FOOTBALL

USC Morning Buzz: A Top 10 Team Coming to Coliseum?

Oregon needed a field goal as time expired to hold off Washington State on Saturday night and mean USC will likely host a top 10 team at the Coliseum next weekend.

Forget about top 10 teams, does the Pac-12 have any good teams? Oregon and QB Justin Herbert mostly looked average in the few times I’ve seen them play. Utah has one loss but looked awful against USC. The Trojans always look on the verge of playing better and then play down to their competition.

USC could easily beat Oregon on Saturday and still lose to Arizona State the following week, even though the Sun Devils couldn’t beat UCLA. That’s just the nature of the Pac-12.

It’s the only conference where 7-1 Utah does not control its destiny but 3-5 UCLA does.

And if USC does beat Oregon, it will know that it would have to play the Ducks again if the Trojans made the Pac-12 championship game.

That would be “special” and USC would play like “warriors” to make it happen, of course. What else would Clay Helton say?

  • Oregon punted on fourth-and-six from the Washington State 33-yard line with a six-point lead Saturday night. That reminded me of another fourth-and-six in 2016, when Clay Helton punted from the Stanford 44 trailing 27-10. USC punted!
  • You want a crazy stat? USC defensive end Hunter Echols, who made the biggest defensive play of the Colorado game, had zero tackles. The play where Echols hit quarterback Steven Montez and briefly knocked him out was officially a “quarterback hurry” but not a tackle.

40 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: A Top 10 Team Coming to Coliseum?”

      1. 67 — This is funny. The bruins are developing into a dangerous, exciting team —but bruin students are too dim to notice…..
        #SomeThingsNeverChange….

        Liked by 2 people

      2. LOL, ’67, but you care enough to write you don’t care. I guess that makes you “stable genius.”

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      3. owns, I was politely telling you to go to the bruins site. If one still exists anymore. I wouldn’t know. I don’t spend my time going on fan websites of other teams.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. The bruins are a very strange team —capable of beating or losing to anyone….
      #…..KindaLikeUSC
      #USCvsUCLA2019:AnAdventureNeitherOneOfUsWantsToMiss….

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      1. Michael, I might amend that to: “capable of beating some west coast teams.”

        We know what would happen if they played a big boy, as with Oklahoma.

        Liked by 2 people

      4. Michael, I’d really like to see a Meyer-Saban rematch, with Stepp, Christon, Slovis, and the other young talent on this team, plus the new talent Meyer would recruit.

        Liked by 1 person

      5. 67 —We could automatically be ALL the way back with Meyer, the players you mentioned and a win over Alabama. We COULD be —- but WILL we?

        Liked by 1 person

      6. Michael, if Folt is either a leader or is really driven by money, then yes, she will pull the trigger. Meyer would increase revenue by so much above what the team is currently doing.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. Poor Owns is in mourning over the untimely passing of the “austere religious scholar Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at helm of Islamic State at age 48”, as his favorite fishwrap The WaPo put it today.

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      2. Yeah that clown was tagged as an ‘at-large’ delegate representing ‘the 3rd world’ at the upcoming DNC hootenanny set for Milwaukee. Word is Rachel Dolezal is set to take his place.

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  2. that Montez knockout made him very ineffective the rest of the game…guess God was in on that too…I love psyco babble from a ‘real’ and truly ‘biblical’ quoting man/christian

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  4. Oregon defense has showed a lot of weaknesses the last two weeks giving up over 30 pts each game. Hopefully, our coaches will study the film. Wash st seemed to have no problem moving the ball last night.

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    3. Help me understand
      Just saw coaches poll.
      There must be an error.
      USC not in other receiving votes.
      Clay is a voter so he did not vote SC #25?

      You can’t make this up!

