I almost forgot about this:
QUARTERBACK
Matt Fink inspired the team after getting a chance that Clay Helton never envisioned. He made some ill-advised passes but notice the energy lift when Fink, Kedon Slovis or Jack Sears played QB?
Grade: B-
TAILBACK
Were there any holes to run through? Even there were not, it’s fair to say Stephen Carr is not the same tailback he was in 2017.
Grade: D+
WIDE RECEIVERS
Michael Pittman remains the man. But keen observers have known this for years. I never understood why his freshman year was wasted and then part of his sophomore season. Thank God his father complained on twitter.
Grade: A-
OFFENSIVE LINE
They couldn’t run block or even protect Kedon Slovis from getting hurt.
Grade: D-
DEFENSIVE LINE
Utah’s offensive line was inept and never dealt with Jay Tufele, Marlon Tuipuloti or Drake Jackson.
Grade: B+
LINEBACKERS
The stats tell me Palaie Gaoteote had 14 tackles. So why does it seem like he missed a lot of tackles too?
Grade: C+
DEFENSIVE BACKS
The Utah offense isn’t really set up for explosive passing plays, which helped the secondary. But the corners don’t get much help from Clancy Pendergast‘s constant man-to-man coverages so I’ll give them some extra credit.
Grade: C+
SPECIAL TEAMS
Why did USC have 10 men on the field for an extra point? I’m tired of having to pay attention to this. And how many times is Jualiano Falaniko going to get a personal foul? He actually hit a Utah out of bounds but the refs called it on Olaijah Griffin.
GRADE: D
COACHING
To quote John Baxter, “Here’s the deal.” Do I give Clay Helton a higher grade because Matt Fink threw into double coverage and Utah was too awful to cover the wide receivers? Or because Utah can’t pick up a blitz?
No, we don’t grade on a curve here.
Grade: D-
InsideUSC with Scott Wolf 
I expected these grades because of the way we lost the game. Oh wait….
That’s right, we won. I also forgot Scott doesn’t understand football and is a petty jerk.
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Bingo! The grades are the same every week, win or lose. I give Scott’s post the usual F.
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Seems as though the utes seemed to think they were in a game….
https://www.sltrib.com/sports/utah-utes/2019/09/23/utes-may-be-without-their/comments/
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Scott, as usual your grammar and sentence structure is F. It is amazing you graduated with a degree. I guess you forgot USC won which I know throughly pisses you off. You used the word inept, that describes this post. There is absolute no objectivity in anything you write. You loathe USC and it shows. I am not a rah-rah but sometimes you have to call a spade and spade.
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B+ for SC’s defensive line when it was blasted for over 200 yards by Utah’s second-string running back?– Too high. But they were resilient in the red-zone, so deserving of a B.
I’d give Fink a better than B-. Yes, he probably won’t complete those long 50-50 passes against Washington, but he got away with them against Utah. Skill + luck made for a magical night. Should have gotten a B+ or even A- (he did have a pick)
D- and D+ for SC’s offensive line and backs, writes Scott. The quarterbacks did get sacked (one terribly) and pressured, but there was pretty good pass protection. The backs suffered, trying to gain yardage against a great Utah defensive front, but the runners came on strong at the end to seal the win. Grade– C
Due to these errors and more, Scott deserves no better than a C grade for his SC grading. However, since he purposely under-grades solely for the sake of expressing his misguided SC meanness, his grade is lowered to D+ in an attempt to have him start acting more civil towards everything SC.
Right, like Wolfie is going to change in our lifetimes.
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I can’t recall any SC coach he liked ,or team he found satisfactory overall…wish he would tell, it might help explain things.
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I agree with the Wolfman about Carr. Right out of high school he looked like the next great USC running back. He’s never been the same since that injury. They need to start using Stepp more. He’s actually theiur best running back.
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I am pretty sure the next 2 games, which I always figured to be ‘the’ major hurdles+ Oregon, to any chance of getting to top 10 ranking, Pac12 title , and that included if Jack and Matt were the leading q/b’s, are reasons SC not ready for prime time . Like Dan Weber recently stated SC must up the practices in tackling and blocking,I doubt hellton will,therefore my estimation of losses.
I also believe no matter what, slovis will be kept out of next two games , they know he would get clobbered again. but with Jack or Matt there is/was a chance ’cause they can run well, like any option type q/b giving him more time to find an open receiver to get that first down or run for it…getting 1st downs leads to points on the score board.
The ‘O’ line is still a big work in progress,and SC can’t seem to figure out why Stepp is the best back with a poor ‘O’ line.
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