FOOTBALL

USC Morning Buzz: Do Defensive Players Matter?

One play I highlighted from the scrimmage was when JT Daniels got sacked by a defensive player Saturday and then was credited with a TD pass.

The referee walked directly to Clay Helton and signalled it was a sack but Helton waved him off and counted the touchdown.

Harmless, you say? But what message does it send to the defense, which made the play and then lost credit for it (before 4,000-5,000 fans at Coliseum).

“The message Helton sent is that Daniels is more important than you are,” a former USC assistant coach said. “He matters the most.”

  • Petros Papadakis on USC wide receiver Bru McCoy‘s back-and-forth college odyssey: “He has really made a fool of himself.”

And on McCoy’s absence from USC training camp with a fever: “Until he knows that he’s actually gonna play (from the NCAA), he doesn’t want to go to camp. That would just be my theory.”

  • USC practiced in shorts Monday and will actually wear full pads today. Closed to the public and media of course.

44 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: Do Defensive Players Matter?”

  2. Another S(n)a(r)k(e) attack! Which is more fearsome – wolves attacking in Banff National Park, or Wolf attacking here? Not that, as usual, there isn’t a lot of truth mixed into the bowl…

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  3. Petros tries desperately to be relevant. But he sounds like a horse’s ass in terms of the McCoy comments. McCoy has been sick for 7 weeks and has lost about 30 pounds in the process.

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      1. Petros is a great entertainer. Clever, outrageous —he was born to entertain —but if you stacked up the number of times Petros was right about something vs. the number of times he was wrong….it wouldn’t be too pretty.

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      2. Petros is one of the voices exposing USC for the clusterf**k that it is right now because he is one of the few former players willing to speak out. (Ellison is another guy who tells it like it is).

        Other than those two, very few players were willing to be vocal about the mess in Heritage Hall. After they tried to minimize Salute To Troy this year is when more players began to speak out. Robert Jensen is one of those brave guys.

        #Don’tKnockOnPetrosTooMuch;He’sExcitableButHasSomeGoodInsightIntoTheProgram

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      3. He’s the Gen ‘X’ Jim Healy ‘but’ far more pointed in his animus than Jim was because he has his ‘Martin’ (Smith) to bounce things off of.

        BTW Doug ‘E’ Krikorian bluntly noted what a disaster Helton is on this very board this past Spring 2019.

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    3. Think this is one of those cases of both being true to varying degrees…Petros is smart, funny, knowledgeable, and properly critical…and he’s flamboyant and a natural entertainer who has the instinct for generating attention through controversial/hot takes…

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    1. I agree – think 5-7 is probably in the offing again…read Dan’s Peristyle forecast this morning and was disgusted by how much they’ve apparently let their subscription interests cloud (sunshine pump) their pronouncements…no way this team…wrong, not the team, the coaching staff…goes 10-2…

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      2. Certainly the skill position talent (and I would assume many of the linemen properly coached)…the comment from late yesterday about the pre-season rankings and where Coach O’s Geaux-jans stand sure resonates…

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      3. Bad OL means failure no matter how much talent there is at the skill positions, and I’m not convinced the QB is that talented

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      4. James —I started listening to Dan last year. 2018 Dan: “Now, they’re getting it right. I really like what I see at practice. This is a different team. Closer. More physical. More confident.” 2019 Dan: “NOW they really are getting it right. I REALLY like what I see at practice, blah, blah, blah…”
        #OnlyDifferenceB/W2018&2019?DanPredictedUndefeatedSeason

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      5. MG-
        I started listening to them several years back (I think back to when Haden picked Sark over EdO and Helton got that first turn in Vegas)…Dan has always been beyond, and I mean BEYOND, excellent (not only smart and insightful, but brutally honest)…but that agenda seemed to start changing a couple of years back – seems like the decision was made to keep the coach in the critic role while everyone else going sunshine or out (remember they used to have Salisbury and some rather critical guests from time-to-time)…I still think Dan is well worth the listen, but had to stop listening to the sunshine podcast and only catch it now in written form from time-to-time…

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      7. Sure seems that way – and I get it, but I don’t like it (and I infer you don’t care for it so much either)…we know he knows better…same guy who loves bringing up Pete’s adjustments, the comeback at Arizona State when Leinart got banged up…Tom Malone’s pre-game kicks intimidating Auburn…he knows better…I realize this is just a minor/sports version of the larger national media disease with respect to “access,” but…I want my podcast enjoyment back!

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  5. Defensive players, and controlling the line of scrimmage doesn’t matter to Coaches like Clay Helton, Mike Leach, Graham Harrell, or Kliff Kingsbury. That’s why they’ll will never win championships, because their style is for entertainment only .

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      1. The ruins standards are so low, they would be thrilled and give Chip a contract for life if they ever went with 9-3 and gained a Rose Bowl berth.

