FOOTBALL

USC Morning Buzz: Back On The Clock

Athletic director Mike Bohn fired up a group of former players before the UCLA game and told them he wanted them more involved in the football program.

What he didn’t say at the time was his feelings on making a coaching change. And if he polled those former players, he would know what he needs to do today.

“I know a lot of us wanted him to do something,” said a former player who attended. “The program isn’t what it used to be. Just look at the recruiting. What are these coaches doing?”

It looks like Bohn is not talking to Iowa State coach Matt Campbell, who signed a contract extension through 2025. A young, rising coach, Campbell seemed like a good candidate for USC.

71 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: Back On The Clock”

    1. Somebody stole that quote from Coach Kyle Whittingham [commenting on what it was like to watch the bruins fumble the ball 13 times while playing Utah]….

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      3. Maybe, but the 8 – 4 hysterical Clownsters aren’t in the P-12 Champ game and the Three Stooges allusion still applies to the bozo HFBC mess.

        #MG, “who’s on first.” Does anybody care?

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      4. Owns:
        You’re doing the Stooges a disservice! I like to think of the closing segment of a Benny Hill episode with the clown music…hey, we’ve earned it…

        Liked by 2 people

      2. BK
        Yes, good one (“Wile E. Coyote…gen-ee-ous!”)…I was actually thinking another sub show on that same program (I think), but it’s probably no longer “politically acceptable” (so, as I don’t intend it in other than a humorous way…) as well, Go-Go-Gophers (the Blue Coated dimwits are clearly our head shed)…

        Aside: which title also was perfect for making fun of my Michiganer college friends when they came back from Thanksgiving break in 1986 (Minnesota upset a Harbaugh quarterbacked Poser-ine squad that subsequently got handled by the Sun Devils in the Rose Bowl)…

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      2. I never needed all caps, but, I guess, Bkrap needs to turn his hearing aid up.

        That DING cost the Clownsters big time, ’cause now there’s a Three Stooges festival at SUCCX.

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      1. UCLA didn’t have a problem firing Mora and hiring CK. No standing around picking their nose like Clown U

        Ding, it’s time for the bozo u Three Stooges matinee.

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  2. The thing that’s so frustrating is, I keep hearing about average, three star players committing to USC as recent as yesterday. Why is Mike Bohn allowing Clay Helton, and his staff to get commitments from players, that a new incoming coach probably won’t want ? It appears that Bohn is willing to write of the upcoming recruiting class, unless somethings going on that we don’t know about, but nevertheless, it doesn’t look good.

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    1. Of all the imponderables in play at USC, Helton signing players during this limbo period is the strangest. If this is just a case of Helton pathetically lobbying for his job by showing he can still get in the front door of a player’s home, it’s kinda low. On the other hand, if Helton is being told by Bohn he MIGHT stay, you can’t blame him.
      #EitherWay,TheRecruitsAreBeingUsed…

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      1. MG
        As said yesterday…this has the really bad feeling of stepping in a warm pile in the woods…the longer this goes on, and the continued ominous national press blackout…I’ve already got my Herm Edwards fan club brochure to peruse, if you know what I mean…

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      2. It’s funny, James. We often hear about Helton being a “good and decent” man. But Herm would never —in a million years —give the game ball to an athletic director or play politics with his starting line up. When you hear Herm speak you know he means every word and that he respects his players so much he doesn’t HAVE to say he’s “in love with them.” I’ll take Herm any day of the week…
        #He’sReal….

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      3. All true – and that is most important – but would add a reminder as to how quickly he made major staff changes – and what is rumored in terms of replacements…as well as the coup of luring the new recruiting asset…ASU, like Mizzou out here in flyover, is a long dormant potential dragon…they should have been 9-3 this year…and with these improvements…and USC still being led by Helton…Peterson out at UDub…etc, etc…I’d feel pretty good if I was a Camelback Clan member…

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    2. Add to that — like Pete Carroll — regardless of the chronological ages, wherever he goes, Herm is always the youngest, most energetic person in the room…
      #…IThink”Indefatigable”IsTheWord….

