UCLA v. USC

Pete had a chance to have the first real dynasty in college football. He had built USC as the premier program in all of college football and after that '04 season he inexplicably threw Norm Chow out so his godson, the jerk never-been-an-OC-before Lane Kiffin could take over. He replaced Ed Orgeron and Chow, Tim Davis, and the best staff in college football with his YES men. So far that's led to USC going back to just being a good program. There was NO reason for Pete to have kicked Chow out other than his ego bruised when they would say "The Norm Chow offense" Pete's ego got too big and he had to micromanage everything. This is why USC's play has dropped considerably since that 2004 season. This is why USC now looks like crap week after week and ekes out wins against average and bad Pac-10 teams and of course the losses have increased with the sloppy, undisciplined play.

USC is the most talented team in the nation, has been for several years, and they are now a 2 loss minimum team. They are now a program that can lose to any team in the nation (see Stanford) as well as beat any team in the nation. I can handle SC losing to good teams, but I can't handle the ****** play and large drop in play despite having the best talent in the nation. No one is perfect the 2003 USC team was not perfect, they lost a game but they improved each week and made the most of their talent. The 2002 USC team was 11-2 but they lost to 2 good teams, had the toughest schedule in the history of college football that year, and improved as the season went along. You have to watch USC now every week to see how far they've fallen. You have to see USC's pathetic coaching staff to see how Pete is slowly running this program into the ground. USC is FSU West.

SC is still not all that far removed from the 2004 NC. In 3 more years, when Pete still hasn't won another NC, maybe then people will see how USC is no longer THE program in college football. Pete could fix everything by hiring a real OC again and to stop meddling in the offense, won't happen. Pete specifically made this quote "I will never have a coach like Norm Chow on my staff again." Yeah who would want him when you can have all your yes men around you.

USC now loses to bad and average teams and they regress as the season goes on. Wasted talent.

Pete built the program so he's free to run it the way he wants. However, he will never come close to winning a NC with this staff. The closest he will get is in 2005 when the players coached by the old staff came up just short. The players coached by the old staff are gone now and each year farther from Chow, Orgeron, the old Pete, the worse this team looks.

As for your outrage over the 3 worst losses, that doesn't mean I put Texas in the same group of Stanford and UCLA. It just depends how you view "worst loss" Some might say the biggest point differential i.e. worst blowout loss, some others might say most embarrassing loss to a bad team, and some are just bad because of what was on the line, how good your own team was, and how the particular game went. Texas was a gallant champion and one of the best NC teams I can think of, no disrespect intended.
 
SU,

I appreciate your clarification and the time you spent outlining your argument. Still I think you're falling into the same trap that all fans do when you look back fondly at the past. Those USC teams were great, but none of them were that much better than the pack. You can complain that USC now loses to bad teams etc....but its not like the 2004/2005 USC teams weren't in some dogfights with poor or average teams in the midst of the impressive undefeated run.

Consider 2004 season:
-Losing most of the game to a ****** Stanford team needing a 4th qtr touchdown to win coming from a 28-17 half-time deficit
-Basically a tie game entering the 4th qtr at Oregon St.
- 5 pt victory over a ****** UCLA team
In the 2005 season:
- Who can forget the miracle at Notre Dame. In addition to the Bush push, you also needed a miracle 4th down play to even keep that game alive
- Fresno State gave you all you could handle, and in my opinion outplayed you before finally fading at the end
- Losing with 5 minutes to go, before getting 2 TD's in the last 3 minutes to win at ASU
- TX - no explanation needed...the comebacks finally ended

The point of listing all these games is that even the great USC teams that you fondly remember had some squeakers. And if you put yourself in that situation often enough, you will lose games....you're not always going to get the timely interception or 4th down bomb. Even on a team that included two Heisman trophy winners the margin for error was pretty slim.

You can ***** about losing to Stanford this year, but I would argue that the difference between this year and 2004 was talent not coaching. Leinart, Bush, White, Jarret and the rest of the offense were just better players and thus able to overcome an off performance. This season losing to an Oregon team with Dennis Dixon is no different than LSU losing to Kentucky this year (and I think LSU's season ended pretty well). Throw in the Standford loss and guess what you went to the Rose Bowl. Boo hoo.

Teams lose games, and guess what .....USC with Norm Chow, Ed Orgeron etc., would have lost games. To ***** and moan because you dropped games you shouldn't have is the nature of all fans, but USC is no different than TX, tOSU, LSU or anyone else. IT WILL HAPPEN. To blame Carroll for bringing down the program just makes no sense. You're holding him to an impossibly high standard IMO. Injuries, turnovers, funny bounces make more of a difference in achieving undefeated seasons than you are willing to admit. Great coaches and recruiting put you in that position to run the table, but it still isn't going to happen every season. USC is no different in that regard...the law of averages caught up with you. Enjoy the success you are having because in 5 or 10 years if Carroll is no longer there, chances are you will trade what you have for todays Carroll teams in a heartbeat.
 
Soviet,

I kind of understand where you're coming from, but it takes a lot of things to happen to win an NC. You must have talent, good coaching, a lot of luck, and then you have to factor in the fact that the team USC (or any top-notch program) is playing has prepared all year for the game (while your coaching staff is likely preparing game-to-game by comparison) and is likely going to try an play above their heads, i.e. Stanford '07, OSU '06, UCLA '06.

Do you realize that this year, SC came within a 1-point loss to Stanford to playing in the MNC?

