FOOTBALL

USC Saturday Buzz: Transfer Portal Class Moves Up

USC’s transfer class is currently ranked No. 2 in the nation per 247.

  • Cornerback Mekhi Blackmon has been invited to the Senior Bowl.
  • Stanford offensive lineman Walter Rouse has committed to Oklahoma.
  • Kliff Kingsbury has supposedly bought a one-way ticket to Thailand to avoid interest from NFL teams looking for an offensive coordinator. It’s amazing how people can keep getting jobs with no problem.
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66 thoughts on “USC Saturday Buzz: Transfer Portal Class Moves Up”

  1. Wolf: “It’s amazing how people can keep getting jobs with no problem.”

    Sark and Kiffin mastered the art of “falling-forward”…….I will say, Kiffin, seems to have matured and evolved into a solid coach.

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    1. The placement of his final statement had me wondering what job Kingsburry found in Thailand? Later reading the story about this ticket, I assumed he was taking the guaranteed money and skipping to a place he wanted to be. If he takes a job elsewhere, he lets the Cardinals off the hook.

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  2. Gee coach carroll, aaahhh your team stinks! u took smith a loser and made him a 500 qb pretty good well looks like you will have to sign him then trade him!? that seattle pass rush is horrible !!! guys in wheel chairs could rush better than that !!!! Regards , E

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  4. Kingsbury is the modern day Paul Hackett. A supposed “offensive genius” who really hasn’t done a damn thing, but keeps getting top flight jobs.

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  5. Re: “Kingsbury is the modern day Paul Hackett. A supposed “offensive genius” who really hasn’t done a damn thing, but keeps getting top flight jobs.”

    NFL is entertainment not pure sports. I like the entertainment but it is still a show, including the on field medical emergencies meant to attract fans. Just why was that ambulance a U-haul type truck with no insignia and poised to go on the field? Even the players could not feign their shock well enough. Kingsbury is just an actor, like the rest.

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    1. waynelusvardi: “including the on field medical emergencies meant to attract fans”

      I don’t know what fucking part of the comment would be amusing to fans. A guy’s life was in peril and you make a joke about it. Here’s some advice, don’t watch the NFL and save yourself the torture.

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      1. NFL is entertainment not pure sports. I like the entertainment but it is still a show, including the on field medical emergencies meant to attract fans. Just why was that ambulance a U-haul type truck with no insignia and poised to go on the field? Even the players could not feign their shock well enough. “

        Wayne, either your account was hacked or you have your head up your ass. What an asinine comment.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. wayne,
      I have talked to former nfl players and they said that it was very tough on the body and mind. I saw a lot of damage to these men, including bent fingers. It is not entertainment, it is a physcial hell hole on the body and they do ache for many a day aft4rwards

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  7. New SC 2024-25-26 high school offers show a preponderance of 3 star and unranked, underestimated players. My guess is LR saw what Tulane did with all 3 star guys who were hungry, willing to tackle and wanting to win.

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    2. You need 4 and 5 stars. LR said it himself when he said that he was on the sidelines looking at the Georgia and TCU players and he said that he noticed the difference in that the Georgia players were bigger and they looked more athletic. He also said just recently in that talk that he had with the sports reporters that we don’t have the kind of players that Georgia has……”not yet” he said.

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      1. I really appreciate Riley not sugarcoating or making excuses. Over on the Trojan Daily blog, there is a great article posted about Riley.

        Liked by 4 people

    3. That is not it at all wayne. They seriously take a hard look at these guys and can see what they are made of and after another season they will move up to 4 and 5 stars. It’s already been done.

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  8. Blame Gabby but he put it in my head and I cannot get it out–

    Gabby was pushing for a 12-Team College Football Playoff ‘System
    whereas I retorted that ”8’ should be the cutoff for “Best” teams

    Gabby “got” his 12 and I got Release from a major problem

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    1. I think that it should be a twelve team playoff. If you do what basketball and the NFL do….start with some wildcats(8 of them). That way, there is incentive to finish the regular season in the top 4 because you don’t have to play the first game. After the wildcat games, you now have 8 teams. Now you are in week 2 of the playoff where you will play 4 games. Now you are in week 3 and you now have 2 teams. Week four gives us the NC game. Instead of having a 12 game regular season, you cut it down to 11 games for all the teams. That way if you end the regular season in the top 4, the two teams in the NC game only play 14 games for the season. If you happen to be one of the teams that didn’t finish the regular season in the top 4 then you will end up with a 15 game season. You could still have all the bowls(I wouldn’t want to get rid of the bowl games). That would give them one more game and they would end up with a 12 game season.

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      1. They have to do something about the NIL. If they don’t then every year, the final four teams will be Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, maybe Michigan or one or two other teams. If one year you manage to have one team that is not of those special elite teams that happens to sneak into the final 4, they will get killed like TCU did.
        It”s going to be a situation where you will not win a championship you will buy a championship. The teams that have the money will have the best players and coaches that money can buy. The teams that have the best players and coaches will have the best records at the end of the year. They have to do something about the NIL.

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      2. LIKED!…..”They have to do something about the NIL”

        It’s causing more haves and have-nots in college football. USC acts like NIL is a bad word

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      4. The NCAA needs to put forth some structured plan to facilitate the operation of collectives and how many bags of money schools can offer.