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    2. Reason why Oregon never did anything other than benefit from USC being down within the Pac (or why Oklahoma and Big 12 never win in the playoffs)…and reason why Pats won a Super Bowl last year after facing as tough a slate of playoff opponents as any within memory (when push came to shove, they were able to run the ball…because they could run block when they wanted/needed to)…

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    1. Great point…it always comes back to leadership, and centers on the toughness/determination of the head coach…I believe I once read that John McKay had USC practice indoors wearing socks prior to a Rose Bowl…even if there was some fun mixed in, I bet the practice was still focused and intense…

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      1. Ya know, James, even if that that sack call Helton overruled could have gone either way, a smarter coach would’ve let it stand as a sack. Helton doesn’t get what being a tough taskmaster is all about….
        #He’sMoreLikeTheOffense’sMommy….

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      2. No matter what the call was by the ref, as a coach you have to say it was not a touchdown if the call was a touchdown; or alternately, if the call was not a touchdown, you have to not overrule it. You have to show your players you expect more, better, higher, not giving them a touchdown for a sack. Or you don’t deserve to be a coach because you don’t understand how to use authority (being mean, tough) for the best outcome (winning). In other words, you have to SOMETIMES be amoral or a jerk to do good. Apparently USC coach is not mature enough to understand that. He apparently still wants to play teacher’s pet. I hope the upper echelons at USC can see that when they evaluate coaching retention. Helton is on the hot seat and it just got hotter because he lit a match under the seat. These are the “little things” by which a coach should be evaluated whether he has a winning or losing season. When Helton luckily won a Rose Bowl in 2015 (or was it 2016), he had hired a coaching staff based on nepotism, good old boy club and religious affinity, not based on excellence (McCullough excepting). What did management expect to happen but deterioration, erosion of the Trojan culture and legacy and losing the best local recruits?. Unfortunately, nothing much has changed.

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      3. Agreed…the environment Pete set up was both sides of the ball being hostile towards whatever opposed them (how many times have we – since we brought him up at length earlier – heard Dan hearken back to that as the hallmark of what USC was?), to include teammates on the wrong side of the scrimmage line during practice…all great coaches in charge of successful teams have that in common…even the understated/quiet ones still insist on performance and promote competition…

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      4. It’s funny we’re talking about this today, James. A former law student of mine complained to me today that a very respected woman judge sanctioned her for being 1 minute late for a court appearance just because the judge was “jealous of my looks.” People who don’t get the idea of discipline and deadlines and very, very hard work don’t go anywhere. And Helton is playing the “false friend” by letting players think differently.

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      5. MG-That is a great story and example of exactly what we’re talking about…I mentioned to you once that while I wasn’t very good I sat on the bench and watched a lot of good college baseball (prior to going into the military – as a result of not being very good…or otherwise endowed with requisite levels of life talent)…I will leave names out, but there was an incident my second year that was very similar to your law school example…a player who would later go on to be a starting MLB first baseman showed up late to practice (the first day of practice the two years I was there our coach – an NJCAA HOFer – sat us all in the dugout and told us to the effect of “I don’t have a lot of rules, but the ones I do have you will follow without exception or you will not be here” – one of them was being on time – on time to him was 15 minutes ahead of time)…he was unceremoniously booted from the team…a family member had to beg his way back onto the team over the holiday break…when he came back he looked like he had been doing nothing but training for two months…I would lay good money our baseball coach could coach the talent at USC today to a better record than this staff…

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      6. Yes, James, I bet he could too. It’s all about character —character is more important than running fast or jumping high. You get that. Coaches who know how to build character put together teams that can beat anybody. Helton got the screwy idea that player character involves one thing: feigning respect for the Head Coach and waiting to get rewarded for it — ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ That is the opposite of building character….and it shows on the field every time we fall behind.

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      7. Couldn’t agree more…and a lot of it stems from what we discussed before – he knows it in the pit of his being just as much as we see it, and that is communicated to his assistants, staff, and the players…he is fearful, like the lieutenant in Platoon that I referred to…

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  7. Why can’t Clay Helton have a real spring game with full contact? If he’s afraid of losing starters. Then let the walk-on’s and 4th stringers duke it out but play football. JT Daniels vs Jack Sears in the first half and Fink vs Slovis in the second half. For many of these guys they don’t see real contact until week 1. These spring showcases are soft.

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    1. you got it…even in full pads they practice soft…just like in shorts…and people actually think SC is going to win Pac12…what happened to discernment and objectivity

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  8. That was certainly a “teaching moment” for Helton and, IMHO, he blew it. Helton could have taught Daniels that he expected him to avoid the sack or throw it out of bounds. Instead, he gives him and the O line an A grade when earning an F. Helton can’t change the team culture for the better with that sort of coddling behavior and indicates that Helton still hasn’t learned how to coach despite his $5 mil salary and spending his entire life around the game of football.

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