I think over a four year period, Carroll's observation holds statistical merit. One aberration in a trend does not debunk it.

Let's not tread down this path, Trojans. Bad calls are part of the game, and besides, there may be reasons why SC is called for slightly more penalties than its opponents. But blaming the referees should not be SC's style.

I would say poor discipline and a lack of a special teams coach contribute most greatly to the number of penalties.

A few bad calls? Maybe, but there is no disputing calls like the facemask on Cushing or the bonehead late hit on Chilo Rachal.

Aside from those two "off the top of my head" calls from last game, we must be leading the planet on holds and blocks in the back on punt returns.

Nobody is complaining about our own penalties, but it's pretty hard to believe that the opponent plays so "penalty free" everytime they play SC.

It is hard to have much confidence in officiating crews, when their supervisor was an incompetent referee, and was "promoted" to supervisor after botching the Ore-Okl game.

Penalties did not matter in years past, we had maximum YAC and runs per play. A five, ten, fifteen yard penalty just gave ML and company more room to operate. In our present ball control offense that requires long mistake free drives, penalties are a show stopper. Solution: Open up the offense and get into the house fast and often.

Yes, leading the league for 4 years in a row in "Lowest Penalty Yardage for Opponent" must be more than a statistical anomaly. Maybe the refs were to busy watching our NFL prospect athletes perform, and not paying close enough attention to the other team. Or, maybe it is that subconscious satisfaction in seeing an underdog do well. Whatever it is, I think it is more than a random occurence, but the only thing we can do about it is try to play penalty free ball and put the ball in the endzone.

The statistics kept for penalties only includes those actually accepted.

Perhaps not this year, but during the Leinart era, I imagine on offense that there were times a penalty was called against the opposing defense, but we declined it, because the result of the play was more positive than taking the penalty. The same logic holds true for penalties against the opposing offense. A holding penalty on the opponent's offense was declined by USC because we got the sack, pick, incompletion, etc. in years past.

The point is, the more successful a team is, the more likely they are going to decline a penalty because the result of the play was more beneficial (e.g., better teams theoretically have a higher percentage of "successful" plays).

It would be interesting to see if the opponents of a last place team (e.g., Stanford in the recent past) had the highest amount of penalties/penalty yards, because the last place team does not have as many "successful" plays, and thus takes the penalty.

What a crybaby!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

If your players didn't cheat, they would get penalized!!!!

Gonna have send Dr. Steve-O for a visit!