FOOTBALL

Morning Buzz: Can USC Reverse A Bad Habit? Volleyball Coach On Leave

Lincoln Riley bemoaned USC’s penalties when he spoke on his radio show Monday.

“Took a touchdown off the board. Took explosive plays off the board. We completely dismantled drives with penalties. We’ve got to do a whole lot better with that. Obviously that’s unacceptable offensively. We had opportunities to bust that thing open.”

Here’s the thing: When teams are committing nine penalties in the sixth game of the season, it’s because they play with bad habits that are very difficult to reverse this deep in the season. There’s a lack of focus that causes players to line up in the wrong spots.

These are the type of things that a new coach usually needs to work on quite a bit to stop. But a fifth-year coach like Riley, it’s just who his teams are.

  • We haven’t heard from Gary Patterson why he moved to the pressbox from the sideline because he isn’t allowed to speak to the media. But here is what Riley said:

“There’s nobody that knows this defense like him, so when he can get up there and get that vantage point, we felt like that could potentially be an advantage, and we felt like it was Saturday.”

  • USC women’s volleyball coach Brad Keller is taking an indefinite personal leave. Associate head coach Megan Moenoa served as acting head coach over the weekend and will continue in the role for USC (7-7, 1-3).

USC said Keller missed last weekend’s matches at Michigan and Michigan State because of illiness. Keller was hired by Mike Bohn and Brandon Sosna in 2020.

33 thoughts on “Morning Buzz: Can USC Reverse A Bad Habit? Volleyball Coach On Leave”

  1. KAM: I bet SC will not have 4 men in the backfield again this season.

    DON: And maybe the Trojans learned that when players stomp on top of Maiava, look the other way

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  2. KAM: Tickets for the big White Out game with SC tumbled down after Penn St’s loss to Wisconsin

    DON: And after the Northwestern slaughter fans can’t give them away

    Liked by 1 person

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  6. Gee coach, it’s year 5 and your team still makes the same stupid, undisciplined mistakes game after game. Who do you think is at fault ? You ? Players? Coaches ? Alumni ?

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    1. I made mistake of blaming the Mayor of L. A….[so righteously censored]…but Carol Fault is on the list too —and her name always gets by the censors [who hate her too]….

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  7. We also have a guy on this blog who thinks a guy, Matt Campbell, going 72-55, 50-40 in conference, had 2 ranked teams in 10 years, 3-4 in bowl games and was 3-6 against Iowa is somehow a great coach.

    Northwestern ran for 400+ yards against PSU, think Riley is smart enough to do the same ? Is Campbell smart enough to just let Riley pucker up and lose the game on his own ?

    It’s a matchup featuring ex Big 12 soft coaches, tune in at 4:30 PST to watch this “classic”. Yeah, no.

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    2. We have a guy on this board who thinks there’s a meaningful distinction between power 5 conferences in this age of AAA minor league so-called college football (where the norm has become Oklahoma State physically dominating Oregon, Michigan losing to Minnesota and directional Michigan, Missouri thrashing Florida, etc). Who can’t grasp that success at a smaller program lacking built-in recruiting advantages can’t be measured by ankle deep “W-L” record thinking. Who believes 5 games is a sufficient sample size to render a judgment on a newly hired head coach charged with rebuilding a program that has slipped. We’ll see where Campbell is at Happy Valley midway through next season. And who always has to get the last (always embittered) word in. So after this, fire away. The proof will be in the pudding. Campbell won’t be Paterno (that doesn’t exist anymore), but he will likely be at least Franklin. And, oh, by the way – you strangely ignore Pete’s 9-8 start after being a desperation hire. Because of course, a coach’s ultimate success can surely always be judged after 5 games. Mule-ish-ism.

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  9. KAM: Wiley keeps saying that he has a good team

    DON: He gets a scheduling break with a bye before the Wisconsin-Ohio St fling, and then another bye before the Indiana-Maryland-ucla sendoff

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      1. John: “Oh, I didn’t mean to be negative —I just said that after the UCLA game you’d be involved in a sendoff….”

        #NoBigDeal

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