Sunday Night With Caesar
USC coach Pete Carroll after watching the game films Sunday.
``Oregon State kept hanging and stayed with us,'' he said. ``They had a really big night on offense. The quarterback and receivers tore it up. It's really two quarterbacks that played great football (back to back).
``Those are areas we have to be concerned about (with our defense).''
Pete's comment on Saturday night with Pete Arbogast was better when he said that Oregon St. was a down the field passing team and the USC defense was waiting for that to happen all night, but they kept going short. So, he knew they were not doing what he thought they'd do, but never made an adjustment (which is pretty well known for) and almost gave the Beavers the game in doing so. I'm starting to question either his intelligence or his sanity.
While I agree that an adjustment may have been in order, I'm sure Mike Riley was hoping to see an adjustment so he could burn us with a deep pass. It's tough to tell whether OSU was baiting our defense into over-committing to the short/intermediate routes. The fact is, OSU is a really good offensive team, and when Canfield is hitting his open players with such precision, you're gonna have to be a little lucky to win. I just wish the Beavers could play that well against non-conference teams. As much as I hate fUCLA - them going 3-0 in nonconference (making the city of Los Angeles a sterling 6-0 outside of the Pac-10 is exactly what the doctor ordered. In fact, the Ruins acquitted themselves much more impressively against the Fightin' Kiffins than the #1 team in the land (who should have been penalized for Mount Cody's hat trick following his block of yet another Tennessee field goal).
The more the Pac-10 wins against nonconference foes, the better it is for SC.