USC: What Did We Learn

The more I think about this game, and I didn’t pick us to win, we let this game slip away. USC doesn’t score this few and win games. We played too conservative in second half and didn’t seemed prepared to win with our back-up QB.

Well now I can see us going 3-0 or 0-3. Time to let it rip and see what we have here. I’ll be very interested to see what our offense looks like.
 
Nebhawk said:
Honestly, our secondary holds on nearly every play and get away with it a lot. We can't cover without holding. It will catch up sooner or later. Should have last weekend, and if we keep doing it, film doesn't lie, and the calls will get made against us. Officiating had nothing to do with this loss, but overall, sucks in all of college football.
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In the game thread I kept asking why don't the DBs turn and face the ball when they are on top of the WR. There were several plays where they were in a better position to catch the ball than the Trojan WR, all they had to do is turn and look for it.
 
As has been the case before, three of the top four defensive linemen in number of snaps played are freshmen or sophomores. Jeudy and Lenhardt are the only upperclassmen that played more than one snap. DL in the B1G is tough to do with that many young guys.

Javin Wright played every defensive snap. Glad he's finally healthy.

Donovan Jones and Rex Guthrie continue to be pleasant surprises as redshirt freshmen. And the addition of Marshall has been a huge plus.
 
Raiola and Lateef were both 0-2 on 20+ yard throws. Raiola was 2-5 on throws 10-19 yards downfield while Lateef didn't attempt any. It is extremely tough to be a threat on offense with a complete lack of a threat to throw the ball downfield. Honestly, it's pretty impressive that we've been able to run like we have (when we've tried).

Receivers are doing well blocking. Need to figure out how to make them more receiving threats. It was disappointing that we found some formation/motion combinations that led to some easy throws early then never went back to them. And we did finally throw the screen to Hunter that was huge earlier in the year; not sure where that had been (even though it didn't work). And if the screen to Barney was so open (when Lateef dropped the snap), why didn't we try it again?

Two targets to tight ends. Puzzling why we can't find any way to get them involved - the one catch was huge.
 
I do appreciate that we called a lot of runs. But I felt like the timing of a lot of them was odd. It seemed like we got into a stretch where we'd throw (incomplete) on first down, then run on second and long. Which is good as far as sticking with the run. But not very conducive to sustaining drives.

On our first possession, we threw on first down 5 out of six times. We ran on all five second downs. Of course, we scored a TD, so it's tough to complain.
We did go three-and-out on three runs on our second possession. But that was also the odd Raiola keep on 3rd & 8. So it was an odd set of calls.
On our third possession, we threw on first down both times, gaining no yards either time. Constantly behind the sticks, we punted, even though we ran the ball on the other three plays.
On our fourth possession, we threw of first down twice and once ran on 1st & 20. But we scored again.

In the second half, we started pass-run-run-punt.
We finally ran on first down the next time, gaining 7. Got a first down then threw and got strip-sacked-out for the season. Turnover.
We only really committed to the run once Raiola got hurt. And were probably too conservative.

I guess we'll see what we can come up with with Lateef more up-to-speed.
 
Mavric said:
Raiola and Lateef were both 0-2 on 20+ yard throws. Raiola was 2-5 on throws 10-19 yards downfield while Lateef didn't attempt any. It is extremely tough to be a threat on offense with a complete lack of a threat to throw the ball downfield. Honestly, it's pretty impressive that we've been able to run like we have (when we've tried).

Receivers are doing well blocking. Need to figure out how to make them more receiving threats. It was disappointing that we found some formation/motion combinations that led to some easy throws early then never went back to them. And we did finally throw the screen to Hunter that was huge earlier in the year; not sure where that had been (even though it didn't work). And if the screen to Barney was so open (when Lateef dropped the snap), why didn't we try it again?

Two targets to tight ends. Puzzling why we can't find any way to get them involved - the one catch was huge.
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Lindenmeyer is averaging 11 yards per touch. I'd feed that dude until he got sick of eating. Beast for sure.

I remember last year you posted the throws for Raiola that were 10+ (I might be off a little on the yardage), but was pretty abysmal past that distance. Good on the less than 10, but then rough. Would love to see us dink and dunk with quick outs and slants. Manageable "safe" throws that keep us on schedule, present opportunities for some YAC and are extensions of the run game.
 
Mavric said:
As has been the case before, three of the top four defensive linemen in number of snaps played are freshmen or sophomores. Jeudy and Lenhardt are the only upperclassmen that played more than one snap. DL in the B1G is tough to do with that many young guys.

Javin Wright played every defensive snap. Glad he's finally healthy.

Donovan Jones and Rex Guthrie continue to be pleasant surprises as redshirt freshmen. And the addition of Marshall has been a huge plus.
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Our defense is elite…..other than our D line.

We are missing a couple stud big bodies in the middle to clog everything up. If I remember, they went after a few in the portal but missed.

Before Rhule signed his extension, he said he wants the program to commit to more NIL.

