Morning Buzz

In a shoot out like this against Oregon, SC needed all of its weapons. Unfortnately, it was missing its #1 tight end, #1 full back, and #1 TB stafon johnson. As we saw last night, without them, SC couldn't keep up. Not an excuse, it was what it was and SC lost.

As for the defense, SC has always had trouble with the running, scrambling QB, and in recent years with the smaller quicker TB. Oregon had both. You would think that they would have come up with a game plan for both by now.

To compare Carroll with Hackett is ridiculous. Be careful Scott, you may end up with what you have hoped for.

Well at least we can look forward to basketball season. Oh yeah, Larry David is now the coach.

As much of a disaster as last night was, I'd bet that 99.9% of the country would gladly take a 10-2 (hopefully) season during a rebuilding effort with a true freshman qb at the helm. Let's not forget that sandwiched between their national title seasons, the Gators had a 9-4 season. I'll take 10-2 in a so-called "down" year for the program.

Comparing PH to PC would be stupid, but it didn't feel like watching a game during the PH era. You almost expected this under PH. No way under PC. I was forced to watch last night in a room full of green-wearing, quacking Duck fans. They weren't very nice. I also made the mistake of attending the Beaver game last year. Those fans were a bit nicer.

When PC was hired, I didn't think he was the guy to turn things around. He did. I don't think anyone who follows the Trojans thought this run would last forever. It will be interesting to see if the team can bounce back and win out, and maybe get an at large BCS bid. If not, it will be interesting to see if PC can engineer another run like he's had.

Not the end of the world, but disappointing, especially when you're in a room full of Duck fans.

Scott,

How dare thee!!

ROTFLMAO.....VINDICATION!!

Pete has the best of everything and cant win. At some point you have to call it what it is. The Pete-Carroll-Will-Do-Everything-Experiment is a total disaster.

So Pete...was having to share credit with the likes of Chow, Ed O, Smitty and TD really that bad?

Larry David is now the coach- good gallows humor Conquest! How long until Spring practice?

Many predicted 2-3 losses this season, and a 10-2 finish with a possible BCS at large or Holiday Bowl is not a bad result for this team. Our conference streak HAD to end eventually. The Ducks deserve the conference championship this season.

While most are picking on the obvious - the defense, I’ll say that our biggest weakness is an antiquated offensive system. The spread offensive system has evolved to a point where it is ahead of even the best defensive systems. USC has not had a top 10 offense since 2005, when after that season, PC lost Kiffin and officially threw out our short passing game implemented by Norm Chow.

Our pro-style offense is antiquated and puts too much pressure on the QB. The pro-style offense does not exploit mismatches, or leverage our speed and athletic ability. The pro-style offense allows the defense to keep too many players in the box and impedes the ability to surprise and deceive defenses.

USC only scored 3 points in the 2nd half. USC punted 6 times in 11 drives against a Duck defense full of Frosh and Sophs in the secondary.

The defense can be fixed. We are thin and inexperienced at LB. We are beat up on the DL interior, with Fangupo out and Tupou and Spicer injured. However, the offenses inability to put big points on the board with an incredible level of offensive talent is USC’s biggest weakness. We will not make it to another BCS title game until PC overhauls our offensive philosophy and incorporates more of a spread passing attack. The offense needs to evolve. Hopefully, this game will serve as a wake-up call to PC to do just that in the offseason.

And it could be worse...we could be UCLA fans.

DFW, I disagree completely. The offense isn't the problem. Scoring 3 pts in the 2nd half was largely due to the circumstances. Things had snowballed by that point, it was obvious the defense wasn't going to make a stop and that negative energy carried over to the O. Add to it that Barkley is still a bit inconsistent, which = a few missed throws, and they were sunk. It's not good for an offense to know that it has ZERO margin for error.

The offense is going to be a force going forward, as Barkley continues to cut his teeth. Anyone who can't see his progress is blind.

The problem is the inexperience on the defensive side of the ball, particularly at LB. While I like the speed that Morgan and Smith bring, they aren't strong enough to hold up at the point of attack. Lack of depth hasn't helped. Our corners have also severely disappointed. I've always liked Pinkard, but he seems to have regressed. Teams are targeting him. Maybe he is just out of position.

Let's not overreact, this isn't the end of the world. It was amazing that it took so long. Even USC needs a rebuilding year. Lets not forget that Florida was 9-4 in 07'. PC will get this right.

Although the circumstances did contribute to the offense only getting 3 points in the second half as SD trojan pointed out, I also don't remember seeing Damian Williams much out there after the 1st series of the second half and the OCR is reporting that he was hoblling around after reaggrevating the glute muscle injury he has. The offense seemed to struggle without him which worries me for next year as it is very likely he will bolt for the NFL.

quotes like these are why the DailyNews is the best and most thought provoking paper in the US today:

"In short, this was the worst loss of Carroll's USC career. It was not just a loss, it was a disgrace."

"USC was tricked, treated and defeated all on its own.
The Trojans didn't just lose, they got punked.
They didn't just drop out of the national championship race, they got popped ... in the mouth, gut and chops."

if i didn't read it for free on the internets, i might even subscribe to it. sweeeeeeeeet!

SDT, shall we review one of Scott's favorite stats: USC's offense scored 30 or more points in 27 of 32 Pac-10 games between 2002-05 but did it only 11 of 31 times from 2006-09. Let's make that 11 of 32 times. 20 points at Oregon wouldn't have won the game regardless of how our defense played.

DFW, last year: same teams / same schemes,
the only difference is usc defense is in the nfl

the spread with a running QB does have more potency but it also has its risks: turnovers and quick 3 and outs and not many good QBs who can both run and pass

1st half: about even

2nd half: oregon changed up its blitzing packages and barkley lost some accuracy / also, the front D7 for usc got gassed - OR kept rotating D to stay fresh

oregon111

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