Another All-American Team Nobody’s Heard Of But USC Listens To

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Did you hear USC defensive end Uchenna Nwosu is a first-team All-American? Nwosu made the Sports on Earth All-American team.The what? Now just to be clear to those who always misunderstand, I’m not being critical of Nwosu.

But I am mentioning this unknown web site because USC will now put a plaque outside the McKay Center for Nwosu being an All-American. So what’s more prestigious? The College Sports Madness or Sports on Earth All-American teams?

67 thoughts on “Another All-American Team Nobody’s Heard Of But USC Listens To”

  1. There’s a good chance not one single USC player will receive a well-recognized first team AA honor. The NCAA recognizes only five such teams – AP, Football Coaches, Football Writers, Walter Camp and The Sporting News.

    Where’s all this big-time USC talent? Helton’s supposed to have such a big talent advantage over all his opponents. We’ll see how the real AA team selectors feel about that.

    • On paper, USC has signed the top recruiting class in the PAC 12 over the last decade, even during the sanctions period. But for whatever reasons, that talent never developed

      • Come on Fred! You actually buy the accuracy of half those rankings? I’m shocked really. Any fool can see some of these 4-5 stars are all hype and not all that physically talented. Whatever floats your boat.

        • Well I guess USC’s 4-5 star athletes aren’t accurate , because the ones at Alabama, Clemson, and Michigan seem to be on point

          • MICH. Really? Harbaugh’s kids can’t win a big game if they try.

            ALA and CLEM have significantly better athletes in the trenches. Easy to see, regardless of coaching. We had one of those – Leonard Williams, from Florida where they grow those types.

            Go ahead and believe the fanboy ranking sites are gold. JJ and Grabby were both huge HS recruits. Good luck with that. They’re just average college CBs at best who have talent deficiencies. You think Saban would turn those guys into AAs? Saban would have jumped right over them and signed better athletes at that position. Saban has linebackers who can cover better. You think Saban even goes after super tough Cameron Smith? Fat chance. Not fast or agile enough for Saban and Dabo. No way. Cameron can’t cover the field like BAMA LBs do. Be serious.

            And how about that HS superstar, reality slug Bigelow? So was Zach Banner (another slug). He was a simple journeyman college player with a famous dad who was always about 30 pounds overweight and could never bend worth a damn. He’ll be lucky if he becomes a half way decent NFL player – ever. He’s a better stand-up comedian than he ever will be as a football player. And then of course Max Browne, just another 3-star guy who got falsely promoted to 5-star and was a college bench rider.

          • Michigan, who finished 3rd in their DIVISION of the B10? Jeez dude give it a rest.
            Oops make that 4th

          • The rah rahs only believe in recruiting rankings every February. Watch the same guys brag about Helton’s sweet recruiting class.

          • The difference is that they had full classes when we only had restricted ones, making every miss much more critical..every coaches miss on some, those are usually the subs during games when people get nicked up, but then you know that, you just playing games…acting like our rs seniors and senior classes are full and so are our redshirt juniors.
            Just be fair. Most those ratings are based on a per athlete rating, not total class

          • SB Nation’s combined recruiting rankings from 2012 through 2015 ranked USC #1 in the Pac 12 and #5 nationally and Stanford at #22. So it’s fair to say that even under sanctions and the incompetents Kiffin and Sark that USC recruits itself and has by far the most talent in the conference.

          • I was talking in relation to the national rankings, and still the overall number of commits is lower over those years..giving us fewer players on scholarship through the end of that period. There were games played with a single scholarship receiver and no scholarship tight end.

          • The number of commits HAD to be lower per the NCAA in 2012, 2013 and 2014, but the rating per recruit was among the highest in the nation and certainly worlds apart from any other Pac 12 school. Also Kiffin brought in 30 recruits in 2011 to soften the blow to much media acclaim. What games were played without a scholarship receiver? It seemed that is anything Kiffin and Sark over-recruited at the WR position.

          • I don’t dispute the ranking of individual recruits, never did, and don’t dispute the fact that kif and sark were underwhelming during their time here. I just think all this harbaugh and Shaw are the best is overdone by most here. And I think Helton deserves to finish his shot a running this team, that’s all.
            Will check the games but distinctly remember.

