Rose Bowl vs. Recruiting, Part 2

"How did USC lose that game?"

A depleted defense, that's how. And a man-child who ran through that depleted defense.

Scott -- you just won't let it go, will you. You've turned into a downer. Healthy, constructive criticism is one thing -- but piling on the whining? Dude, it's over. Move on. You covered SC football last year, you saw how many times they ran that play with LenDale on third and fourth downs. C'mon! You come to the dance with what got you there -- how about that for an overused cliche. SC did what they did all year and they got stuffed by a combination of good defense and White slightly mis-reading the linebacker. It happened. Done. If you're so bummed on Pete Carroll, perhaps you'd like to have Paul Hackett back. Or Larry Smith.

The issue wasn't SC's offense in the Rose Bowl. The issue was SC's lack of talent on defense in that game. The Trojans were without Eric Wright, Manuel Wirght, Terrell Thomas, Kevin Ellison, and John Walker. Simultaneously, last year's freshman did had not adapted to Carroll's defensive scheme yet (Will Harris, Kevin Thomas, Rey Maualuga at MLB). Consequently, when SC went to a nickel package, they had to use Ryan Ting, Brandon Ting and Collin Ashton. Ask your scout if he thinks those three are NFL players.

I, however, agree that Bush should have been on the field on the final 4th and one play. In-fact, with the sorry state SC's defense was in (especially SC's nickel package) I thought SC should have aggressively tried to score another touchdown on that drive, instead of trying to milk the clock by running the ball. Oh well.

The real question is how dumb is that coach you were talking to? Six or seven NFL players? EVERY ONE of the USC offensive starters from that game will play in the NFL. Maybe he was referring to first-rounders and so there would be about 7 of them, yes. As for Texas, they had more than one NFL player on defense and more than one on offense.

Hence, quoting a guy like this who doesn't know what he is talking about makes your point almost worthless. But not quite.

And then there was the problem of the high school quality officials in the instant reply booth.

A "downer?" Why do you expect a reporter to be a cheerleader? Not his job. He's just reporting, and I appreciate the blog.

I'm with you on this also. I am not over the fact that we should have won. I haven't had the nerve to see the game i have tivo'd but I can see it all again just like when I was there. Why would Reggie try that lateral now? I've had issues with them using matt when we needed a yard on fourth down all season long (Carson Palmer collar bone breaking flashbacks) not to mention with an empty backfield on the first time and not using reggie even as a decoy in the second one which was so obvious that Michael Huff said that on both of those plays they knew what they were going to do and just blitzed everyone. i don't like the two OC system. i don't like the fact that they were too stubborn to go with lendale up the middle when he was killing them. The coaches not being together about the timeout situations, we got lucky they didn't call brendons in south bend (think Chris Webber) but it bit us in the A** during the rose bowl where we might have been able to throw a pass down the middle and make a tying field goal. I do feel that in a way (a very miniscule one) that losing that game will help us in the long run and keep Pete and the players focused and humbled so that USC doesn't turn into the West Coast's version of the Miami teams of the late 80's.

Can you at least give us that assistant coaches initials?

Seems like those UT tackles and Jamaal Charles will be in the NFL, along with a few others. The coach seemed to be minimizing Texas' talent.