Musings from Arledge: Finishing strong, Finesse football, and Deep trouble

AD apparently thinks his job is to enable hellton, by both turning him into a victim and a hero. This type of co dependency assertion seems to also be the prez and boards philosophy. If only hellton had all the stuff he needs...BS.
This nut job has taken zero responsibility for his failures aka promises over the last 4+ yrs , fired everyone that ever worked for him, btw once they moved on they were successful. hellton is the ONE that calls for skipping practices, no full pad tackling, blocking, etc...not the asst coaches. THIS IS AN ACCURATE ARTICLE STICKS RIGHT IN THE EYE OF AD/PREZ/BOARD AND hellton...thank you for writing it.

 

As usual, great article Chris. We are a mess, and until Helton is replaced, the healing really won't start. I disagree on a few points:
- under the current culture and with the personnel we have, we aren't anywhere near championship level, and Harrell is probably,in the short term, our best option as OC
- Being than he escaped the hangman's noose two years in a row, Helton will probably be, when all said and done, the worst coach in school history. Certainly, he will do the most long term damage.

 

Harrell is the worst possible OC for this team. With our quarterback and receivers we could throw the ball effectively with any offense. This offense gives no help to the defense by putting together long time consuming drives. It inherently makes the practices less physical. Harrell himself blames the players when things go wrong and disappears after bad performances. The offense is prone to turnovers and has trouble scoring in the red zone. There is no way in hell he was ever offered the Texas job. This guy is as big a fraud as Helton.

 

Enh, I think the "angry Bama" thing is being overblown as it pertains to USC. Bama will have already purged that "anger" on Michigan. Bama doesn't need to be "angry" to beat USC but they will probably die from laughing at the Trojans. They only need to show up and watch USC implode again sans any "anger." IMHO

Bama - 63
USC - 0

 

Chris-
So it appears you've found your way, after all, through the Helton desert to an oasis of meaningful commentary. Your best piece yet, my man!

 

I knew Esau personally .. grew up with him & his hairy back and let me tell you Clay Helton is no Esau .. just sayin' ..

Great read Chris!

 

In fairness to Graham Harrell we had a bunch of RB injuries and were down to our 4th string RB so we don’t really know how the run game would’ve been called under more ideal situations. I do agree that in principal a pass heavy team never seems to be relevant when it comes to national championship teams although LSU throws the ball around quite a bit as we saw with 7 pass TDs in the first half against Oklahoma.

Our bigger issue is overall toughness and dominant line play. The OL did get better under Drevno and he was an awesome OL coach for many years under Harbaugh at Stanford and Michigan so I’m fairly confident he is getting things moving in the right direction. Obviously recruiting is the key no matter how you slice it because you need dominant physical specimens to truly be elite. Hopefully whoever is hired for all of the coaching vacancies are also phenomenal recruiters.

At this point we are stuck with Helton for another (partial to full) year so all we can do is support the team and hope for the best for all of our student athletes.

 

Now tell us how you really feel! Yike! It is as bad as they say, yep!

 

I totally disagree with this being "everything that is wrong...." He wasn't talking about QB' s that can't run. He's talking about an overall toughness in the program that includes a strong run game. And that is how a tough defense can learn to defend against physical opponents, which can't be done when all you do is throw it.

 

I am going to print this and mail a copy to the AD with a cover letter explaining my 55 year background as a USC football fan, an alumni, a father of two more, and a 20 year C&G season ticket holder. I will save a copy to send with my blank season ticket application unless the new Defensive Coordinator is an absolute stud who will obviously replace the current coach during the 2020 season.

 

I applaud you doing this, but please proofread first. You are an alumnus, not an alumni. Alumni is plural.

Don't mean to be an @$$. I just want your letter to be taken seriously.

 

Ha! It didn't take a 4.3 to be accepted in those days, obviously!

 

Clay Helton is obviously a cupcake but I disagree that Paul Hackett tried to maintain the USC heritage of physical football. That 1998 Sun Bowl embarrassment to TCU could not have been less predictable. I was in Las Vegas. Many of us were laughing uncontrollably at the pointspread of USC -16.5. I distinctly remember jokes that TCU might cover it the other way. And that's nearly what happened.

Paul Hackett had established at Pittsburgh that he had no clue how to stop an option running attack, and no intention of caring in the slightest. In his first season at Pittsburgh in 1990 he played at Oklahoma early in the season. It was expected to be a competitive game. Oklahoma was favored by 5 at home in a nationally televised game. The Sooners were no longer a pure option team at that point. Gary Gibbs preferred to throw the ball. But Oklahoma still had option concepts. Early in that game Pittsburgh was lining up in the most inconceivably soft and flawed defensive formations imaginable. It was like they were intentionally trying to cave in. No pressure on the fullback exchange. No pressure on the quarterback at the pitch. We'll peel back and let you do whatever you want.

