Well all our worst fears were met. With Porter gone and Cam Smith ailing, the defense was denuded quite a bit. That showed more so with the constant shuffling of players due to the altitude in Utah. But the reality of what happened was on all sides of the ball.

The defense did miss Cam Smith (no stats), though a token appearance. And the tackling was nonexistent on many RB Moss and QB Huntley runs, turning many potential 4 and done into first downs. The highlight though was Jay Tuefele scooping up a Utes fumble and laboring for a 48 yard TD (timed with an hour glass). And somehow USC had 5 sacks and 3 other tackles for loss. Utah was a poor 6 of 16 3rd and 4th down conversions. So what happened, huge gains on passing 15.5 yards per catch average. Rushes because of losses averaged a more modest 3.8 yards per attempt.

On offense…..well remember how I said USC should start Fink or Sears pre-season. I was challenged for that idea. But so far this season what I feared was what we saw in our three losses. JT Daniels has a great arm but he wasn't in the system much- just 1 fall training period. He is having his baptism through games. JT was 6-16 for 89 yards (42 yds on that Pittman TD catch) and with two interceptions. Replacement Mike Fink, a noted running QB was 6-7 for 43 yards with 1 TD, and no interceptions BUT he also had 21 yards on 4 carries for 5.2 ypc. That latter factor changed the way Utah had to play defense. Also trying to run against 6-7 man front was crazy. And whenever USC had a 2 TE configuration Utah knew that would be a run or a long pass (need end blocking) was coming.

Well, the PAC 12 is beating up on each other and now so are other conferences including 3-3 Purdue big over Ohio state and cuddly coach Urban Meyer. In fact there are only 2 undefeated teams in Power 5 conferences: Alabama and Clemson. In the Power 5 here are the only one loss teams: ACC: NCS. Big12: Texas, W Va., Oklahoma. Big10: Michigan, Ohio State and IOWA.. PAC 12: Only WSU. And in the beloved SEC: KENTUCKY, Florida, Georgia, LSU.

The PAC12 has already been left for dead re. the eastern fan favorite four playoff. Go WSU! The Big 10 may also be dead soon with big games remaining between the 1 loss teams. So how's an Alabama, Clemson, Big 12 and another from those conferences sound? Not great? You think the left out conferences (likely twice in a row) wont bark for a 6 or 8 team playoff soon? Or insist on an OOC SOS ranking (including home vs. Away) be added? BTW the NCAA basketball has that already. USC was its first victim.

This might be Jack Sears' week.

Clay Helton announced JT Daniels remains in the concussion protocol as USC begins its preparation for Arizona State on Saturday and Matt Fink has already been ruled out after fracturing three ribs late in this past Saturday's loss at Utah.

The redshirt freshman Sears, of course, has yet to make his college debut.

• We beat ASU and win rest of Pac-12 games (of course, ND is a loss)
• Utah loses to Oregon (I actually think Oregon matches up well vs. Utah to beat them)
• Wazzu wins the North Division
• We play Wazzu in CCG and win Pac-12

Or...maybe not.

Hey Trojan Talk. This is Ryan Abraham, publisher of TOS247. I just wanted to make a follow up statement to Ryan Young's post.

First, I agree 100% with everything Ryan Young wrote.

He was inadvertently associated with this because of a phone conversation I had with a former staff member of mine, the current publisher of TOSxyz (I am not sure what to call it because it sounds a lot like my site's name). I was unaware that phone conversation was secretly recorded and then made public this weekend.

I'll try to recap in bullet form what happened:

