FOOTBALL

Discuss The USC-Colorado Game

The first takeaway is how rough the injury to tailback Travis Dye impacts USC.

The fact it happened against a 1-8 team is even worse. USC will miss his leadership, his running and just as crucially, his pass blocking.

  • The second takeaway is how sluggish Caleb Williams started the game. The interception was poorly thrown. The missed snap was a complete lack of focus. Maybe if you’re going to be out of sync, it’s good to do it against Colorado.
  • The third takeway is the defense didn’t really do anything to allay fears about its porous nature. Colorado really offers no offense but did manage a couple drives.

Well, it’s now officially time to focus on UCLA.

UPDATED: Lincoln Riley on Travis Dye: “Don’t expect he’ll play again this year. Don’t expect it to be anything long-term for his career. He’ll be playing on an NFL team next year.”

46 thoughts on “Discuss The USC-Colorado Game”

  1. We sorta got some style points depends on you view the score, the last touchdown was against back ups. The defense caused turnovers got sacks. Now we beat buffs just like Oregon 55-17 n 49-10 just one point in differential. We should be looked at as a deserving team if we win out. Hopefully Gentry will be back for UCLA.

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      1. A lot of unhinged Ladies of Troy fanboys have finally come to the realization that the Trojan ladies are going to get curbstomped in their next two games

        Will the Ladies of Troy beatdown at the hands of the Bruins be as ugly as it was last year? I’m pretty sure it’s going to be…maybe even worse.

        The Ladies of Troy haven’t beat a top 25 team all season.

        The Ladies of Troy have no chance beating UCLA or Notre Dame.

        The Cinderella run is over, ‘Ol Mule Shoe is lucky to have won 9 games considering the shit defensive coaching staff he has

        #BetterLuckNextYearFanboysBecauseTheLadiesOfTroySeasonIsOver

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      3. Travis took the hits while Caleb waltzed into the endzone. Check out how hard he got smacked on both of those plays —including the neck tackle on, I think, the second one. He played his usual unselfish game —and I really feel for him. He deserved better.
        As far as the UCLA game, I believe we can mostly overcome the loss of Dye as a player—we have other backs who can do the job. I don’t know if we can overcome the loss of leadership that occurs from losing Dye AND Gentry, though. They are the heart and soul of the team on both sides of the ball.

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    2. The last TD was against backups but we were also using backups. I’d be shocked if Gentry wasn’t back next week. They need him. Lee and Nomura are good run stoppers but they are not sideline to sideline types. When they are in there the other team will run that wheel route a lot.

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  2. We essentially had the same margin of victory over Colorado that Oregon had one week ago, while allowing more than 100 fewer yards of offense, and gaining over 50 more than the ducks did.

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    1. The Big Surprise was the USC running game didn’t fall apart when the classy Dye [who was smiling and happy for Austin’s success] left the game.

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    2. Oregon was the road team in the Colorado game. Colorado had to travel here on a Thursday while, I assume, finals are coming up. Colorado also had all of 5 days to recover from the Oregon loss and get ready for USC. This was a worthless game that meant nothing. The only takeaways should be that Williams was really bad to start and Dye’s done for the year. Everything else is the proverbial lipstick on a pig thing.

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      1. Spot on.

        Still, smack, it’s nice to have a late season game to get some good reps in versus a lackluster team.

        Riles got to use some interesting plays versus the Buffs which will require the Bruins and Domers to prep for. The 2 point conversion is an example. Will Riles use that play versus UCLA or ND? Nope, but it forces the ST/Defense to spend precious practice time preparing for it.

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      2. Yeah, but CU is truly hapless and their TB gained 100 yards–with two breakaway runs.

        CU is the worst offense in CFB–worse than a CUSA or Sunbelt team.
        Their top RB had about 300 yds going into last night’s game. Fontenot gained 100!

        We will all spend the coming week predicting the Rivaly game…
        Button up your chipstraps, lads!

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      3. I’m not saying that SC has a good defense. They had 3 games in a row where they were terrible. So I have my questions and have criticized the defense, especially the secondary. But it is tough to coach defense in the pac-12 since the pac-12 is an offensive conference.
        In the NCAA team offensive ratings, 6 out of the top 25 teams are from the Pac-12 and 4 out of the top 10 are from the pac-12. There are a lot of good offenses in the pac-12. Utah scored 45 points against Ohio State in last years Rose Bowl. Ohio State played a Big-10 schedule and the only other team that scored that many points was Michigan which scored 42.
        It depends on what SC’s goals are. If all they want is a pac-12 championship, this defense might suffice. But if they want to challenge for a NC, then the defense must improve drammatically and if it doesn’t then we might have to look for another DC. Let’s see what happens the rest of this year.

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  3. Had USC had a competent coaching staff last season the Ladies of Troy would probably have been capable of winning 9 games so ‘Ol Mule Shoe really didn’t improve the team if you look at ut from that perspective.