      Liked by 2 people

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  5. A note about/to Kedon Slovis… Kedon needs to learn how to manage his body position and movement prior to and during contact. There are ways to take hits well and it doesn’t seem like Kedon knows any of them. It’s hard to get that kind of work as a QB if you were specialized as a throwing QB early on and you aren’t terribly athletic. It’s further exacerbated when you were brought along by an NFL pocket passer who didn’t really run and/or take hits that well either. I’m seeing problems in the way Kedon deals with contact, both when he’s running the ball and when he’s getting sacked. At a certain point in both situations, he is just giving his body up to the defender instead of setting the defender up or managing his body position to minimize the force of the contact. It’s like he takes the full brunt of these blows and he has no idea how to finesse a tackler or a tackle. This is stuff that can be taught and learned if you didn’t pick it up through mixing it up, but not if you aren’t being talked to about it. Kedon has a nice opportunity to make a career out of playing QB and the program has a responsibility to make sure that opportunity is preserved and nurtured.

    With regard to running the ball, I’ll use the example of the play that he got hurt on Friday night… The reason his leg got hurt on that play is because he did absolutely nothing to set the tackler up and then left his leg exposed and planted in the ground for no good reason. If your leg is going to be planted in the ground right there, it needs to be there for a reason like making a cut to get by that guy or driving off of it to run him over. You don’t just leave it planted in the ground with your thigh and knee as big ass targets. You really should’ve had that foot planted wider to the right to give the guy a fake to the right and then come back left where you already had a little daylight, but whatever. However, if you’re not going to do anything purposeful with that leg in that situation, get it the hell out of the way. At that point and in that position, your leg should be up in the air and basically sliding down the back of the defender as he submarines beneath that right leg because you have decided to get down on the ground. Again, that’s if you’ve decided to just go down, but a guy who can really run (you’re not a guy who can really run and you shouldn’t do this) would spin to his left or otherwise juke the guy to get more yards. Your left side was already out of the way of the brunt of the hit and your right leg had a way out too, but you left it there to get hit. I see this a lot when Kedon runs, especially when he is close to the end zone and he’s torn between trying to score and getting down. He stays up because he wants to score, but he really has no idea about how to juke someone or slide, lean, twist, finagle or whatever your way to a few extra yards. He gets a kind of deer in the headlights aspect about him and the way he moves when approaching contact. He sleepwalks into contact because he has no ideas or plan when he’s running and he ends up paying for it. He’s not at all savvy when running with the ball, he’s taking shots and the program needs to address this. He has too much talent to be exposing himself more than he needs to when he’s running with the ball and he’s doing that constantly right now. The thing is, he has some teammates who are really good at what I’m talking about and he throws the ball to at least 3 of them all the time. Look at what they do to setup, avoid and minimize contact when they run. Look at how they are able to squeeze extra yards out of situations by kind of slipping and sliding forward at different angles while avoiding big hits. I know that it’s a fine point that I’m trying to make and it’s tough without film, but people who know, know what I’m talking about. Coach Helton should get Mike Jinks or someone else to get with this kid and have him start looking at being more elusive, less physically available and more effective when running with the ball and facing contact. He ALWAYS takes a big/bad hit and he NEVER finds extra yards.
    As far as when he’s getting sacked, he’s again just giving himself up and not taking any steps to protect himself when being taken down. Against Arizona last week there was a sack where the defender came down with his weight on Kedon’s left shoulder while his right shoulder hit the ground. That’s not a great way for a QB to be hitting the ground and he needs to be working to get more towards his back or his front in that situation rather than taking all of that weight the way he did. These fat guys (no offense to D-linemen) are TRYING to put all their weight on you and hurt you when you hit the ground. For your part, it’s basically wrestling at a certain point and you’re trying not to be taken to the floor in a vulnerable position. You don’t just give yourself up and take all that weight any old way it comes. So, just like in wrestling, you’re working on your way down to the floor to be in a better position for when you hit it. Kedon doesn’t do any of this and he ends up taking more punishment than he has to. The play against Utah that knocked him out was one where he should’ve been trying to twist some of the defender’s weight to the side on the way down. He only had a couple of backwards steps without a lot of torque, but there had to be some kind of effort to twist the guy over to take less of his weight. Somebody needs to help this freshman QB with this stuff because he’s not only taking bad hits, he’s taking hits badly.