- Zach Abolverdi from the Florida SEC Country site approached my recruiting reporter and 247Sports about publishing his video of a prospect that was set to announce his commitment to USC.
- My recruiting reporter asked me if I wanted to pay $1000 for the rights to the video. I declined. Apparently 247Sports declined as well.
- Around that time I learned Ryan Young was taking over as publisher of this site and the former publisher wasn't going to be renewed by Rivals.
- I told my recruiting writer that news and what site Ryan Young came from. He told me that Ryan Young (from SEC Country) was the person who produced the prospect video. It seemed like a crazy coincidence and it turns out his recollection of who shopped the video to him was incorrect. There were two members of the SEC Country Florida site and it was Zach who produced the video, not Ryan.
- I received a text message from the then soon-to-be-ex-USC Rivals publisher (current publisher of TOSxyz) about this prospect video and that led to the phone conversation that was taped without my notice.
- During that conversation I told him that I was told Ryan Young produced that prospect video and was shopping it around. I told him I declined the offer and we talked about the publisher of TOSF5 who did end up paying for the rights.
- I believe TOSxyz twice mentioned the prospect getting money from the video and I believe I twice corrected him saying I knew nothing about that, it was just a guy who produced a video, it cost him money and he was looking to get his investment back. Nothing nefarious.
- And while I felt it wasn't the best business decision for me to pay for the prospect video, I also heard of nothing nefarious involving the publisher of TOSF5 who did pay for the rights to the video.
- The next day I received a call from Ryan Young and he explained my mix-up between him and Zach. I apologized to him and immediately sent a text to the TOSxyz publisher telling him the information I had given him was incorrect. I said it was not Ryan Young, it was Zach Abolverdi who produced and shopped the video. This was within 24 hours of the phone conversation, so he was well aware Ryan Young was NOT involved.
- This weekend when this all went down I shared that text message with Ryan Young so he knew I immediately tried to clear things up with TOSxyz.

Like Ryan Young said, I thought this was put to bed in August and I was dumbfounded when all these ridiculous claims were made.

Again, I am sorry to Ryan Young that he is dealing with this annoyance. If there is anyone here who was questioning Ryan Young's involvement, I hope this statement will remove any doubt you had.

And to my knowledge the only involvement the prospect had with the video was that he was starring in it.

If you have any specific questions for me about the matter feel free to send them to Ryan Young and he can relay them to me.

Thanks,
TOSRyan

It seemed to me that Utah was picking on Langley, Greg Jones, and Ajene Harris all night. I don't remember Utah throwing the ball much in Biggie's direction. Marvel Tell looks like he's just trying to do his best in plugging the leaks in the dam. Looks to me like the Defensive Coordinators are going to exploit the other CB's rest of season - low hanging fruit.

Reading through the Board, i have seen a lot of very good general examples of why it is painfully obvious that the coaching staff is grossly underperforming. Such examples include our ability to out-recruit teams but not outplay them, our lack of ability to win away games, our inability to win games where we are underdogs..etc. You seen them all.
But let me give you an example of the problem in real time. Below is a quote from this site
" Toa Loebendahn has arguably been the weakest link on the Trojan offensive line throughout the year, and Saturday night was more of the same. For whatever reason, he struggles enormously to snap the ball properly. Every single game features a bad snap or two (or more) -- he had at least 5 against Utah. Bad snaps hamstring entire plays and undoubtedly start to weigh on the mind of the quarterback. Beyond the snaps, Loebendahn has struggled in run blocking, failing to move defensive tackles off the ball with regularity and generally allowing penetration far more often than the Trojans can afford. The senior is the most experienced player on the line"
I have said before, you cannot have a center who cannot snap! You cannot have a center who cannot after 4 years master the most important part of his job responsibilities! A senior leader on any team cannot / should not keep his spot if he does not excel in the starting spot. I believe this points to the very core of the USC Football problem - Competition. It gets air time but is not truly embraced. So yeah, maybe Nielon isn't good enough to start but he is 1-0 as a starter! You get the Joke here. We will never truly get to Number one until the players truly Compete for starting spots both in practice and in Game performance and this is where it all breaks down...
Fight On !

Let’s get it going!

Here’s video of the team arriving here at Utah.

Login to view embedded media

Demand Change!

In lieu of any positive statements from the AD... or anything quotable that would indicate that there will be any near-term actions to address this dumpster fire, what is needed is aggressive editorial commentary from the press.

Starting with the Beat Writers from the LA Times and OC Register. They are reporting on games, not offering opinions. If Mal Florence or Jim Murray were alive and active, they would be doing aggressive editorials and not taking their foot off the gas. The BOD pays attention to them. And of course the next tier, including this site and others, should be calling for changes!

Embarrass Swann into action.

Somehow I missed something. Was he injured? Did he not travel to Utah?

I heard T Martin has been fired any truth to this ?

This quote didn't make my Tee Martin story this morning, but I asked him if they'd reconsider making a change at center this week in light of Toa Lobendahn's continued issues snapping the football.