Oklahoma obliged. The Sooners rushed for 450 yards en route to a 52-10 shellacking of Pittsburgh. I subscribed to Sooners Illustrated at that point. The following week that magazine was loaded with quotes from Oklahoma coaches saying they basically could not evaluate their own performance or players in that game, since the opponent had lined up in the most vulnerable schemes imaginable all game long.

Fast forward 8 years. Long memories in Las Vegas sports betting circles. There was no chance we were going to forget that 1990 example from Norman. And sure enough the game unfolded almost exactly the same way. TCU was never under any pressure. They laughed up the middle and around the corner. It ended up 61 rushes for 314 yards. USC had 21 rushes for -23 yards. If TCU had been a more confident and established program the margin rightfully would have matched Oklahoma versus Hackett in 1990.

 

I think this article conflates strategy and tactics. I think if that spirit of ruthless competition, mental toughness, and superior execution are regained, the tool used to achieve the result is immaterial. Run the Air Raid all you want; the Air Raid itself doesn't make a team soft, no more than a motion-based, 3-dependent offense makes a basketball team soft. And that soft mentality doesn't explain the defense. I doubt Clancy has lost his touch to this degree: he's just trying to play his high pressure, blitz-heavy style with players exposed to institutional rot.

No, to me, the main problem that infects this program is a mentality of scarcity left over from the sanction days. Remember when the no-tackling practice came online? When we couldn't afford to lose bodies due to restricted scholarships under Kiffin. You can draw a through-line from everything wrong with the program to what a coach would do if he didn't have enough warm bodies. That same bloodline of frailty runs through the coaching staff still. It would have been permanently excised, through attrition, but for the most malignant strain tainting the central nervous system: Clay. He's flatly too scared about the past, and losing what he has (it's injuries! They're too young! I need to watch the tape to know what to do next!) to look to what needs to be done next.

Despite my disagreement about the main thrust, @arledge, another magnificent post that sums up all our feelings. Don't ever stop.

 

Coach O and Lane Kiffin are both good coaches that got away. They needed people around them that could help them. Our athletic department is broken. The stupid hollywood elite admissions scandal ran through the athletic department. We still get dinged by the NCAA. This AD has a huge opportunity in front of him. At all levels....in all sports. I hope he's up to the challenge....

 

I just hope Slovis doesn't get injured. If he doesn't, the Trojans will score a couple touchdowns at least.

 

Lane Kiffin is a sociopath

 

I wasn't accepted even though I was a legacy. I wanted to attend journalism school at USC but didn't have the grades.

 

Wow,... just wow. My freshman English Prof at USC told me that pain makes for good writing. You proved him right in spades.

So Bravo again, as this is your best yet.

 

I'm just curious if Chris has ever actually eaten balut! Or Spam, for that matter. One was a staple of my childhood diet. The other was a special treat.

The article was brilliant - Paulie references and all.

Football is a sport where the bigger, tougher, faster, meaner teams pound on the smaller, weaker, slower, and softer teams. The formations from which they do this may change and evolve, from the single wing, double wing, Stanford Tee, power I, Veer, Pro set, Run and Shoot, whatever - but the fundamentals and essence of football never changes. My big strong guys will push around your big strong guys so my fast strong guys can run with the football (and whether they get the football via handoff or pass is immaterial) and score touchdowns.

For strong teams, they can run or pass with almost equal facility, because they have the strong O-lines to run pretty much whatever offense they wish and be successful with it.

For weak teams like USC, they learn to be innovative, trying to create favorable matchups with whatever athletes they have since they know they can't systematically nor consistently push around other teams.

And I think that "soft" mentality is infectious. It's like the boxer who knows he doesn't possess knockout power, so his strategy for a fight is to bob and weave, score points with soft punches, and try to avoid getting Knocked the F out. A boxer who was a slugger in his prime, but maybe loses it later in his career....is still the slugger at heart. He will still be coming after you, trying to score a knockout punch, because that's his identity. He is still a hard-nosed puncher and a boxer you fear, because he has that killer instinct, even if he may no longer possess that killer skillset.

The dancer and weaver, by contrast, is feared by nobody. They know he won't knock you out. The worst he will do is tire you out and out point you. But you also k ow that if you can get him on the ropes and in the corner, he's going to be in deep trouble. Because he has neither the skills nor the power nor the MINDSET to fight a slugger's fight. USC is that dancer/weaver boxer now, under Clay "Paulie" Helton.