Equal Time
Just to give the defense its due, linebacker Malcolm Smith intercepted Matt Barkley's pass. USC coach Pete Carroll said, ``(Barkley) had a rough time in the 7-on-7 (pass drills).''
Barkley said, ``I was trying to get the ball into a window and it closed up pretty quickly. That one play was pretty unfortunate.''
Barkley did better in the scrimmage portion and threw a beautiful fade pass to Ronald Johnson.
Aaron Corp will be USC's starting QB.
This side of the coin makes more sense to me than just ragging on a QB (any QB) for the shame of throwing an interception in practice. A practice interception means someone on our own defense just made the ultimate defensive play that we hope they will do during a real game. Sounds good!
And I am not a student of practice football, but it seems to me that throwing day in and day out against the same squad of guys - who know your every play and every look - should be much harder than throwing against another team that doesn't know you as well. I kind of expect a QB to perform more poorly against a defense with that much familiarity. No?
Well, Ken, at practice that is one of the hardest things to maintain. The defenses are coached to make their progressions and read each play as if it were the first and only one--and yes sometimes recognizing tendencies can be good, sometimes bad.
The difference for M Barkley is that he is now playing against much bigger, stronger, and faster players than he has ever seen while learning a playbook that is thicker than a Tolstoy novel. He will be fine. Whether he redshirts or not, he will be fine. Whether he plays this year, next year or the year after that, he will be fine.
Fight on!