two teams face off. Bottom line, I don’t want Sam throwing the number of balls he’d have to throw to win a heisman. 400 yard passing days will more likely be a sign of trouble than success.

  7. The way this guy escapes pressure in the pocket while keeping his eyes down field is pro ready. I know some experts say is delivery is a little long, but when the pressures on he flicks it quick.

  8. Sam Darnold was really a project. They took a chance on him. He really only played one year at QB in high school(his senior year) and at the end of that year he got hurt and missed the playoffs.
    Another guy that was a project was Chad Wheeler. He wasn’t heavily recruited. They saw something in him that nobody else saw and it worked out.
    Then there was Uchenna Nwosu. He never played varsity football until his senior year at Narbonne. He was a basketball player early on. Maybe that’s why he bats down so many balls.
    But they missed on some guys too. There was Shaun Harlow. His dad was a star at SC. It was his dream school. He had a USC tatoo on his arm. He was begging to come to SC. All the coaches advised Kiffin to offer him but Kiffin wasn’t interested. Never even offered him. He was all Pac-12 at Oregon State and now he is starting in the pros.
    More recently, there was Thomas Graham. He’s a freshmen at Oregon. He had 2 interceptions against Nebraska saturday. Another guy who committed early to SC(which was his dream school). He has a sister on SC’s track team and he wanted to go to school with her. They backed off him. I guess they thought he was too small. He went to Oregon.
    SC has been recruiting great recently, except at cornerback. They need corners and in the last few years there has been a lot of good ones out there. Most of them have gone somewhere else. I don’t know if it’s the DB coach who is not a good recruiter or what but there is something wrong.

    • Interesting points and well thought out.

      Some more projects who made it: Marcus Martin 3 star OL out of Crenshaw, JR Tavai DL out of Redondo, Ajene Harris QB out of Crenshaw, Jalen Greene QB out of Serra and Clay Matthews Jr. DB out of Agoura or Westlake. Sarkissian recruited Nwosu, Harris and Greene.

      • Clay Helton always said that they don’t go too much by the stars given by the recruiting services but that they evaluate the players independently themselves. They have, indeed, found some sleepers. I actually thought that they had wasted a scholarship on Nwuso. My thoughts were “why would they want to recruit a player who never played varsity until his senior year….if he was really any good, he would have shown it before then”. Then he had some trouble early on in his career at USC. Just goes to show you how much I know.

    • In Adoree, Biggie and J. Jones, I think we recruited top 10 CBs in 3 straight years. Other than that, I agree with what you said.

      • Adoree was a 2014 recruit whereas Iman was a 2015 recruit. A good percent of those coaches who recruited them are gone or were rumored to be gone after 2015. I’m actually talking about the last 2 years in which we’ve had a lot of different guys recruiting especially on defense. Jack Jones was definitely an outstanding recruit at corner. But look at all the guys that we were going after and didn’t get, most of them from right here in Cali and even Socal. Guys like Thomas Graham, Deommodore Lenoir, Jaylon Johnson, Kendall Sheffield, Elijah Blades, Elijah Molden, Jaylon Redd, David Long, Byron Murphy and probably some others.

        • Well, you said, “SC has been recruiting well recently, except at conerback.” 3 top 10 recruits in 3 years at CB doesn’t qualify for poor recruiting at that position. In fact, can we say we’ve recruited any position better based on that criteria?

          • Wanting him is different than starting him at CB as a true freshman. Holmes wouldn’t start as a freshman for either program. Anyway, he made the right choice and went with the sure thing.

  9. Congrats to Sam who played very good against what many are calling the best secondary in the PAC12. Awesome to see SC TEs get included into the offense. WRs showed up big time, that’s what we’re used too SC WRs playing with heart. Great team effort. Fight On✌✌

  10. Only surprise here is that they picked someone other than Nwosu for Defensive Player of the week. With 4 pass deflections, that had to really get into the QB’s head. Fight On!

  11. I wonder when the last time a qb put those numbers up against that kind of secondary. Those Stanford kids are going to be playing on Sunday, which makes it all the more impressive I think.

  12. Another participation trophy! Since when is throwing 2 interceptions merit winning player of the week??? Pac-12’s reluctance to give the award two straight weeks in a row to the same player makes Sam Darnold the award winner! Josh Rosen threw 5 touchdowns without an interception!

    Sam Darnold wasn’t even the best offensive player on his own team this week… That kid Carr should have got it.

  13. In the last telecast they said Holmes will be all First team all PAC 12 at least twice, and an All American by year three. Not me saying this but the broadcasters……

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