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      1. Yep…great timing…watched the lead-in for last night’s Hawks-Vikes game and it showed him on the field playing catch…there are some parallels there…

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      2. Carroll still happily screams “whooo” every time the Hawks get a sack, recover a fumble, intercept a pass, score a TD or kick a field goal. It never gets old for him. It’s not a job —it’s his whole life.

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  4. Nice train of thought, Budda. Your thesis statement is locamotive, followed by a couple cars as your support argument, and closing caboose, to connect it all together, bravo! Your spacing is superb, today!

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    1. Walking the main corridor at Grace Ford Salvatore, once upon a time, a USC professor called out to me after class, near the end of semester. He informed me, at that moment, he was in charge of the USC Debate Squad. Then, he asked me to join. I politely declined, as I was so under water with injuries and surgeries, and a failing pitching career, that I’d been busting my tail off since 7 years old to have, that I couldn’t see straight……so, I recognize talent when I see it. Granted, a little raw sometimes, but, you’re a thinker….

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      2. Btw, I’m 2-0 in the San Bernardino Court system in 2019, and, I’m not even a lawyer lol. After the first case, the judge called out in open court, unsolicited, and loudly said, “Mr. McGhghy, I don’t know who you are, but you would have made an excellent attorney,” to which I humbly bowed.,.in silence, and said, “thank you, your Honor.”

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      3. PS….he did say I was a little loud, lol….but, controlled and precise….so. he let it go…under cross….

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      4. If you haven’t seen, these films/actors, sum it up for me: 1. Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” 2. Paul Newman as Frank Galvin in, “The Verdict.” 3. Tom Cruise as Lieutenant(junior grade) Daniel Kaffee, USN,JAG CORPS in, “A Few Good Men.”

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      6. Your best knowledge doesn’t come all at once, that’s a myth…pray about it, wait, engage….

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  6. Let look back at USC coaching hires since JROB 1

    Tollner hired over Dave Levy, EPIC FAIL. Tollner was as clueless as Gomer, just not as fat or bald.

    Larry Smith was hired because the AD at the time, McGee, said he wasn’t happy with the current grad rate of football players or state of the program. So Smith comes in, does well with Tollner’s recruits ( that’s one thing Tollner could do reasonably well ), and then fails with his own players. The grad rates go up because most players are put into communication classes. Smith makes his infamous comment about “Big names and logos don’t mean anything in college football anymore.” after the Fresno St bowl game debacle and he cries at his presser after he’s fired.

    Enter JROB 2. He does OK, wasn’t given a lot of money to hire top assistants and is ultimately fired when Garrett leaves a message on Robinson’s answering machine telling him he’s fired.

    Enter Hackett, who was as bad as Tollner and Gomer, had the personality of barbed wire, and had no track record of ever showing he could be a successful head coach, but he was an ex USC assistant so………

    Garrett cans Hackett and tries to hire, Bellotti, Erickson, Riley and Holtz, the first two use him to get huge pay raises, Spanos won’t let Riley leave ( how lucky was USC on that one ) and the lisper isn’t interested. Carroll just happens to be on campus, interviews and is hired. His hire is panned but he becomes the second coming of John McKay, talk about luck.

    PC leaves and Kiffin is hired because, well he worked for PC. Kiffin inherits a mess after the NCAA bullshit but he does himself no favors with wanting to change the uni’s, deflating footballs, his assahole personality and getting beat up by Pola. He gets tarmacked after the ASU massacre.

    Enter Sark, who also worked for PC. Cutty has a little problem with booze and pills and cheating on his wife, seems that this is well known to most everyone except Haden. Sark fires off the F word at an event, may have coached drunk or high or both, passed out drunk or high on a plane back from WSU and finally gets axed with he’s blotto before a practice.

    Enter Gomer after ” an extensive national coaching search ” by Haden. Gomer lives off of Darnold, shits the bed after Darnold flees for the NFL, can’t hire competent assistants, can’t manage a game, can’t coach up players, can’t seem to recruit top players to USC anymore, he really can’t do much of anything, except survive.

    So here USC sits today, leaked info that Gomer is fired or maybe not, Gomer’s out recruiting, the AD is silent, no statement that he’s his man going forward, no firing, nothing.