Tee's response:

"Continue to work on it. Continue to work on it. Coach Helton and Neil [Callaway], they discuss it every week about how to get better at it. I thought this week coming into the game he had made dramatic improvements. They changed the way that he was gripping the ball, and he was a lot more consistent at practice. And for whatever reason, it is what it is. You don't know when it's going to happen, you don't really know what's the cause of it -- got to get it fixed. Making it tough sometimes on the quarterback."

did he get canned ?

What do you think? Fink is to Daniels as Book is to Wimbush.

Bama held to only 21 points with 8:00 remaining in the first quarter. Geez.

I'm not saying Tee Martin's thoughts on the offense are going to make anybody feel better today, but here they are:

https://usc.rivals.com/news/tee-martin-not-frustrated-hopeful-after-offense-bottoms-out

Tajwar delivers his 10 most significant observations from USC's 41-28 loss at Utah.

https://usc.rivals.com/news/first-and-10-the-key-takeaways-and-observations-from-usc-s-loss

... With a major coaching overhaul looming, what is the proper redshirt strategy to retain players who could be thinking transfer?

Of course, this question is complicated by the fact that it is the coaches who make those playing decisions, and it is likely that the coaches could make decisions that would maximize the transfer impact in the event of their own demise.

Do you play everyone in the remaining games, let them see the field, giving them hope while they burn redshirts? Or the opposite?

This is gonna get some heat, but so far I just don’t see it with him. I know everyone will want to talk about coaching and O line and such - and that’s fair - but Daniels hasn’t passed the eye test to me to date. He locks on to one receiver and that’s it. Even when he has plenty of time in the pocket. He looks super slow to me, both in his reads and on his feet. He makes some great throws, but makes some really bad ones too. Way too many of them. Maybe he and Amon-Ra are just hitting a wall as freshman, but the play has been very lackluster so far in my opinion. Hopefully he improves and proves me wrong, but I have a hard time seeing him becoming one of the SC greats at this point. Maybe he just isn’t as good as the hype.

during the second half of last night's debacle, i remembered this article from athlon's preseason magazine. anonymous pac 12 coaches had this to say about usc:

"You have to hand it to Clay (Helton). He’s created a stable environment after everything the program went through. They’re back to getting top-level talent, but they’re not as physical as they need to be. They won’t fight back at you like Pete Carroll’s old defenses would. Those USC teams were fighting harder in practice than they were against most conference opponents."

"I’d ask (OC) Tee Martin, what’s your identity? What are you going to build around? Their offensive line got handled in the Cotton Bowl. That game showed how far they still are from being that top-five-level program on offense."

https://athlonsports.com/college-football/pac-12-coaches-talk-anonymously-about-conference-foes-2018

totally spot on, if you ask me. shows you how well our opponents know us . . . and how far we are from where we want to be.

We've got a ton of reaction from this one.

The postgame press conference with Clay Helton, Michael Pittman and Jay Tufele, along with interviews with Tee Martin, Clancy Pendergast, Bryan Ellis, Stephen Carr, Tyler Petite, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Palaie Gaoteote, Brandon Pili.

https://usc.rivals.com/news/see-how-the-trojans-reacted-to-41-28-loss-at-utah

Here's the instant story:

https://usc.rivals.com/news/utah-scores-34-straight-points-in-demolition-of-usc

Did he play last night?

Would you rather USC keep Helton, or bungle its next coaching hire yet again?

Given our history the latter is a definite possibility if and when the time comes to fire Helton, a probability even. Then you factor in how the administration doesn’t help and sometimes seems to impede a coach’s ability to be successful, and it makes you question whether a good hire could even be successful if given the opportunity.

Definitely not advocating for Helton to stay by any means, just putting this darkest timeline scenario out there and interested to hear what you guys think.

I guess at the end of the day, even if the next hire fails too, for me anything is better at this point than seeing Helton’s stupid shocked face (everyone knows what I’m talking about) in the middle of another embarrassing loss. So I’ll take the failures of a new coach over this one.

Gee, it's almost 9 a.m. Pacific, and the Chargers are already posting a score of 17-13 in the fourth quarter! I didn't watch much pro football after both the Rams and Raiders left, but I thought that even the East-Coast games normally start later than this...??