Defensively Speaking: Utah (from Kevin Bruce)

Kevin I always love your write ups, really appreciate you taking time to do this, you do an excellent job.

Personally I think 21 Polo-Mao seems to be a little hesitant to really hit and use his shoulders after the multiple surgeries, that's how it seems to me.
Caleb Tremblay needs to play, he played with high energy, never quit and was a constant disruption.

Contain. Every time I watch our games it seems to me that the D-Ends are lined up too far inside and they almost always try to go inside to get to the QB and leave the edge wide open. I think it was the Notre Dame, GA game I watched and Notre Dame had their guys outside and jumping across the line to force GA to run back inside where they had help to make the tackle. I never see USC do this and to be honest I think Contain has been an issue the entire time Clancy has been D Coordinator.
Tackling is also an issue, but like you and Dan Said, if they don' t practice tackling in practice you for sure won't do well in the game tackling full speed in enemy stadiums.

Fight ON!

 

TOP is a meaningless stat in modern day football. Notre Dame is 118th in TOP and Stanford is 9. Clemson is 91

 

I don't know why they bother to keep that stat. So far this year, in USC's games, the loser in all 4 games has had the higher TOP.

I'm not sure it ever mattered, but with today's offenses, it doesn't. I never understood why "keeping the other team off the field" was more important than actually scoring points, however you scored them...and even if that's important, you'd think total plays is a better metric than TOP, which is a function of incomplete passes, going deep in the play clock, first downs...or wasting time between the 20s without punching it in. The amount of time the D is on the field isn't the same as "TOP."

 

I'd throw even more jump balls. He has Pittman.

 

Tyler Vaughns ad well. They both can get up there and grab the ball....

 

That was the old days. A lot of the elite offenses now are put together to put lots of points on the board. LSU, Oklahoma all have very low TOPs. Utah and Stanford are in the top 10 and their offenses aren't in the same league.

 

I think most all of us agree that Caleb Tremblay is a high energy/ high effort kid that deserves more run. I'd be playing him on 1st & 2nd downs and sub-in Echols on passing downs as Echols has speed, length and quickness with the ability to run downs QBs.

Rector hasn't played well. But to give him the benefit of the doubt he had/ has a bad ankle and probably shouldn't have been playing at all. Rector was questionable all.week.and barely practiced as a result. Bad call by the coaches IMO. Theywanted to believe he was healed, but he was not! Should have been apparent early but they kept him in the game.

Unfortunately, coaches (and some.players) seem to think that injured starters at 80-90% are better than back-ups at 100%. Guess what .. they aren't. If you can't run full speed and plant and pivot and change direction at will you're not 80-90% .. as a football player you're maybe 50% max. Sit until you can physically do the job! Tremblay is a better option till then!

 

Not much. First of all, their coach always has well-disciplined and smart teams that seldom beat themselves. They play defense. They didn't have much trouble with the "superstar QB" from BYU who completely be-deviled Clay & company. We have a chance but it's slim at best. In other words, if we can somehow play much better up in Seattle than we've played in the first four games we can win. What's the chance of that happening?

 

what were the chances of 2016? USC plays solid defense, the team can come out with a close win. Because Eason can get antsy, though not as much as say their previous QB who became a squirrel, under pressure. And was in their house, with Clancy calling the defense of course. Maybe he does it again? who knows.

 

In 2016 we had Sam D, Juju, Adoree, RJII, Nwosu, etc. that's what was different.

 

Yeah because we lack great players...not

I'm talking specifically about that game versus Washington, not a lot of people thought the team would win. Despite beating up on ASU, Cal and Oregon but all three weren't having a good year. And it wasn't like RJ had an amazing day nor Sam for that matter. Because throwing those two interceptions could have been very costly. So it was mostly the defense stepping up.

 

I am very happy with the win, but it was kind of frustrating to watch the play of our defense. The most ridiculous moment was when Utah had 2nd and 25 on their own 5 yard line. Their running back then got 30 yards on a simple handoff.