    That’s almost 40 years of USC coaching hires and in some cases comical firings, pretty pathetic.

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    1. Nice trip down nightmare lane, karma —let me just say a word in defense of Larry Smith. The guy won at Arizona, USC and Missouri. He earned his keep…..
      #But,You’reRight,NeverCryWhenYou’reFired…
      #…Smile&ThinkAboutWhat’sNext….

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      1. If Smith wouldn’t have let his team come out sleepwalking in that ’88 1-2 game with the Domers…might have been a different outcome…have mentioned before that one thing he definitely got right was the bad/lazy side of USC “culture” and the need to get beyond that with the players…of course, having players like Seau and Ervins must have helped!

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      2. James, USC came out and drove down the field, then Smith got cute and tried a long pass to Wellman ( I think ), drive stalls, SC downs the punt at the 1. I turn to my buddy and tell him Holtz is gonna throw a bomb on 1st down, which he did, momentum is all ND, Peete throws the pick 6 right before half and it was over. SC plays a half against Michigan in the RB, loses and Smith’s career at SC was basically over.

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      3. BK-Yes, great memory – I remember watching…that pick 6 was the backbreaker…there were some good moments, but that was more than a gamechanger…think if they won that one, they would have played all 4 quarters like they did the first 2 in the Rose Bowl…

        But to give Holtz (don’t like him, but respect his coaching prowess – I think he is to college football what Bob Knight was to hoops) his due – his teams always, always showed up…

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      4. MG, Smith was 18-27 at Tulane ( they did improve every year ) which got him a job at UA. He was ok at UA, his overall record 48-28-3 was fine but his conference record was 30-21-2 which is average at best, he had 2 good years at USC and was 17-17-2 the final 3 years at SC and his 33-46-1 record at Mizzu isn’t exactly winning. He was an average coach.

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      5. The job at Mizzou was pretty good – he did have Brad Smith (who was a little ahead of his time – think he’d be making a fortune in the league today) at QB – they had been bad for over a decade before his arrival…

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      6. Holtz sent Rickey Watters and some other player home before the game for team violations.

        Smith got cute on the opening drive, SC was grinding out yardage but he got impatient. After the 50 yard bomb, ND had all the momentum the rest of the game.

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      7. Holtz did something similar at Arkansas (sent his best players home before the 1978 Orange Bowl then went out and blew out an Oklahoma team that was eyeing a national title)…

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    2. Great recap…only question is on Dave Levy (an assistant on the Air Coryell staff with Joe Gibbs, Jim Hanifan, and Earnie Zampese after having been on John McKay’s staff) – was he considered along with Tollner? I thought he was the other candidate when they hired JRob1…but regardless, a superb recap…

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      1. Yeah –karma remembers EVERYTHING —even Smith crying as he said “I want my players to always believe in doing things right.” And he nailed Hackett: “personality of barbed wire.” I hung out with the Hackett’s son and his entourage before the Cal game one year. While we were throwing the ball around outside Cal’s stadium he threw the ball —hard– into a potential recruit’s eye while he was looking the other way. The kid looked over at me as if to ask “is it okay to deck the coach’s son?” I knew what he was thinking and said “you know, you can kick his ass and nobody here would blame you one bit.”

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      3. There’s that newish book on USC football that gives some good thumbnail sketches…I think JRob had started the process of updating USC’s offensive approach (with Hackett), continuing what he had done as an assistant, so he might have well favored Tollner (I do recall reading an interview afterwards where JRob said to the effect “I didn’t leave the cupboard empty” when asked about Tollner’s terrible first season)…

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      4. karma — Smith might be judged “average” by some metrics but he had some big moments. He almost beat Nebraska while at Missouri …when Nebraska was King. And he took out some good UCLA teams. And won a Rose Bowl. His downfall at USC was that he was, by nature, a day in, day out disciplinarian —-and (except for McKay) that’s not consistent with the culture at USC…
        #InTheImmortalWordsOfPatHaden,He”Didn’t’Get’USC”

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      5. MG
        Yes, over time, that worked against him…but as alluded to above, at first, it was his greatest strength…in an SI interview (must have been for either Oklahoma or UCLA games in ’88), he explained how one of his first necessary acts was to get the players to understand that you don’t win by just putting a USC uniform on and walking around holding your fingers up in a “V”…but in the end, it didn’t work (and he had the misfortune of drawing Marinovich out of the deck rather than just a solid Paul McDonald type)…

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      6. karma —since you have almost perfect recall, you might throw into your analysis the fact that Smith got totally jobbed at South Bend by the officials in that 28-24 loss. I remember one ball placement that was at least 2 yards short of the spot USC got to. After the game, Larry Smith was reported to tell the ref, “I don’t know how you can look at yourself in the mirror.”