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    1. Well, that’s more [free] coaching than Slovis will get all year from Helton.
      Coach Ellis’ message to J. T. last year was just the opposite of your very smart advice, Clay: “You’re gonna get hit when protection breaks down so you might as well just step into the throw.” These words of wisdom are on YouTube for all to hear…..and I think that Slovis is being told the same thing: Don’t worry about the hit, it’s part of football. Nothing can be done about it. Stand tall and complete the throw as though that 325 pound guy about to come down on you doesn’t exist.

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      1. Michael, thanks, but nothing I’m saying has anything to do with his throwing motion. I’m specifically talking about when he’s running and/or getting sacked while not contemplating him in the act of throwing. I have no problem with the way he stands in the pocket and delivers the ball because he does that really well. He’s great at delivering a good ball with a guy in his face and that’s not part of what I’m talking about.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. The play against Utah is a reference to how he managed the tackle after the ball was gone. You can basically take the fact that he is a QB out of the equation because what I’m talking about is the way a football player in general handles himself in space and relative to defensive players. It’s just clear that Kedon has not spent a lot of time running with the football. He’s a sort of clumsy runner without any dynamism, he presents too much of himself as a target and guys are taking what he’s giving. We need him too much for him not to wise up about this fast.

        Liked by 2 people

      3. Very educational, Clay. Thanks a lot. Always learning from you. On an unrelated topic, I think our weakness against Oregon is us lacking a big back when we get close to the endzone. What do you think of borrowing a page out of Mora’s book and giving the ball to someone like Palaie Gaoteote?

        Liked by 1 person

      1. Clay is trying to tell Slovis all the stuff that Clay isn’t telling him….
        #AndThat’sALot…..

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  6. MG, what are the chances Slovis will read or care about the Russell manifest? I’m thinking maybe a 0.00001 chance.

    MG, I’ve found I’m a much better QB sitting in a comfortable recliner, in front of the TV with some popcorn, than in a game, under center, barking signals and/or reading the arrayed defense.

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    1. Slovis reads every word of Scott’s blog every day….
      #AndHeMakesHardCopiesOfWhatClayWrites…..
      #…AndPinsThemToTheWallLikeRockyDidWithMick’sInstructions

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  7. How is the Pac-12 any different than the ACC or even more telling, the Big 12? OK is 7 – 1 same as OR. Best team now is Baylor 7 – 0. The next best team is TX. TX coach Tom Herman is lucky the Longhorns record isn’t worse than it is (5 – 3)…ACC the same. Clemson hasn’t played anyone challenging aside NC and won’t until they face off @ South Carolina last game before CCG.

    The point is OR has lost to only Auburn and a game they (OR) should have won. The polls have them @ # 7 in the AP and # 8 in the ESPN/USA.

    USC has the best receivers probably in the country but for OR this is their biggest game. This is a great game and should fill the Coliseum……the sole alternative to ‘College Game Day’ is GA @ FL and it might be where ‘College Game Day’ lands.

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    1. Alv — I don’t know how many of our guys will be healed up by Saturday –but if we can seal off the edges the way we did against Arizona (and the way we couldn’t against anybody & everybody else) AND we can find someone (not named Carr) to compliment Christon at tailback, I really like our chances.
      It would be a HUGE win for Clay —one that even his worst critics (except for Scott, that is) would have to recognize.

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      1. Mike, frankly I doubt we win this coming Saturday….that victory this past Friday was a real nail biter. Even accounting for the altitude it was a poor defensive performance but a win is a win. Yes it would be a great victory for Helton but as others have mentioned (gotroy22 I think) this team ‘could have’ been 8 – 0.

        Love to see a win but also love to see Helton gone which I sense is what awaits him in December.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Can’t we have both? Nice win on Saturday AND hand Helton his walking papers (and a gold watch) in December?
        #[AndMaybeHireAFirstMagnitudeCoachToReplaceHim]…

        Liked by 1 person

      4. gt — As much as we all like to think of the Coliseum as ‘friendly’, we have to remember that it will be filled with Pac 12 officials while we play…..
        #AlwaysACrapShootWithThoseGuysAround…

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