Musings from Arledge: Extreme Makeover, Hello McFly, and Ready for a Street Fight

At the risk of being redundant, below is my comment following the FSU game.

With Clay Helton as the head coach, USC Football has become profusely dysfunctional in too many ways to elaborate on here. Isn't it delusional to believe that he was going to magically transform himself into a real leader and correct this mess in the few months between the end of one football season and the beginning of the next? Did anybody really believe things would measurably change? Really?

 

No we didn't, but I guess since we were stuck with HCCH for at least this year, we hoped he'd pull a Brian Kelly and get the message.

 

Many great lines to describe various shortcomings, but none more telling than this:

"I’m not sure I understand the theory of playing tight man coverage and rushing only four mediocre pass rushers, sans stunts, so they seldom come close to the QB."

They did that on seemingly every play. I never saw any variation at all. I've been one of Clancy's defenders for a long time. No longer. The defense looked atrocious all game. It was almost like Clancy was trying to lose. And as I said elsewhere and you did in so many words, when a very inexperienced secondary is your most consistent unit, you (SC) are in big trouble.

I still think if they were to play again, SC would win, if only Clancy would change it up once in awhile. But I fear for the safety of our players against Utah. I could be wrong but it might be men against boys again like last year. The only ray of hope is that the game is here.

 

Coach Hyde said it best: If they drop 8, rush 3 and shut down your offense, you aren't very good.

Kansas looks much better than we do.

 

I liked Kansas better when they still had a decided schematic advantage.

 

One funny article replete with wit, insight, and truth. We loyal Trojan fans are left only with humor to entertain us. If you are thrilled with this year's team, you are a masochist.

 

Chris,
Always entertaining as usual. For some reason your writeups have put this program and season in perspective. There really is no point getting upset because nothing is going to change with Helton and his staff. All you can do at this point is laugh and use humor because it is what it is!
I have been telling my friends thank goodness for fantasy football because I can now focus my attention to my own team. No use posting to Gripe, just keep posting my short fire Helton snipes!
Fight On!

 

Excellent once again..

"If you can’t trust an early 30’s offensive coordinator from North Texas with a couple of years of O coordinator experience to single-handedly save the sinking Titanic, what can you trust?"

That is still what it is boiling down to. The Titanic actually just hit got hit by a glancing blow from a large ice cube this past weekend.

They're sailing through Iceberg Alley in the next 3 games.

 

What a difference a week makes.

 

It's just ridiculous how many seasons now a lot of us have been complaining about the same shit over and over again. There's only 1 common denominator every season and that's the head coach.

 

I see what you did there...

 

Unfortunately, Helton has one thing going for him - no Athletic Director. That alone will buy him some times at SC. Because he must already know his time is coming to an end.

 

This is so true. We are so desperate for any signs at all that the program is not falling apart that we cling to that stanfird game like it's a life preserver. We thought we turned the corner. We did but we ran right into #95, Tonga. Ouch!

 

Helton mentioned the 10 points scored against us on turnovers. What about the biggest turnover resulting in the losing of the game!

 

Chris - despite all the hype about how much things were supposed to be different this year - it sure looks like the same O and D as we had last year. Kevin Bruce made the same point in his great Defensively Speaking article.

Just a couple of points that seem obvious but seem to need to be re-stated:

1. the run scheme remains EXTREMELY vanilla/ limited. There is NO quick hit run option of any kind .. not even the possibility of a QB sneak. There is no EDGE threat in the form of a fly sweep or quick pitch option to to a second back in a 2 back set and there is zero optionality in the run game with the QB not being any form of run threat and the O not utilizing 2 backs or slot receivers as a 2nd run threat - or any counter/ reverse motion or QB boot actions to even try to and hold the back side edge pressure to make them stay home or hurt them if they don't. And with the one RB almost always lined up to one side of the QB the D only has to worry about a run to ONE SIDE of the LOS. In point of fact, there are only 2 SLOW developing run plays to either side that ONLY work if the D is thinking pass.

BYU put 5 in the box and invited SC to run and then had plenty of time with our slow developing run plays to rally other defenders to the sole run threat starting from a dead stop 5-6 yards behind the LOS. And, of course, it really hurt that BYU's Nose tackle was dominating the point of attack, but regardless, the D had plenty of time to read and react to the sole run threat in the offense and they way we line up with the RB 5-6 yards off the LOS to one side of the QB it's also very easy to anticipate which side a run play would develop from the pre-snap O formation .. and again there's no QB or other 2ndary run threat to worry about. Just so damn vanilla with ZERO optionality - not even the real threat of a pass because the D going with 5 in the box pretty much dictated a run call from Harrell. It's INSANITY and we have NO adjustments or Plan B!!

