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USC Morning Buzz: Beware Long Explanations

Does this explanation make sense from Lincoln Riley regarding the foot injury that has kept Jahkeem Stewart sidelined the first four games?

“He’s definitely getting better and better each week, and hopefully not too far away,” Riley said.

“We were planning to play him a little bit against Louisiana, provided the warmup went perfect. It didn’t go bad. It just didn’t go perfect and just wasn’t quite ready.”

So Stewart gets better every week but wasn’t well enough to play against Louisiana or Rutgers? Huh? How can you act like he might play and then he doesn’t, but he is getting better?

And just how perfect is perfect? Is Stewart being wrapped in cotton wool during the week?

At this point, I’d be afraid to play him much if his foot cannot recover from the current amount of strain he experiences. But Riley needs to get real with his explanations.

  • Riley was asked about the perception USC’s defense is not much better than his previous versions.

“Yeah, I base my opinions on what I see on tape, I base my opinions on what I see in the thousands of hours that we put into this and that’s kind of where my opinions stay, so I really don’t have a response to that.

“We need to play a lot better on third down and fourth down than we did the other night, and that’s the biggest thing that we took away from that.”

  • Amazing that George Lucas can get you more fired up about USC in about 3 seconds while Lincoln Riley can’t do it in five years.

36 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: Beware Long Explanations”

  1. We’ll wait a couple of years to visit the Lucas. Same way we did with the Westwood Getty. We’ll pass on the crowds who want to be among the first to see it.

    But we do look forward to checking it out! It looks beautiful in all of the coverage it’s gotten in the news.

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  2. Good night dedicating that amount of public park space to this motion picture franchise is crazy at best. Three semi-decent films made over 4 decades ago and then a parade of meandering ‘woke’ idiocy and that warrants a museum? This is the summa ordo of Lucas. Would that this had been rammed down anywhere else but Exposition Park.

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    1. Agree with that for the most part (although on the movie making aspect he did also make “American Graffiti” and was co-creator of the original Indiana Jones trilogy) … but on the other hand … Lucas is more than just Star Wars … as in what came out of the process (Industrial Light & Magic and becoming the Hollywood equivalent of Led Zeppelin in music in terms of turning an entire industry upside down with respect to who benefits/keeps the proceeds of the artist’s vision and efforts). Besides, seeing what Kathleen Kennedy and the mouse people have done to Star Wars since the ownership transfer … makes those first three Star Wars movies seem even greater!

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      3. A lot of truth in your musing James but ‘maybe’ Lucas should have monitored the subsequent scripts that had his two words ‘Star Wars’ on them. Peter Jackson made three incredible ‘Lord of The Rings’ films and tried to rescue the mess ‘The Hobbit’….failed. I’d say his three ‘LOR’ were true masterpieces and no one thought of building a gargantuan 3 block long museum to them.

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  3. KAM: Wiley says that one of his star players is “getting better and better” but that his foot injury continues to keep him from playing

    DON: That seems pretty clear

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    1. Old trial attorney “rule”: “Never wait for the jury to laugh at a joke, never wait for the jury to ooh or ahh over a bible quote….just keep moving along.”

      #AndNeverLeadACheerIfYou’reAStiff

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      2. I watched the Lincoln Lawyer and that sure seems to be true! But then I watch the USC football Lincoln lawyer, and it … uh … isn’t nearly as enjoyable, for one thing …

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      4. …. I still think Lincoln is gonna prove himself up to the task this Saturday….it’s all on him and his offense…

        #..AndIThinkThey’reGonnaComeThrough

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  5. KAM: When Wiley was told that his defense didn’t seem much better than his previous versions, he became defensive

    DON: If only his defense would become defensive

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      1. Yeah – comparing and contrasting No’Riley with Hell-ton is further confirmation of the convergent evolution theory (eg dolphins and sharks having similar designs despite being separated by 35-400 million years or something like that) … both fail(ed) to acknowledge the disaster for which they are the on-field overseer and fi(ou)ght like crazy to deny thinking it will extend being able to keep their hands in the USC football cookie jar … but … in the case of the latter it was Gomer/Homer cluelessness, whereas with former/current it is somehow more grotesque and repulsive, as he seems to embody the self-absorbed but fully aware opportunist.

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      2. Close…very close. But there is more to it. I think Lincoln is a really outstanding Offensive Coordinator. I also think he has a very fragile [almost feminine] ego. He reminds me of a woman attorney who worked for the California Bar. Very bright …but she got this angry feline look on her face at the hint of any kind of criticism.

        #VerySlim&Trim…AlwaysWoreBlackSkiPants,Too

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  6. I base my opinions on live game play.

    The D line gets no push or pressure.

    The Linebackers look like they have no idea what’s going on and one doesn’t look like he wants to play at all.

    The DB’s can’t cover anyone

    Whole defense tackles poorly

    Whole defense looks confused

    This has been stated the entire time Riley has been the head coach at USC. Different DC’s, same results, his teams are not physical and don’t play defense for merde.

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  10. My message and should be the exact same message from Jen Cohen:

    Lincoln—“This is a must win Saturday”- Just “Win Baby” no excuses or injury reports you have the players, the facilities, and now prove to us all you can win a big game to put USC back on the map..

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    1. Actual, according to Bud Furillo, McKay speech [at halftime when USC was trailing Notre Dame]:

      “When we get back out there we’re gonna score & score & score.”

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    2. No’Riley really needs to be locked in a room and forced to listen to the McKay halftime speech (and supposedly this isn’t apocryphal) in the 1974 Notre Dame “California Earthquake” comeback game: “I told them that there’s no rule against blocking and tackling …”

      Charles Nelson probably has little generals-playing-with-toy-soldiers dreams of presiding over a dominant performance – McKay was aggravated by the need to have to …

      All the difference in the world.

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