FOOTBALL

Morning Buzz: How Will Teams Defend USC Now?

Stanford coach David Shaw defended USC coach Clay Helton after the Cardinal lost, 45-20, on Saturday night.

“Clay Helton has heard a lot of crap from a lot of people for a lot of things,” Shaw said. “He’s one heck of football coach, and he’s got a really good football team.”

But Shaw did a bigger favor for Helton during the game when you consider his defensive game plan.

USC started a true freshman QB and the Cardinal stayed in their basic four-man pass rush for most of the game.

Stanford rarely if ever blitzed. If the Cardinal watched the Fresno State film, it saw there were times when blitzing worked.

But they turned Saturday’s game into a pitch-and-catch exercise for Kedon Slovis and the USC offense. It was almost like a 7-on-7 game.

It will be interesting to see if BYU and future opponents decide the next few weeks to be as vanilla as Stanford’s defense.

41 thoughts on “Morning Buzz: How Will Teams Defend USC Now?”

    1. Waaaaa, bwaaaaa….SC is lousy.. bawaaaa SC will be 0-5….bawaaa, SC will not be able to score…bawaaaa…have no line (offensive or defensive) bawaaaa…I’m the krappa master and everyone meals the bed in my dreams!! Can’t figure out why my sheets are a mess though, bawaaaa!!! All my little friends will agree….SC SUCKS….bawaaaa.

      Hahahahaha

      💋

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      3. pornboy breaks out his best football argument whenever asked to justify why his predictions are wrong….

        Hahahahaha

        💋 🖕🏽

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      4. You sound like Clay Helton just fucked you in the ass, and I’m thinking he may have, because your so joyful right now, Pudly 76 😃

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Twerp little pornboy using his other identity now…. hahahahaha what a moron. You AND your other selves need to come up with a new set of predictions….poor Graham Harrell being forced out and his offense won’t fly at SC??? What stupid fools you “ALL” are.

        Westwierd sucks and so do you ruin.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. What will be interesting going forward is this….

    Say Slovis goes 9-2 and wins the bowl game, will Gomer hand the job to Chuck and Duck next season ?

    If Slovis is passed over in favor of C & D, does Slovis eat the shit sandwich or transfer knowing the Mater Dei midget is the next coaches pet, if he does keep his oral commitment ?

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    1. karma —Listen carefully—real carefully — to Graham Harrell’s post game comments. He practically said he’s 100% in on Slovis. If Helton sticks his nose (which he doesn’t even breathe through, by the way) into what Graham is trying to do for this offense, he’s very liable to lose Graham.
      Helton needs to come to terms with the fact that he hired a REAL Offensive Coordinator ….someone who knows his ass from a hole in the ground rather than a great recruiter parading as an Offensive Coordinator
      (which is all Tee was)…..
      #Helton:JustSitBack,ShutUp&LetTheREALCoachCoach

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      3. gt —I sure hope Helton sees it that way. He’s giving indications that he might not. What IS his all encompassing, fanatical allegiance to Daniels all about? It’s no more normal than the Toa love affair.
        #WakeUp&GetWithTheProgramHelton
        P.S.
        Forgive this probably superfluous boxing analogy—-whenever you’re not “first” in exchanges, you’ll get told in the corner “just let your hands go!” The import of that advice is: trust your instincts, stop overthinking it. Helton has the exact same problem as J. T. —he overthinks it. He needs to entrust the offense to somebody like Harrell —somebody who understands the power that comes from playing fast and without fear.

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  3. I forgot Scott is such an expert at defense. Watch what happens when you blitz and Slovis hits the hot receiver. The play JT got hurt on there was an open guy right in the middle of the field. Slovis keeps his head up and finds receivers. Sorry Scott you are wrong again.

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  4. Scottie, Shaw is not an idiot. Stanford has one really good cornerback, Adebo (sp?), but the rest of them are not special, and SC has perhaps the best WR depth in the country. Plus their LBs can’t cover Carr and VM.

    The much better team won, and I am glad that Harrell is the OC.

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    1. Before the game Wolf was telling us that Shaw was a genius as a coach. He has certainly done a good job at Stanford. Now, he is vanilla because USC won and he let USC off the hook. Wolf is a dumb shit that can’t have it both ways. USC has better players this year and they finally played close to their potential. That has been one of my beefs with Helton all along. The USC potential has never been close to being realized. Saturday night we got close. Hope we get closer still.

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      1. Good lord, USC has beaten FSU, who lost at home to freaking Minnesota, and Stanford who is very average. Lets see how they do against teams that might actually be good, and no, BYU isn’t good.

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      2. You’re wrong on this one, karma. Minnesota was picked by none other than Phil Steele to compete for the Big Ten title and get 10 wins, Stanford was rightfully picked as a top 25 team and BYU is playing very solid football (and we have to play them in their backyard while thinking ahead to the big, short week game against the Pac South Champion, Utah.
        #IfWeGo3-0,WeEarnedItTheHardWay

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      3. Sorry MG, but Minnesota was picked to finish 6th by BIG10 writers and 5th by Lindey’s, they are a nothing team, much like Stanford, who has no running game and a QB that isn’t all that.

