No Excuses
Lane Kiffin said someone in a staff meeting today made a comment about the Trojans getting 13 penalties last night because they are USC. That was a theory advanced by Pete Carroll for the past couple years, that USC received more penalties because of who they were.
But Kiffin rejected the theory.
``I made sure that won't be said again (in a meeting),'' he said.
Lane is right. We must take responsibility. Yes, I saw some bad calls and yelled boo at the officials like everyone else, but there were many mistakes and that is not acceptable. The fact is that most of the calls were good. The play was sloppy and we were lucky to get a win with how we played. If the coaches tell the players that it is not their fault they will not take responsibility and the mistakes will keep repeating like they did during Pete's era.
You know, I don't think this thing about USC football team being penalized the most in the NCAA football is hard to understand, when you consider USC is under 4 year probation by the same dreaded institution. They've put USC in the position where it can't moan and scream and earn any outside sympathy about such trivial things anymore, since NCAA or the fat cats behind the scenes obviously wanted to 'slow down' SC football because it was. well, going too fast for several years. Look at other sports. The 'Leagues' hate to see just one team dominate the scene for many years because it's bad for business. We all know there's a large sum of money in college football, and when it comes down to generating revenue, you've got to spread the wealth by making various teams win a few years at a time. Think long and hard about it, and you'll see the reality hidden between the 'judgment calls'.