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      7. That game we’ve talked about…another one that got away (at least they fought … literally), along with the season opening choke against the Illini…could have easily claimed back-to-back titles in ’88-’89…but it wasn’t in the cards…and how fast the wheels came off after that…

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      8. Yeah, James. Marinovich was a mixed blessing —huge talent but uncoachable….
        #KindaHurtsTeamMoraleWhenCoach&QBGetIntoShovingMatches

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    3. Hackett was the biggest moron out of all of them. None of his players respected him and his teams were out of control and undisciplined because he didn’t have any backbone. I remember when he was the Chiefs oc when Garrett hired him. He said watch me coach the Chiefs offense in the playoffs as a prelude as what was to come to USC. Only to get upseted in the first round against the Colts. If i remember right they only scored 10 points in that game. The Chiefs were picked to go to the SB that year. What a lame! Ouch we saw the writing on the wall and he hadn’t even steped foot on the sidelines yet. A nightmare I don’t want to relive anymore. Tolner was on probation for 2 years and won a Rosebowl in a upset victory over OSU in 85. So he wasnt as bad as Hackett and he could recruit. He was like clay couldn’t get us to the level of competing for nattys every year. That was his problem.

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  7. IF CH is going, to not at least have a discussion with Campbell is a BIG mistake. We’ll live to regret that one the same as we do with Coach O.

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  8. If you take out wide receivers…..last years recruiting class was sub par……..as the days pass…….this years class is looking like a miss unless Bohn stops watching basketball and gets to work. Some of our traditional feeding ground has been stolen.
    So…a new coach will have a limited pantry to work with especially after next year and work to do rebuilding trust.
    A quick recovery to the heights is starting to look difficult.
    This will unfortunately limit the coaches that want to be involved.
    If Helton is retained one more year it will be a complete rebuilding job from top to bottom. The smart ones will steer clear and pick programs that can turn quickly. They know its three years and win or you are out on your butt. Urban could probably still turn it quick……anyone else……its going to take time. This is particularly true due to the constraints USC is working with due to the awful TV pac 12 contract.

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    1. There is ONLY one person who could pick up the pieces in time for next year…and his name is Meyer….
      #…ButHeIsn’t”Integrified”EnuffForTheHypocritesAtUSC..
      #..SoPrepareToWatchTheNewGuyMakeHeltonLookGood…

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    2. The transfer portal can fix a lot of ills, but you need a coach to start fixing them, and SC is either happy with Gomer or trying to find his replacement, what has Bohn doing for 2 weeks ?

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      2. karma —If Bohn doesn’t hit a homer when he (finally) goes public, EVERYONE In L. A. will be asking that question…
        #WhatHasHeBeenDoing?
        #”Oh,IDidn’tKnowIWasInChargeOfCoaching…
        #IThoughtMyJobWasAcceptingGameBalls”….

        Liked by 2 people

      3. Buddha that play in the Peristyle end of the Coli in 1988 wasn’t a bomb….Rice tossed a short dump ass with nearly the entire USC defense rushing…TD.

        Rice was the best college qb I ever saw who didn’t get drafted byu the NFL.

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  9. Sadly yes 22, Harris has wisely quit the 2020 POTUS race. But she’ll make a great Democratic AG that presides over the televised public hanging of the impeached, POS, Biggy – T.

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  10. Hey now just mcknown, you can bag on SC all you want, but keep your mitts off of the Three Stooges. I’ve sat through a 3-hour marathon of Stooges Classics and the only time I laughed harder was during the 50-0 blowout of your hapless bRuins in the eColi. Compliments of the genius
    Kiffin no less!!!

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