          • For your consideration, taken from scout/24/7.
            these are the years and number of enrollees :
            09…17
            10…19
            11…20
            12…14
            13…11
            14…23
            15…26
            I can’t find any year with thirty enrollees

          • The USA Today finds that USC in 2011 had 31 enrollees.

            How USC stays in the game, despite NCAA sanctions

            -by George Schroeder, USA TODAY
            Sports

            Published 12:25 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2012

            When the NCAA’s enforcement hammer fell on Southern California football two years ago, coach Lane Kiffin brought a binder — maybe 4 inches thick, athletics director Pat Haden recalls — to a meeting on how to handle the sanctions.

            The outlook was grim. The Trojans faced a two-year bowl ban, losses of 30 scholarships over a three-year period (10 fewer per year) and a limit of 75 total scholarships, 10 fewer than the maximum.

            But inside the binder was a detailed plan the coach hoped would somehow cushion the blow. Kiffin had spent several days poring over the USC roster, planning how best to manage the talent on hand and forecasting how best to recruit within the limits.

            “Lane has done a fantastic job of having a plan,” Haden said, “and visualizing how he’s gonna get through it.”…

            In large part, dealing with the sanctions involved delaying them, utilizing the extra time afforded by an appeal to sign a full recruiting class in February 2011. The Trojans hoped for relief and a reduction in penalties — “We were thinking we’d win (the appeal),” Kiffin said — but it allowed USC to put off the scholarship limitations for a year. Although Haden and Kiffin say it was simply fortuitous timing, the Trojans began serving the two-year bowl ban with the 2010 season.

            With early enrollees who counted against the previous year’s total, USC’s haul was 31 signees rather than the usual 25.

            “I really think this is not beating the NCAA, by any means,” Kiffin said. But he added: “It was critical for our future to be able to sign that bigger class.”…

            It wasn’t simply numbers, though. In that 31-player class of 2011, Kiffin signed two quarterbacks and redshirted both. He also signed a punter, kicker and long snapper.

            Where in the past, USC seemed to simply stockpile talent, regardless of position, the strategy involved planning for deficits at certain positions.

            Several contributed immediately. Lee became a star.

            “We were really looking at it in a long-term plan,” Kiffin said, “and not just signing the best players. We just sat down and spent a lot of time and figured out what was best for us long-term.”

          • Looking at the espn data supports your article, don’t know why scout was different, maybe because of class assignment? None the less I’d like to find out more..
            On 11-2-2013 Scott Wolf wrote
            “what happened to depleted roster?”
            In which he details our traveling roster included
            14 walkons
            9 Redshirts
            46 recruited scholarship players

          • That is true, but look at the class roster at espn, and you won’t recognize many names, some left and others just disappeared?

          • The rankings also fail to take into account whether a class is balanced, overloaded at sports, whether it addresses team needs, whether their are potential academic casualties, etc. Just guess work basically, with never enough attention paid to the players’ mental make-ups, how they might mix and other factors crucial to success.

          • Absolutely Jack, Bryce Dixon, OSA Massina, Noah Jefferson, EJ Price, Cary Angeline… just to name a few
            How many coaches nationally have won 21 games the last two years, one of those years without a bye and over 18 injuries? People who don’t believe just won’t change their minds, and that’s okay. Some say if he beats urban then they’ll give him respect, I’m not so sure.
            To me he’s earned his shot, no matter how he came to be coach.

          • How about famous all-worlders like Dillon Baxter, Stanley Guyness, Whitney Lewis. Jeff Schweiger, D.J. Shoemate, Kyle Prater, Thomas Herring and Blake Ayles. Some of these guys just had 10 cent heads. WR Whitney Lewis showed up looking like a LB. Others were plainly physically misevaluated. Even guys like Hershel Dennis, who rarely played, turned out to be just average dudes at best. And don’t get me started on over-ranked super bodies like Darnell Bing and Taylor Mays – not bad players at all, but never great by any stretch. The list could go on an on.