    ‘Ol Mule Shoe marked improvement?

    #NotSoMuch

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    1. Yeah so, if you look at last season had USC had a competent head coach they most likely would have won 9 games, same amount of games ‘Ol Mule Shoe will win this season.

      Defensively the Ladies of Troy sucked worse this year than last year. You can see why given that the idiot Donte Williams had another year under his belt to further regress the secondary because last season it was said that he took a hands off approach when it came to coaching the DB’s

      Have a look at last years schedule and compare for yourselves. ‘Ol Mule Shoe hasn’t been that big of an improvement.

      Any competent coach could have done what he’s done this year

      https://fbschedules.com/2021-usc-football-schedule/

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      1. FUCK YOU

        AND TAKE SMACKYD TOO

        I AM ALIVE YOU FUCKERS
        AND CAN STILL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF BOTH OF YOU AT THE SAME TIME WITH BOTH HANDS TIED BEHIND ME YOU PUSSIES !! 👿👿👿👿👿👿👿
        😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇

        Liked by 3 people

      3. You tell ’em, George!!

        P.S. Gameday just did a great story about the North Dakota College of Science Wildcats and their 49-year-old freshman DL, Ray Ruschel! What a bad ass keeping up with those 20 year olds! (while attending school and working full time)

        Liked by 2 people

    2. That is beyond dumb. Your better than that. Playing the substitution card in an argument is bogus. Start over and try harder, sir.

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  4. Caleb Williams did not play his best game. He was missing a lot of passes. Maybe that’s good. You wouldn’t expect him to have 2 bad games in a row so maybe that means that he will be throwing darts next week.
    LR loves to throw the ball and to throw it deep. All night long Colorado was rushing 3 men on defense.Yet it wasn’t until about the middle or end of the 3rd quarter that he began to seriously run the ball. You have the 3rd best O-Line in football according to one of the rating services. You can’t run the ball against a 3 man D-Line? Sometimes I just don’t understand his play calling.
    Losing Dye is tough. But SC still has really good running backs. Jones and Brown are good. Barlow is a really good running back. Next week will be interesting.

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    1. Idk what rating service you’re talking about but USC most certainly doesn’t have a good offensive line. The eye test fails them. Maybe they rate well b/c Williams is a scrambling virtuoso and doesn’t take a lot of sacks.

      You can’t honestly believe USC’s offensive line wouldn’t get destroyed by half of the defensive lines in the SEC.

      Again, I’m a USC fan. And a realist which appears to be a rare combo these days.

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  5. Barlow…….is a talented back also, but not good at pass blocking is the problem. Raleek Brown is the next Ricky Erwins with time. We need a strong inside back next season who can power his way for the extra two to three yards, and would be a good changeup to our speed backs.

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    2. LR needs to tell Caleb to start hitting those short routes. They are open. UCLA loves to blitz. They love to send 6 or 7 guys after the QB. If Caleb continues to focus on deep routes, he’s going to get sacked a lot of times next week.

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  6. Chip Kelly vs Alex Grinch. Lincoln Riley vs Paul McDonald. Which coach gets his unit to execute more often? Which player beats the other teams scheme at the right time? UCLA can ruin the Trojans and get into the championship game. USC can get revenge, honor Travis Dye’s sacrifice and win a chance for redemption. Who will thrive or crack under pressure? I can’t wait to watch.

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  12. And so Dye left Oregon to have his college career die at SC while hopefully not pulling a kill job at his NFL chances. A popular team player who the Trojans might use as motivation similar to ‘Win one for the Gipper’ although ‘Win one for Dye’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

    With Travis down sucla probably moves up to a 3-point favorite with the thinking that Jones and especially Raleek are not yet ready to wreck sucla’s hopes, but alas if it had been ‘Celeb’ getting hurt it might have been sucla by 10-points next Saturday with Moss needing more playing sunlight

    When the score was 3-2 Colorado I was pleased the Trojans had scored more than the Dodgers usually do but disappointed that we still trailed. Can’t take much away from this game as it was merely a scrimmage that counted in the standings, but the Trojans’ play did not allay my fears of Midget-Bears and Tiny-Irishmen

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    2. The idea of tiny Irishmen really creep me out…

      Reminds me of that scene from Spinal Tap with the little guys dancing around tiny little Stonehenge….

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  14. Addison blocks. Bynum blocks, that’s how Taj made it to the end zone to score. These guys in the receiver room gets it. They block and might be the biggest advantage that USC has over UCLA. Saving Addison for UCLA and the Irish and springing Williams on the Irish might save USC from defeat. I can’t imagine McDonald or Freeman being ready to deploy 6 DB’s or 7 DB’s to stop Williams passing attack. That may work or 3rd down but if they’re running crossers and curls on 1st or 2nd then yikes. Plus, the Trojans are getting comfortable with screens off of RPO AND throwing to the tight ends down the field. Caleb just has to take what the defense gives him these next two games.

    But the defense. . . .

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