Do you realize that SC came within a 4-point loss to UCLA to playing in the MNC the year before?

That's 5 points separating SC from playing for their 5th MNC game in a row.

Now that sounds pretty impressive, but let's look at the other side of the coin.

In 2005, we could have easily lost to ND (and probably should have) and never had the opportunity to play Texas in the Rose Bowl.

In 2004, we could have easily lost to Stanford, Cal, and OSU (Fog Bowl) and never had the opportunity to destroy OU in the Orange Bowl.

I just think it's silly to hang on to the what-ifs of not reaching the NC games while overlooking the what-ifs that we overcame to reach the NC games.

Tell me, who would you trade Pete for? He's a helluva coach and has lots of class. As an SC grad, my only gripe about him is that he tries to be too much of a player's coach by letting them act like jackasses on the field.
 
Hi ctrl+alt+del,

good post, you're objective, very few sports fans ever play the "what if" game by using both sides, they only think of the "what ifs" in the games their team lost. It's true that SC was one 4th and 20 play (way to rush 3 vs a green QB Pete) from making it to the NC game in '07 and one game (UCLA) from making it to the NC game in '06 but they were also very close each season to going 8-4 or 7-5. It is what it is, there will always be those "what ifs" when talking about the program under this staff.

There's a two year trend now of playing poorly week after week vs average and bad Pac-10 teams. There are injuries, sure. However there's no team in the nation that is better equipped than USC to handle injuries. Not a single person who follows college football will disagree. Another thing the apologists will blame is lack of talent, really thats what they say. Like if we don't have a Leinart and Bush (two of the best USC has ever had) then we can't be expected to play good football and be a NC team. And according to the apologists, Booty was supposedly not a NC-caliber QB. Even though other NC QB in the BCS era include Craig Krenzel, Matt Mauck, Tee Martin, Matt Flynn, and Josh Heupel. The talent is most certainly there for USC to remain a NC team, however the coaching and the scheme are not....they were with the old staff, not anymore.

I look at Pete's tenure in 2 different groups, 2002-2004 (2001 first year is a pass for every coach) and 2006-2007. 2005 was an anomaly. That season was with this staff but with the old staff's players. These coaches inherited all that talent and luckily Matt and Reggie and the rest were able to clean up the mess those two idiots Sarkiffin (and Pete's meddling) made in several games. Still they choked but back to the 2002-2004, 2006-2007.

From 2002-2004 USC had 11 close games, went 8-3, 5 of those games were vs teams that had 9 wins or better, and 3 were vs teams with a .500 record or worse.

From 2006-2007, one less season, SC had 12 close games, went 8-4, 3 vs teams with 9 or more wins, and 6 vs teams with a .500 record or worse.

So in one less season and vs much lesser competition SC already has more close games and more losses. I don't expect SC to be as dominant and as great as they were with Bush/Leinart/Palmer/White/BMW/etc but he talent level has not dropped so considerably that they should be struggling nearly every week vs average and bad Pac-10 teams. The only thing that's changed is now he has all his lackeys and yes men, most of whom have never coached anywhere except for USC under Pete and his insistence on having a say in the offense, whereas before Pete was determined to be surrouned by the best assistant coaches he could find.

I know how tough it is to go undefeated. The old coaching staff was not perfect, but their bad games were few and far between. The 2002 SC team was 11-2 but they played the toughest schedule in the history of college football and they were dynamite as the season moved along, just beautiful to watch that team play, the 2003 team also was not perfect but that was the most dominant team of the Pete Carroll era, 10 blowouts out of 12 games, again they played their best at the end of the season. I can handle SC losing to good teams, but I cannot handle them losing to bad teams (they've lost to a bad team once each of the past two seasons now) and looking like crap week after week with poor play calling, sloppy undisciplined play, your take on USC players acting like jackasses on the field is spot on and it's shown with all the personal fouls among the other penalties (USC was 111th in penalties and 117th in penalty yards last season....out of 119) and some of the best talent sitting on the bench. I also don't know why Pete is so conservative with the defense until they lose a game or two. The bend but don't break vs Stanford was a joke. Pete's defenses are always good but they didn't start playing more man, more aggressive, more nasty until after the Oregon game. In 2006 it wasn't until after the Oregon State loss. I just wish we had a real offensive coordinator again. The defense is usually good enough to be NC, the offense is a joke, nobody has any idea what they're doing out there. The play calling is laughable. Remember the end around on 4th and 1 vs Oregon? LOL. Don't get me started on the Texas Rose Bowl. And let's not forget the UCLA debacle in '06.

True, you're right ctrl there's nobody else better available right now. Pete and his homegrown failures on staff isn't bad. I just see it as a wasted opportunity. I don't think Pete is willing to adapt, if he was he never would've thrown Chow out. There are other good offensive coordinators but Pete is content with the guys he has. Sark is his lackey and Pete has the choke collar around him at all times.

2007 was the easiest schedule SC will ever have. They had a cakewalk to the NC game and still they lost 2 games.

2008 - another 10-2 season (at best) while two other teams play for a NC. Even though SC has NC talent. I hope I'm wrong and this staff can take SC to the NC but I highly doubt it.

USC is now 10-2 U

that's a cool picture btw.
 
USC may be the best team prepared for injuries, but that does not mean what you think it means. It means that if ALL teams are injured that USC is the one that will stand out from the pack, evidently not all teams are injured and you often have EXPIRIENCED players with lower talent that ARE better players than your unexpirienced 5 stars.
 
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