Well that was a bummer. Obviously not what I expected but as they say you have to throw out the records with these rivalry games. I don't feel that the Irish were flat on Saturday night nor do I feel that the Trojans had a lot better talent. But USC played better for sure. The Irish have not developed the mental toughness that championship teams have. Hopefully they will down the road.
Why did we lose? The 50,000 foot level analysis boils down to a few key things. First, USC had a great offensive scheme and moved the ball at will most of the night gobbling up yards and the clock. Second, our top players on offense did not play great when needed. And of course, losing the turnover battle 3-0 did wonders for our chances. As a side note, no turnover comes at a good time but we sure seem to pick our shots when they can do the most damage. How about a 10 or 14 point swing when we fumble at the 1 yard line again? Absolutely unbelievable.
The much hyped night game, new gold helmets and rock music crowd pleasers did no good at all. Yes, it was loud plenty of times. Every USC 3rd down was preceded by "Crazy Train" music and they pretty much converted every 3rd down. There you go. USC won the line of scrimmage on offense and our offense sputtered throughout the night. No one play made the difference but they did pretty much what I expected on offense. The difference was our lack of offensive production and the turnovers.
Maybe now I know what Brian Kelly saw in Dayne Crist that caused him to switch to Tommy early this year. I love the kid but he has a mental block. Simply cannot drop that snap. And Tommy cannot make the big throw downfield or move well. How many passes of his were tipped or batted down? Our long term solution at QB is probably going to be named Andrew or Everett next year.
Where do we go from here? Several beatable teams on the schedule before Stanford but in reality anything between 7-5 and 9-3 gets us into the Champs Sports bowl. We have some work to do for sure and 8-4 looks the most likely but only if the team bounces back from this showing. I think they will.
Hoping all those top recruits on hand this past weekend see that we need more talent in the lineup and not that we folded in a big game. Actually we did not really fold and still had a good chance in the 4th quarter but those turnovers killed us. I think the Colonel is likely to agree that we have to put this one on the players. They did not play well and the result was appropriate against a very good Trojan team. We will have to start that string of victories against them next year again.
GO IRISH! Beat Navy!
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