"LINEBACKERS

Oscar Lua provided another solid effort (10 tackles) but Dallas Sartz needs to return against a team as good as Notre Dame.

B"

What the hell are you talking about son? Put down the crack pipe and slowly back away from the computer.

uhh... Mrs. Wolfie, you need to back off the oxycontin & lithium sweetie. That game was last year. Now tell your son Scott to exhale the chronic bud and quit over-hyping the over-rated W. Virginia. Thank You.

Well it was the first game of the season Scott so some slack should be given out..

But yeah, the secondary is awful. They got picked apart by Keller. I have been on this subject all year. Cary Harris is known weak spot the other teams always throw at him. It would of really helped to have Pinkard in there, or Kevin Thomas.

The passing game will come around eventually...Ausberry looks great

The awesome performance of the O-line was stunning on SAT vs. Nebraska. I would really like to hear an expert opinion on how that happened. Was the Line with a true Freshman playing center that dominant? Was the USC misdirection that deceptive and indecipherable? Does the Nebraska defense just plain swallow? A combination?

Trojans did lose style points for allowing the 31 points due to reserves playing. Not that it will matter..Nebraska Fan thinks Keller "lit up" the defense and SEC Fan is ripping the D also.

Hey, 13-9! What do you think of this score: 44-6. Pray that we don't do to you what the Utes did to you Ruins.

By the way, give our best to Miguelito and Lipo (a.k.a. Joe McDonnell).

Actually, the receivers do remind me of DJ and Steve Smith, even Mike Williams - in their early games. Doesn't anyone remember the VT game in 2005, when the receivers couldn't catch a thing? Reggie is the only guy I can remember catching anything that night.

Actually, the receivers do remind me of DJ and Steve Smith, even Mike Williams - in their early games. Doesn't anyone remember the VT game in 2005, when the receivers couldn't catch a thing? Reggie is the only guy I can remember catching anything that night.

I think it will come. If Saturday was any indication, the running game can carry us for now (no pun intended).

I can't believe people still freak out this much about passing yards given up. Every game it's the same complaints. How long have you been watching the Pete Carroll USC defense? What's so new about any of it?

PC plays a soft Cover 2 to start every game. They'll give up stuff underneath and allow you to dink and dunk all the way to the redzone but they never give up the long TD. After the first couple series like this PC's usually onto the offensive gameplan and he starts making little adjustments. See that zone blitz and int by Kyle Moore in the 3rd qtr. Keller completed that pass 5 times in the first half - tries it again - INT.

The same starting D that gave up tons of yards also only gave up 10 points and the last time I checked you win games by outscoring your opponent not by racking up yards and interceptions.

Does anyone know the last time USC gave up a passing TD of longer than 30 yards? Or how many long TDs USc has surrendered in the past 5 years? I'd bet you could count them on one hand.

If you think about it PC's bend but don't break scheme is actually quite brilliant at the college level. It requires the QBs to be extra patient, very accurate in the short passing game and to take only what's given to them. Something most college QBs aren't willing/able to do for an entire game. Eventually most college QBs will force it and that's when it all unravels. The closest any QB ever came to displaying the discipline required was Aaron Rogers in the Cal game a few years ago. And even with his almost 30 straight completions they still couldn't pull it out.

SideBar: If USC can consistently run like they did on Sat they won't get beat this year. The weakness last year was the run game - UCLA exploited it and teed off on JDB. With an improved run game it will be very difficult to get to JDB this year.

"But yeah, the secondary is awful. They got picked apart by Keller. I have been on this subject all year. Cary Harris is known weak spot the other teams always throw at him. It would of really helped to have Pinkard in there, or Kevin Thomas."

You must be referring to the first 1.5 quarters only, since we made adjustments that started to slow him down. Yes, the Pinkard loss is a big one, but probably won't really be felt until vs. Cal and OR.

Coach Carroll and Holt do such a great job at adjusting, I wasn't that worried going into the 3rdQ - Trojan dominance time, baby. Just when he thought he could do the same dink n' dunk all night, we stepped in front and got 2 picks, and bye- bye - ballgame.

Cal, OR and maybe AZ State, then I'll be more concerned. Even then, if a team can't stop our runs, and therefore have to throw all 2nd half, we'll dismantle them like we did the poor Huskers...

I agree with Tyler - with a running game, this offense cant be stopped.

Sidenote: I used to think Lee Corso was quirky and funny, but he is plain dumb. People talk about how bad Lou Holtz is, but Corso is just as bad. Talking about how if teams stop the USC run, that the passing game wouldnt be able to hold up.

Now that USC has some running ability, teams can't just go after JDB. And if teams try to stop the run, they will have to load the box and JDB shouldnt have any trouble finding the open WR/TE then.

Who else is happy to see Stanley Havili back? I know I am - completely helps the running game and is a very good receiver.

We all already know that if Havili and Powdrell don't go down last year, USC is defending national champs. After all of our FB's went down last year, I was actually surprised that we were as good as we were. If these guys can stay healthy this season, we will be just fine. The play of the game was the 50 yd dive play to open up the game. Dive is essentially designed to go 2 yards, when we got 50, I knew the game was essentially over.

The chief concern from my perspective is the inconsistency of PT and the receivers--they must catch those passes in the flats and in the hook/curl zone if we are going to continue to dominate teams.

On a side note, was anyone surprised by the hook and ladder play?

don't get too jacked up about OL-Nebraska has a ROOKIE front four

Special teams is indeed an issue. We still can't cover kicks. Two weeks ago, kickoffs were deep and high, this week only one went into the end zone, but it was only a yard deep and easily returnable as it was on a line and they had 15 yards to run before being touched.
I would love us to shut a team down completely vs. the pass, but in college you need to bend but don't break. Apply the pressure from the front seven, toss in a few zone blitzes and create turn overs. Not even Keller could dink and dunk all night long and that kid can make all the throws. He made the big mistakes when the game was still in question because he had pressure being applied both by the pass rush and the fact that he couldn't unleash anything down the field.
I would have like to to have seen more Gable in the second half. He ran the ball very well. Chauncey showed some bursts but was not effective quite yet...but he did look fast. The WR's will catch up. There is so much for these guys to learn and the game hasn't slowed down for them yet. I would like to see more stretching of the defense on the vertical, even between the hashes with Freddie D, Gable and McKnight.