FOOTBALL

USC Morning Buzz: When Do Best Players Play?

USC is the only team in the Pac-12 South to control its destiny. That is comfort for Clay Helton this morning.

But why is USC just 4-3 after seven games? Is it because the Trojans still are not great at tackling? Is it because the best players don’t play? Or is it because JT Daniels got hurt?

It is stunning to me that a football program like USC consistently does not play the best players. Max Browne starts over Sam Darnold. Michael Pittman does not start until the ninth game of his sophomore season and only because his father complains on twitter.

Look at the depth chart for the USC-Washington State game in 2017. Steven Mitchell starts over Pittman and Jalen Greene starts over Tyler Vaughns.

This is simply to demonstrate the decisions not to play Markese Stepp and Kenan Christon were not unique. Maybe most distressing is that Graham Harrell‘s made no impact in this dept. It’s amazing when you consider what these guys get paid.

19 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: When Do Best Players Play?”

  1. What does it say about this “coaching ” staff when the players coming in for the injured players play better ?

    Does it mean that these kids haven’t been fucked up by the coaches yet ?

    Gomer should be fired just for the fact that Stepp and Kenan are buried on the depth chart behind 2 guys who are CLEARLY not as good, talk about a remake of Thunder and Lighting, why can’t these idiots see this?

    Urban Meyer has to look at this and say ” Hmm, got a good QB, 2 good RB’s, nice WR’s, hit the transfer portal for some OL help, same for some defense spots, hmmmmmm. “

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    1. Want to understand how invested Helton is in his “family” of starters? All you need to do is watch him on the sidelines. Was he jumping with joy when Christon was lighting up the scoreboard? He actually looked grim. We could all read the thought going through his mind: “I coulda won a nice, close game without this guy —-now everybody is gonna wonder why I refused to use him.” We all get that Kenan is not gonna bring ANY blocking skills to the offense —neither did Reggie. (But) Stepp and Christon are such an obvious one/two punch you have to wonder how & why Helton could be willing to LOSE to BYU and Washington rather than play them.

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      1. You know why he looks grim ? You’re right in that people will wonder why they sat while shat played, but he also knows that this means he can’t play his pets over these guys anymore or he’ll face even more criticism

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      2. Helton apparently can’t make a tough decision on who starts or plays. This is the longstanding problem of his wanting to be loved. He apparently de facto elevated Drake London over Devon Williams without ever announcing such but then Devon got the message and left. But even if a player can be a game-changer, they aren’t going to start or play unless someone is hurt (or in the case of Darnold, the team is losing miserably). Meanwhile, coaches such as Nick Saban put Tua Tagovailoa in a game even over Jalen Hurts in order to win a game. Imagine if Christon had been inserted against Washington and Notre Dame and just pulled off one of those TD runs each game. SC would have probably won. Helton isn’t ruthless enough to win.

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      3. I don’t know if it’s him lacking being ruthless or he’s just stupid, either way he needs to go. But since it seems no one wants the USC AD job, he might survive another year.

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      4. SW makes some points about not playing the better players as he seems to reward SRs and upperclassmen. SRs and upperclassmen can be invaluable to a team as long as they are the better players. Vavae and Carr, as upperclassmen, offer stability to a very young backfield. Indeed, imagine Kenon coming in and messing up some blocking assignment leading to a Slovis sack and injury. I know that that kind of happened already, but I am not ready to throw Vavae and Stephen (unlike was the case with Max Browne ) under the bus just yet. Not putting in players like Mauga, Echols, Max and Chase Williams, and Malik McClain more, is straight criminal.

        Bad coaching. Not developing depth.

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  2. Cristobal at Oregon is building his program around the trenches on both sides of the ball, thats his MO. Washington plays Michigan next year and Oregon plays Ohio State both have home and home contracts .

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  3. Malepeai is a good back and so is Carr when healthy. Stop bagging on them!!
    However, I am very excited about Stepp and love him just for the simple fact of filpping from ND to USC. How do you not love a guy from INDIANA going to USC. I like Kenan’s speed but he is not all around better than Malepeai or Carr at this point in the season. Really ? We should be blessed with the depth of this team which is due to good recruiting from the coaches despite the junk written by faux journalists (ie Wolf dog, alias USC’s version of big Joe McDonnell). Yet the negative Nancies on this board state the coaches blew it by not playing them sooner. None of you ever played at the NCAA level. Most of you are fat, ugly middle age dudes with beer bellies that rival a sumo wrestler!!

    Seriously, when is the last time you saw a USC season in which injuries forced them playing a 3rd string QB (Fink) and 5th string RB (Jountti).

    Never seen it in 40 years, IMHO.

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      1. This guy is a special kind of rah rah, karma. He can actually “see” us, measure our weights and knows each one of our resumes BUT can’t see that Helton’s entire coaching philosophy rests on “maybe I shouldn’t play this phenomenal new guy or freshman —-something could go wrong…”
        #”SomethingCouldGoWrongIfITakeARisk…”
        #ThePhilosophyOfAllLosers….
        #WhichCanRubOffOnTeamIfYouHappentToBeACoach….

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      2. At least I can eat 7 layer cake since I am 6′ and weigh 175 unlike obese middle age farts on this blog.

        Seriously, this coaching staff is an enigma to understand but I recall you idiots criticizing St Pete back in the day especially after Stanford upset us at home as an over 25 point dog.

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    1. SMU, Minnesota, Memphis St, Wake Forest, App St, Cincinnati, Boise St, Baylor, Utah and ASU are ranked ahead of USC, even Navy got more votes than USC !!!!!!!!!, but USC controls their own destiny and can win the PAC 12 South, yipeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!

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  7. How true. They understand nothing about the talent they have. W Some of the stuff he does is just plain dumb.We need to clean house, starting with Helton.

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