          • Exactly, and every program has its share, but when you take away 10 of 25 over three years the magnitude of missing on a recruit magnifies and the effects on the field become more and more obvious.
            Looking at the last few wr that have come through SC we see that they get injured and don’t recover nearly as quickly because they’re forced to play so much.. Woods, Lee, Angohlar, Juju and even looking at Burnett this year who was overworked early in the season.

          • Freddy, like rusoviet, you posts on SW’s Trojan Blog continually criticizing Coach Helton, belong on the UCLA Blog, i’m not a doctor, but I have been told a reasonable person can do a 180 if they drink the KOOL-AID. Dump it, Fred.

      • Most of those rankings your refer to are average stars and not a point total for the class. This also means no depth when the normal few don’t pan out. Our class rankings during the Kiff/Sark era where also propped by skill position players — which mean little if there is no beef. This past year is really the first good one for beef. Time will tell, but the talent in the trenches needs to continue to improve. If Helton does not pay attention to this, then he will be gone. But for now to say our lines are significantly better than Stanford or ucla or Oregon or Washington is just not accurate.

      • we are just now recovering from sanctions. Yes we had highly rated players, just not enough of them. It takes a really long time to build depth which really helps in development of players. The sanctions should have crippled us, but we managed to get by in thin numbers because some of those players were special. And because Matt Barkley held down the fort.

        • Twenty years from now the Rah-Rah’s still will be whining excuses, excuses, excuse over “The Sanctions.”

          • Realities. When you don’t have as many players as your competition it matters. 20 years from now you most likely will still be an incorrect troll.

      • Generally speaking, I suspect that moving from hard-nosed to finese football has caused a drop off in players’ profiles. Break-thru playing involves hitting and taking hits, not presicion route running or sophisticated scheming.

      • Hmmm you mean the hired help since Pete left squandered the embarrassment of recruiting riches?

  2. Totally obscure FB Organizations honoring Toejam FB players as All-American or even more dubiously, polling bozo u FB National Champions in the 20th century.

    • I wonder if there is ANY organization or web site so misbegotten, so disrespected, so without discernible purpose that it would (1) invent an All America Team and (2) put a brubaby on it.

    • Interestingly you bring up obscure Owns, that is the moniker of the little ucla football program for over 50 years. Fight on!

  3. I am one of those guys that is critical of the “everybody gets an award ” just for participating trend. It is possible that some of the new All America teams ( Athon,Sports on Earth) have valid criteria for their selections, but I doubt it. I am with SW on this one. Sports on Earth AA’s don’t deserve a plaque.

    • He’s addressing people like you Chris —–people who somehow —–contrary to all recognized & sacred rules of interpretation—- detect anti-USC bias in Scott’s complimentary assessments of all things Trojan. Somehow — and why this is, I do not understand —–you and some others, have assumed that Scott’s day in, day out trashing and second guessing of Clay, Tee, Clancy, Baxter, Callaway, etc., etc. —translate into something “negative”. THIS is a serious misreading on your part.
      #YouNeedToApologizeToScottFor”Misunderstanding”Him

  6. Maybe, just maybe they put a Trojan on the award team so they could grab some name brand recognition. I would have never heard of them if not for Scott…..
    Oh now I get it Scott got played.

  7. Flow: I personally never “misunderstand” you. I always understand your snarky, cynical, and negative view in all subjects. Don’t we all?

  8. Why not try and be happy for Nwosu? Not the biggest poll in the world but something he can tell his grand kids about…

    • Agree 100%. Good for Uchenna. I believe he EARNED IT. Had a great year raising cane in the backfield.

  10. would not surprise me, even mildly, if the trOXans try to claim a Natty based on the Sports on Eearth ranking system!!

    how many champeenship were “won” after pouring over historical rankings????

    #JiveAsssTurkeys

  11. Sports on Earth, A complete crock. USC’s Sam Darnold not awarded 1st, 2nd, of 3rd Team. Here’s more….1st Team: USC = 1; Ohio State = 1. 2nd Team: USC = 1; Ohio State = 2; 3rd Team: USC = Zero; Ohio State = Zero. Both Cotton Bowl opponents SOLD SHORT.

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