This is an O scheme where the run ONLY works if the D is thinking Pass - pretty much like delayed draw plays have always been used to counter an outside pass rush and make the D think twice about dropping all the extra guys into coverage. But BYU set up with 5 in the box which pre-determined a run call and because the only possible run threat is so predictable and slow developing - they had plenty of time to rally back defenders off the LOS to the hole being attacked .. easy peezy ..

2. how is it that that Helton and Clancy can talk at length EVERY WEEK about how difficult it is to defend against a mobile/ dual threat QB .. yet we continue to ignore this attribute as a factor in our Offense? Hell we ran off our best dual threat guy and counted their willingness to take off and run - against both Matt and Jack. It makes my head explode. In most spread concept offenses like ours - the QB is a second run threat that helps keep the D honest and prevents them from playing 11 on 10 in the run game. A mobile QB also blunts the pass rush and tires out defenders which helps both the pass and run games. Somehow - year after year after year - we talk about how difficult it is for our D to defend and contain mobile QBs - but we actively discourage our QBs from doing the same. Even when Darnold did it (after he became the starter) it was clearly on his own volition .. not something that was practiced or expected. Again - mind boggling. Even Josh Rosen carried out his fakes on read option plays and scrambled (especially as a frosh) and pulled the ball and ran it on at least a couple of read option plays every game. Nope - not US(c).

3. Our inability to defend/ contain a mobile/ running QB and to defend/ contain the edges on D can be attributed in part to the fact that our D never sees this stuff from our own D in practice . Yeah, maybe they watch it on tape and do some half-assed walk-thru stuff vs. the scout team, but it's not the same.

Bottom line is that this is OLD NEWS. I've been screaming about this same stuff for years but NOTHING CHANGES. Darnold did enough inventive/ impromptu stuff on his own for a couple of years to keep us(c) competitive, but that was almost IN SPITE of Helton and he had lots of help from some magical individual talent that saved our bacon on multiple occasions - guys like Adoree and JuJu and Deontay and RJII.

My gawd - it's HORRIFICLY BAD and I don't see ANY STRUCTURAL/ SCHEMATIC CHANGES that will/ can fix it!

 

I asked my father a question a couple weeks ago- "is there ever a reason you'd give up on USC as a fan?" His response: "No, never". He complains year after year and so do I. We have watched Clay Helton- a guy I've desperately wanted to win because he seems like a nice guy who rose through the ranks- lead this team to irrelevancy and every year of his tenure nothing seems to change. Same terrible defense, same offensive inconsistencies, same soft tackling, same ineptitude at Head coach, and it makes me wonder- the university doesnt seem to care and why should they- we still buy tickets to the games, we still buy jerseys, we're still fans. year after year we sit and bitch and moan about a head coach this university refuses to fire and then we turn around and pay the university to go to the games to watch a bunch of "5-star recruits" not play 3-star football. I'm not going to ever root for Oregon, or UCLA but it makes me wonder sometimes- what the heck am I doing here? Then I take a sip of cola from my USC football souvenir cup, smile and say "fight on" then sit back in my seat at the coliseum and watch the defense miss another tackle. sigh.

 

Looks like I fell for the old Great Pumpkin story. For as many bad things I saw last week, the Defense was the worst. It’s the same old same old with the Defense. Can’t get off the field at the end of the game with a lead. The Freshman QB played about what I expected, but the Defense gave up 30 points. We can’t expect a true freshman QB to put up 40 points on the road in his 1st road game. I’ve been a fan of Clancy, but now I’m flipping. He doesn’t blitz any more, can’t create pressure, and no stunts. Definition of insanity. All the good that was there from the Stanford win, is out the window now. Time to start beating the “Fire them all” drum.

We already got rid of Swann, next up is Clay and Clancy.

Ridiculous loss...

 

R.I.P. Linus

 

You are not alone, brother. If more and more people are feeling the same way, the program will be in (more) trouble.

The vendors, the bookstore, the websites will feel it, too. The current leadership and coaching staff are taking lifelong fans and turning them people who'll just find other things to do on Saturdays.

 

When Clay kept Clancy & Baxter I knew it was all talk about turn around like ND. We are grasping at life preserver that has holes hoping for SC football to mean something other than a joke. Since the BOT are a joke spending my $$ at LA Stadium with my old Rams. Walked over to Coli from the dorm in the old days. Yeah, Rams got a coach who turn them into a playoff team fast.