Mr. Wolf was very impressive in this video-- looked straight into the camera the entire time, lucid, and short on the vitrolic except when talking about a "stubborn" Carroll. He also set the stage well for what is indeed a very important SC-Oregon game, for both schools.

Thanks Scott for the infor. I agree with you on Pete being more aggressive on Defense. I dont think we can sit back on this spread offense. We are going to get picked apart. Talk about bend dont break. We are going to get busted unless we put more pressure on the QB and WRs. We definitely need to play more Man to Man at the Corner positions come Saturday.

Hey Scott,

You should apply for the armchair coach position that just opened up on PC's staff.

They need some football-knowledgeable coaches on the staff and you are clearly qualified to run up and down the sidelines all day long shouting "Pizza, Pizza..."

Everyone could call you Little Ceasar...you know, in honor of your PC-envy!!!

I think this coach is off base recommending that USC change its defensive philosophy against spread offense teams. I used to think the same thing, but then I realized that there is a method to Carroll's bend but don't break madness. BOttom line is that that type of defense will give up yards, but it forces a team to be perfect and go the length of the field methodically rather then hit for the big plays that you would get with an aggressive man to man defense. The key is to get up on Oregon early and force them to become one dimensional and/or shut down their running game and force them to pass.

LJ-

There's a first, Scott "looked straight"
(into the camera....)

Scott you are the true King of All Media.

Imagine if the Special Teams pinned every team inside the 20 to start off drives and the Trojans avoided 15 yard penalties on defense on 3rd down plays. Most college QB's cannot guide an offense 80+ yards against a tough and disciplined, turnover-forcing defense.

Exactly...

Spread option type offenses are highly-susceptible to making mistakes. This style of offense puts tremendous pressure on the QB to do lots of things perfectly.

Accordingly, when big plays don't happen with frequency it often compels the QB to force things that aren't there.

The success of the spread option is highly-dependent on exploiting mismatches in open spaces resulting from one-on-one breakdowns.

When you play "assignment football" - with your best (AND most disciplined) athletes - against the spread option you create lots of decision-making and execution pressure; eliminate open spaces; and shrink the field.

More often than not, this results in long yardage situations and turnover opportunities for good defenses (like ours) to capitalize on.

Nice post, Scoreboard! Let's hope that our superior athletes play smart, disciplined ball and force some turnovers. My sense is that they are primed to play their best game of the season. And, we will need it! But, I am actually quite confident that our D will at least contain the Ucks offense to a manageable score - 35 points or less. I think the biggest matchup is if our inconsistent offense exploits the weak Ucks defense behind the surging Mr. Sanchez. But, the running game MUST show up, and with Stafon hurting, this is my primary concern. We really didn't run on ND until their defense wore down in the 2nd half. Come on O-Line!!! If those guys dominate, we run well, Sanchez will play a great game regardless, and we win 34-31!

Agreed....the success of the running game will also be critical with respect to minimizing the number of shots they get to score.

Running game = ball control (which minimizes the numebr of opportunities they get to take at us, and increases the possibility of them forcing things).

If we are able to impose impatience on their offense - as a result of ball control and disciplined assigment defense - the Ducks wings will fold under their the shadow of their own beaks and implode.

Fight On!!!

As much as it pains me to say this it seems that Scott Wolf may understand more about football than the majority of posters. He gave you an opinion backed not just by another professional but by the majority of coaches who don't play his style of cover 2 and never exclusively. But the roof is in the pudding. We got lit up by a high school team, lost to a few more bs teams, got Vince-ized, upped the draft selection of a certain ND QB, made Aaron Rodgers look like Joe Montana, and if it wasn't for our offense we would have never, ever been a championship caliber team! Our best defense in the PC era came not from PC but through Greg Burns and his phenomenal work with safeties and his decision to use Will Poole (the only USC corner to amount to anything these days) in press coverage because he was already a (wayward) star known for that at BC. PC HATES press coverage and he has managed to have far better athletes but the defense is getting more and more porous. Bend but don't break isn't Stanford scoring on a fourth and long or being last in the PAC 10 in int's and sacks. It's not having 20+ point totals by a UW who was stomped by OSU and 24 by Stanford. Fortunately Oregon loves to move stretch things out laterally and our athletes are far quicker. What I find funny is that if someone says something a poster disagrees with he says, "you know more than the coaches?" yet the same person presumes to be supportive or critical of players and coaches all the time themselves. It's football people, not astro-physics- we've all been watching and playing it since we were little tykes at least through high school and a huge amount of you guys seem to be able to reel off more info about players than 99% of scouting networks (and there's some people to make you suspicious of "professionals"). I love PC but not b/c his x's and o's but the image and intensity. If he loses this game I think people won't be so hot with his image anymore.