There’s a pretty good chance we missed on those players because we didn’t offer enough NIL. SO, now that the extension is signed and, I think the university committed to more NIL, it will be interesting to see if they can get a couple for next year.
 
I love how devoted Rhule is to the team. I hate how consistently he trips over his own d!(k in crucial moments, seriously we go for it on 4th and 1 and call a timeout instead to miss a 50+ yard FG. Make it and go up 3, miss it the turnover spot is more favorable for them. Was higher risk, lower reward.
 
It’s insane that we can’t get Jacory the ball out in space down field like you’ve seen Andy Reid do with their similarly-built burner wideouts for the Chiefs.

I feel like losing Boerkircher has hurt us, but Lindenmeyer is decent - he’s just not as tall.

We’re getting our wideouts played in man coverage. You can bet the house we’ll have that AND get blitzed heavily as the game plan of all three of our next opponents.

I’d love to see Emmett on some wheel routes, and I’d love to see Jacory get targets downfield (instead of just on sideways throws).

Roll Lateef out and create chaos against ICLA.
 
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BigRedBuster said:
Our defense is elite…..other than our D line.

We are missing a couple stud big bodies in the middle to clog everything up. If I remember, they went after a few in the portal but missed.

Before Rhule signed his extension, he said he wants the program to commit to more NIL.

There’s a pretty good chance we missed on those players because we didn’t offer enough NIL. SO, now that the extension is signed and, I think the university committed to more NIL, it will be interesting to see if they can get a couple for next year.
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Read that the extension also helped to calm donors concerned about Rhule going to PSU. I interpreted (hoped) that this meant they heard his $30-40 million roster request and are acting on it.

This is the estimate from ChatGPT when asked about revenue generation for winning the natty. I assume playoffs would be less, but It does show a solid return on investment:

Revenue SourceEstimated Value to the University
CFP/conference payout$2–4 million
Merchandise/licensing$1–3 million
Ticket sales & donations$10–25 million
Enrollment/branding impact$2–10 million
Total Estimated Value (1–3 years)≈ $15–40+ million
 
Mavric said:
I do appreciate that we called a lot of runs. But I felt like the timing of a lot of them was odd. It seemed like we got into a stretch where we'd throw (incomplete) on first down, then run on second and long. Which is good as far as sticking with the run. But not very conducive to sustaining drives.

On our first possession, we threw on first down 5 out of six times. We ran on all five second downs. Of course, we scored a TD, so it's tough to complain.
We did go three-and-out on three runs on our second possession. But that was also the odd Raiola keep on 3rd & 8. So it was an odd set of calls.
On our third possession, we threw on first down both times, gaining no yards either time. Constantly behind the sticks, we punted, even though we ran the ball on the other three plays.
On our fourth possession, we threw of first down twice and once ran on 1st & 20. But we scored again.

In the second half, we started pass-run-run-punt.
We finally ran on first down the next time, gaining 7. Got a first down then threw and got strip-sacked-out for the season. Turnover.
We only really committed to the run once Raiola got hurt. And were probably too conservative.

I guess we'll see what we can come up with with Lateef more up-to-speed.
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It’s really nice to see somebody else pointing this out.

This is the thing I was talking about earlier in regards to our coaches not playing percentages appropriately; it’s the kinds of passing plays Holgorsen has been calling on first down that’s the problem.

They’re low-percentage plays.

The more I watch Holgorsen, the more I’m starting to believe that he prioritizes trying to constantly call a play the other team isn’t expecting versus just attempting to maximize what we’re good at.

We’re not very good at throwing fades (generally speaking), and we’re not good at pass blocking. So…yeah.

Emmett bailed Dana out all night long. EJ had 165 yards on the ground in spite of Holgorsen’s play calling.
 
Undone said:
Yep, and looking at it from the perspective of percentages/odds has been my critique of Holgorsen; why did we call so many sideline throws on 1st down?
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I was thinking the same thing. All those throws on first down was placing us in a bad spot for 2 & 3 downs. Why can he just “run the damn ball”??
 
huskerfan74 said:
Again, putting words into my mouth as usual. It is not a failure and I never said the word failure anywhere in my post, but what does it matter if the result is still that we are 0-29 against ranked opponents? Until we start translating those stats into wins that matter, we are not going to take that next step. We have been close for so long. Can you not see that or do you just like arguing with me?
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You did not use the word failure. That is correct. But I did assume that by "results that matter" you meant wins. If wins are not the "results that matter" to you, I apologize for the bad assumption.

But good defense is absolutely something that translates into wins. Just because it hasn't translated to as many wins as we want, doesn't mean it's not important. There are other things that are needed as well, but that doesn't mean the defense is bad because we didn't win. See Nebraska circa 2009. So when you so it didn't translate into "results that matter," you were saying the defense wasn't good enough. Which is failure.

But if you'd like to explain to me better how having a Top 25 defense is not something that translates into "results that matter," I'd love to hear it.
 
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