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      6. The NCAA needs their cut. They would probably throw in a luxury tax clause if the school went over its limit….

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      8. I see no reason why it would not work. The bowl games will be like the NIT in basketball but they will be much more popular than the NIT(which nobody watches).

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      9. In a nutshell, this really all comes down to following the money.

        What happened to the pure joy of just watching and playing the game instead of the powers that be monopolizing it.

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    2. 12 might get widdled down to 8 before the dust settles. IMO….it’s still a work in progress….. I know the Rose Bowl is still bitter, and some are biting their lip

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      1. Some stuff I have read is that it may not end at 12, but go to 16. Imagine in 10 years we will have December madness with 64 teams.

        Liked by 4 people

      2. You basically have 6 to 7 weeks of idle time between the conference championship game and the start of the CFP. That seems like plenty of time to fit in a playoff format expanded from the announced 12 teams. The first week of January could still host the final game.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. The Chargers are worst than USC vs. Tulane

    LAC blow a 20 point 1st half lead and lose scoring 3 pts in the 2nd half to JAX

    JAX 31
    LAC 30

    Brandon Staley re-incarnation of ‘ground’ Chuck Knox and matches Chuckie with matching ‘de rigeur’ baseball cap.

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    1. Charger’s coach should be suspended without pay, until further notice.

      Third largest playoff comeback in history!…..Hats off to Lawrence! He threw 4 INTs but was able to shake it off, refocus and lead a comeback.

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      2. Throughout the game, I thought the officiating was trying to find ways to guarantee the Jags lost. Jags did get a break with the non-call on the illegal procedure. Bosa went ape-shit with the non-call…..

        I didn’t have a dog in the fight, with a slight lean toward the Chargers.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. It felt weird to watch San Diego collapse so soon after USC crapped out in the Cotton Bowl —two teams who had to do everything wrong —very fast —to lose…. but got it done!
        #GladWe’reNotAlone

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Another goof ball from a purported genius’ coaching tree (McVay) akin but not as inept as Belichick’s (Weis, Patricia, O’Brien, Mangini, Crennel). Good night Staley reminds one of a wooden soldier. Ever listened to him on PMS in his interviews? His behavior is rigidly self-scripted. He hasn’t any idea on what matters and why. They better fire him before Herbert begins acting like Mac Jones is doing with that aging Brady-less dinosaur Belichick.

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    2. Great article!….. They had it posted on the Daily Trojan blog. Thanks for mentioning it.

      Sounds like Riley has a road map and we are all along for the ride

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  14. One big difference between pro and college football is at the college level if a team
    gets behind by 21-points it is “Katy bar the door” time, we are done,
    whereas in the pros it seems 21-point or more deficits are made up quite often–
    case in point, the Chargers run down by Jaguars.

    This Williams kid, you know. the ‘other’ Oklahoma Williams is a sad case as he places himself in the Portal and one wonders if the reason is because of that silly guffaw play (if you are Tulane) that likely cost SC the game– “I just could not take the stares of my teammates any longer,” might have been his train of thought…

    And yes, some kind of cap or whatever has to be instilled to stop this NIL from running amok

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      1. Thank you, USCDude for correcting me– I simply glanced at the “Williams” name and wrongly assumed but still one wonders what goes on in Mario’s mind when around his teammates…

        Liked by 3 people

    2. John,
      I haven’t seen anything about Mario entering the portal —but if he has made that decision —his thought process probably goes more like this: “I want to play on teams where people don’t make such a big deal about losing a game by doing something a smart high school returner wouldn’t do —-maybe it’s time to think about playing for UCLA.”
      [Special Note: Fans don’t care so much about receivers dropping a ball now & again —it’s part of the game. Fans do expect the Special Teams players to know when & when not to touch the ball. It’s vital…and it’s elementary].

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    3. JL: “some kind of cap or whatever has to be instilled to stop this NIL from running amok”

      Exactly!……. It’s eroding the integrity of college football. This is a “sport” at the college level, not a business investment.

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  15. I made this joke elsewhere, but it fits here too!
    The story goes that once upon a time the USC football team was known as the fighting Methodists and that one afternoon a newspaper reporter stated that they fought like Trojans.The name stuck. I hope nobody noticed the Chargers played like Trojans yesterday (losing a game that was all but won) I don’t think the city could stand two teams with the same mascot.

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    1. At least the original Trojans come back after the “wooden horse” thing and Aeneas kicks everybody’s ass [including Utah and Oregon]….

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  16. Now I remember n what I was gonna say. I officially need new glasses. I looked at the picture accompanying this thread and and almost lost it. There is a TV person holding a plexiglass microphone dish wearing a blue vest. When I saw it, at first, I thought it was a giant gumball machine. I had to magnify the picture, while wondering who would have such a thing on the sidelines, to see my mistake.
    I think I’ll go back to bed.

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  17. So now the college football Portal is called the “Transfer Class”
    –Right, “transfer” much as the late 1860s raiders of the beaten South
    pillaging whatever they could

    An exaggeration to be sure but one that perhaps contains kernals of truth,
    “What can you do for me Mr. University, I shoulda been a star at my old school but they wouldn’t play me, what’s the NIL-deal like here?”

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