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      4. I hear ya, Karma. But poor Lindy’s has pathetic Northwestern and Nebraska ahead of Minnesota. I’ll take Phil Steele who says, “2019 Minnesota is one of the most improved teams in country.” And Stanford will wind up with a solid win/loss record (even though they have to face the mighty Cal Bears —had to say that to set Cal75 up for the inevitable annual loss).

        Liked by 3 people

  5. Slovis can crave a defense up unlike Daniels. If you blitz, he hits the open receiver, if you don’t blitz, he waits for a receive to open up. if you rush three, he runs. Daniels can’t do any of those things. he is a pro style passer where he needs a lot of protection. This offense is based on the ball getting out of the hands in less than a second. Daniels can’t do that. he looks too long for a receiver.

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    1. As everybody here knows, pt, I like Daniels. He’s a good quarterback. But you’re right —Slovis is better, much better. Helton has been handed a gift by the football gods —all he needs to do now is leave Harrell alone.

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  6. Funny listening to the buddaman trying to play 5* General as though he’s preplanning Operation Wild Weasel.
    Here’s how it goes. The way Stanfurd could have slowed SC was to confuse SC with disguised pressure on the QB & the dead tree has neither the coaching nor personel nor the sophistication on D to do that.
    Other teams do.

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    2. And whom (or ‘who’ —you tell me) might one of those teams be, Cal75?
      #IThinkIMightBeAbleToGuess….
      #[IsItTheTeamComingFromAntifa’sFavoriteStompingGround]?

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      2. I completely agree, gt. The Big Question is which ones do we actually win? I could see us taking out Washington and Notre Dame and losing to somebody like Colorado. The overarching point is —now we CAN beat anybody….. and the team KNOWS it…. and that’s HUGE…..
        #Let’sSeeWhereThatTakesUs…

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  8. One thing not being mentioned is that JT was doing pretty good in the new O as well before he got hurt. I really hope KS is all that, but one game does not make a dynasty. Once teams get some film on him and game plan against him, it may be a different story.

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  9. First, I will eat crow on my game and season start predictions. Fun game to watch. Slovis is talented kid who can ball. He’s got guts, can move and throw and keeps his eyes down field. Nice future for him, assuming Helton doesn’t blow it.

    Second, Helton and staff get credit for recruiting him. Now let’s see what unfolds balance of season. I dread being stuck with Helton but can’t root against Slovis and the team.

    Finally, Helton and Clancy will figure out a way to blow the season. It’s inevitable.

    Again, good for Slovis and the team. BYU will be a good test. Oddsmakers seem to have it right.

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    1. Actually, it was Bryan Ellis, now with Gomer’s brother at WKU who found Slovis, not Gomer or his current staff.

      Excerpt from The Athletic article about how USC found Slovis

      “Bryan Ellis found himself sitting in a Phoenix parking lot with three hours to kill back on May 10, 2018.

      USC’s quarterback coach was in Arizona evaluating some prospects at the position. Sure, he knew of a three-star named Kedon Slovis; Trojans assistant director of player personnel Alex Collins had told Ellis about him. Collins, who was in his last week at USC before leaving for Nevada (he’s now at Florida Atlantic), had watched Slovis’ highlights and noted his ability to make throws in the pocket and on the run, in addition to his exceptional poise.

      But at this point in time, “He was not even on my radar, to be honest with you,” said Ellis, who is now Western Kentucky’s offensive coordinator. With that free time on his hands, Ellis sent a text to Eric Ziskin, the Trojans’ former recruiting director, sharing his location and asking for Ziskin to find two or three schools nearby he could visit in the meantime.

      “(Ziskin) said, ‘Well, you’re about a mile from Desert Mountain High School,’” Ellis recalled to The Athletic this week, noting that the school had produced five-star QB Kyle Allen back in 2014. “They had players before. ‘If nothing else, keep up good relations.’”

      Little did Ellis or Ziskin know that the “good relations” stopover at Desert Mountain would produce the quarterback on whose arm the Trojans’s 2019 season rests. Slovis’ stunning elevation to QB1 at USC began when the freshman beat out two older players for the backup job and came to a head last weekend when JT Daniels suffered a torn ACL and meniscus on a first-half sack against Fresno State.

      Slovis is about as unknown as a Trojans starting quarterback could be — Ellis was far from the only one who didn’t have him on his radar.”

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      1. This is not a unique story, nor is it a bash on any coach. Under the radar guys frequently get recommended by others. Troy Polamalu comes to mind. He was a 3-star that was recommended to the USC staff as well. Helton deserves plenty of bashing, but this is not a fair bash.

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    2. Everyone here shares your concern —that Helton doesn’t understand success and will tinker with it until he murders it. Harrell needs to stand his ground. It’s HIS offense —not Helton’s….
      #WeSawWhatHeltonCouldDoWhenHeWasOffensiveCoordinator…..
      #…58CombinedPointsAgainstCal,UCLA&NotreDame(AllLosses)…
      #HarrellGot45InOneNightAgainstStanfford

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      1. Terminally idiotic… your momma must’ve dropped you a lot as a baby, or maybe it was the nurses practicing drop kicking you in the hospital.
        What’s your new prediction you can walk back in another three weeks…ruin troll

        Hahahahaha

        ruins suck

        Like

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