FOOTBALL

USC Saturday Buzz: Beware Breathless Practice Reports

It’s one day into USC training camp and there are already some breathless media reports.

JT Daniels completed 7 of 8 passes and threw a TD pass with an intercetion. No one that ever watched Daniels play questioned his accuracy, especially in a no pads practice.

I expect Daniels to start this season. But the question will be what he does against a live pass rush. He didn’t really get pressured much at Mater Dei, which had an excellent offensive line. That’s a key. Remember that as people write about yesterday’s practice like it was a seminal moment.

  • The same goes for tailback Stephen Carr, who had back surgery, and participated in the entire first practice.

Remember when you have back surgery, it is the full contact practices, which start next week, that are the better tests to see how far a player has recovered.

  • One disappointment last season was the poor usage by the coaches of wide receiver Randal Grimes, who burned his redshirt year in extremely limited game appearances. So it was disconcerting to see Grimes did not participate in the first practice because of a back injury.
  • Freshman linebacker Solomon Tuliaupupu (foot surgery) was also out.
  • Quarterback Jack Sears has switched to No. 10. He wore No. 13 last season.
  • As expected, tight end Jude Wolfe of St. John Bosco committed to USC last night.

10 thoughts on “USC Saturday Buzz: Beware Breathless Practice Reports”

  2. Scooter, how was the o Line? I will tell ya then, they were at the self serving ice cream machine helping themselves and talking how great it is to be on the same practice field as Munoz, Yary, Harlow, Boselli, Brown, Rodgers, Baker, and the other great linemen at USC. They then huddled up and sang Kumbai with Calloway.

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  4. I dunno, Scott. I just read a post from Breathless Reporter Emeritus, Dan Weber, and he was excited about JTD, but also level-headed. He’s a little too credulous with the “we have learned from the tOSU and ND games” talking points, but he’s not that over-the-top re: JTD. And he hyped Jack Sears.

    Now, some the of the message-board cray-zees who have never been to a practice and couldn’t find Howard Jones Field with a map and a seeing-eye dog are completely over-the-top, but those folks are not media

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    1. Agreed, Independent George. Dan’s assessment of J.T. was nicely nuanced…. and he gave Sears deserved credit for improvement (like everyone else here, I didn’t see the first Fall practice—-but I saw enough of Sears in the player run practices during the summer to know he’s playing much better football than last spring).
      The knock on Dan has always been that, although he gives outstanding after-the-fact analysis (e.g., “here’s why SC lost the game…”), his predictive powers appear lacking. He always seems happiest with the way we look in practice right before we get the shit beat out of us.

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  5. Have no expectations. Take what happens and be okay with it. The best will rise to the top, but it will take game action to find the offensive savior everyone is looking for. For all we know it may not be the QB, it could be the O line. Get the games started, lets go.

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  6. Man without a Kiff or Snark to crap on, Gargamel really has to reach for some controversy.

    SC is in a bad position with no sure fire thing at QB. Would it be so bad if JT wins and slowly comes along through games 1 & 2?

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