Morning Buzz
Just six years ago, in December, 2003, after a 52-28 win over Oregon State, USC began a record streak of 33 consecutive weeks atop the Associated Press poll.
The Trojans were ranked No. 1 for the conclusion of the 2003 season, the entire 2004 season and the entire 2005 regular season until falling to No. 2 Texas in the Rose Bowl, 41-38, on January 4, 2006.
The 33 weeks holds the record by a wide margin, with the second-longest streak belonging to Miami, who held the top spot for 20 weeks from October 14, 2001 to October 28, 2002.
Fourth and Two....oh so sugar sweeeeet!
Reggie? Reggie?
Those were incredible times with Leinart, Bush and Lendale. I still remember the SUCLA game in 2004 at the Rose Bowl, and SUCLA played a competitive game for a change, and had us sweating, but Reggie had two great, great runs for the victory, and then the team parlayed that into back-to-back national championships, which has only been accomplished by a handful of teams throughout the 130 year history of college football.
I knew those times would not ever be matched, but they are tattooed onto my soul until the day I die, and perhaps afterwards too.
Does anyone remember how that entire season was more about promoting Reggie Bush than about winning football games?
Does anyone remember Reggie's pitch?
Is anyone worse than Matt Barkley?
I am sure everybody knows that USC's dominance is gone forever!
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching "The U" on Espn. It was great. UM should have named their field after Howard Schnellenberger.
Oh, the glory days. What I find interesting in retrospect is that Leinart, Bush, and Lendale were not the greatest football players of all-time, and none of them have lit up the NFL. This period of USC success was marked by a confluence of great college talent, great schemes, and great coaching. Bush, Leinart, and Lendale were merely the face of this success, but not the architects. Our talent level has not dropped off much, if at all, from those days. What I'm trying to say is that USC still has the player talent to be this good.
What DFW is saying is that our coaching staff SUCKS
DFW is right. USC does have the player talent to be that good again. But they no longer enjoy the same schematic advantage they once had, especially against Pac-10 oppponents. And the coaching staff has fallen victim to excessive turnover, especially at the coordinator level.
It's easy enough to hop on Scott's "Carroll and his staff suck" bandwagon, but that completely discounts that Carroll was the archetect of the 2003-5 run of #1 rankings. 2005-8 weren't bad either. And that didn't just happen by luck.
If you buy into the fact that USC's current coaching staff is a product of Carroll's vision for USC, then the current staff represents a substantially different (or more evolved) vision than that of 2003-5. This is most apparent on offense where the three coaches that impact the O greatest (Bates, Morton, and Carroll) are all on their first job at the college level. All three had worked exclusively in the pros prior to coming to USC. This is in stark contrast to Chow, who brought 27 years of CFB experince (18 years as college OC) to the job. All in all, I wonder if Carroll has assembled a coaching staff that isn't very well suited to the college game, and especially ill-suited to coach a CFB team that starts on an inexperienced QB.
Time will tell, but I believe that Carroll has laid a foundation such that another great run of success is possible. Personally, I think he will need to adjust his vision a bit, and head in a fresh direction with respect to offense. I doubt that will happen until the Barkley experiement has run it's course. In the end, Carroll's own competitiveness may drive the change. I wouldn't bet against it.
Now that I think about it, it must be nice to be a UCLA fan. They don't have to go through the emotional roller coaster of wonderful highs (2003 and 2004) and crushing lows (2005 damn you Vince Young!). I could just accept the prozac like efffect of mediocrity and not have to worry about Pac 10 Championships, BCS Games, and National Titles.
Hey Chuck, we should hang!
Nordeezy:
If only it was that simple, Alas I think it is a case of the grass always being greener on the other side. If being a bruin fan was that easy we would not have all the bruin idiots posting over here on the sc blog. Apparently along with mediocrity comes the desire to post on the more successful teams blog about every little negative thing that you can find.
Be happy for our last great run and look forward with hope and anticipation to our next great run. Regardless of what happens realize that bruins will still be looking up with envy and the knowledge that when they hired nue they surrendered the moral high ground so dear to thier inferiority complex.
USC was the best team of this decade. 3 Heisman winners. Back to back National Champs and even though the score or outcome doesnt agree I still say they won that game against Texas. SC's weak strength of schedule kept them out of the big game last year against Florida and then the Pac 10 goes 5-0 in bowls. That would have easily been another N.C.
USC will be the team of the next decade just the same. Florida/Bama have benefited from the rest of the SEC being down but I dont expect that to continue. Texas/OK,same thing.
If there was a year to get USC this was the year and 4 teams took advantage. I will agree with most on this. That play calling has got to be better! Defense needs to tighten up, specially in the secondary and special teams has to improve! Cut out the stupid penalties and turnovers and hopefully Barkley will be able to master more than one play.The quarterback sneak.