Football Answers - Arizona Edition

Some people may have picked up the wrong impression from my buoyant Mark Sanchez comments. I do not think the Arizona game was a good win for USC. Pete Carroll was desperate to spin it that way, and T.J. Simers correctly called him out on it.

Furthermore, the past three weekends proved that USC is not an elite team -- certainly not for now.

Can there be be joy in Mudville? You bet, and you might be surprised. I'll address that in another post. For now, let's see how USC answered the pregame questions.

• Can USC survive a game? No. This is getting painful to answer every week. Zack Heberer (shoulder), Rey Maualuga (hip), Sam Baker (hamstring) and Kevin Ellison (broken nose) all got hurt. The injuries to Heberer and Baker deplete an already thin offensive line. It's so bad that Pete Carroll may not have been joking when he pondered if they would have enough guys to practice this week.
• Will USC kill itself? It was nice to see only five penalties for 35 yards ... As for turnovers, USC improved with four forced fumbles (3 of 5 total fumbles recovered) and none of their own. On the flip side, Joe McKnight's unforced fumble almost cost the team, and Mark Sanchez's two interceptions were a rocky start. All in all, an improvement -- but still not up to expectations ... USC stopped Arizona's only fourth-down attempt on the Wildcats' final play of the game. One series earlier, Carroll opted not to go for it on fourth-and-goal from the 6. Nobody was chanting "Big Balls Pete" on that play.
• Can Sanchez go deep, and if so, can the receivers hang on? Sanchez did air it out a couple of times, albeit unsuccessfully. The biggest connection was 25 yards to, who else? -- Fred Davis. The tight end is the clear choice for the team's midseason offensive MVP. It's certainly not any of the wide receivers, who have a chronic and potentially fatal case of the dropsies.
• Will Pete let them compete? Carroll didn't have much of a choice this week. We saw a lot more of explosive freshmen Joe McKnight and Ronald Johnson. Surprise! They led the team in all-purpose yards. While RoJo's were almost entirely on kick returns, McKnight showed why people have made the (unfair) Reggie Bush comparisons: A 59-yard rush. A 45-yard punt return. A fumble.
• Who will be that special someone? Arizona's Keenyn Crier showed that he's probably the best punter in the Pac-10 when he boomed one that went 83 yards (after a big bounce, of course). His average was 48.0 yards, compared with a mere 36.6 for USC's Greg Woidneck ... Though Crier frequently pinned USC inside the 20-yard line (5-of-7), you can't ignore the 45-yard return by McKnight. If USC has a turning point this season (remember when USC came back against Arizona State after halftime a couple of years ago?), it would probably trace back to that play.
• Can USC dominate the ground game? The Trojans ran for 146 net yards and a 3.4 average. That was OK. The Wildcats ran for 22 and a 1.4 average on the ground. That was great, though Arizona is not known for rushing.
• Will the crowd step up? 84,671 people is more than any other Pac-10 stadium has held this year, but it was still small by USC's standards (see gaping holes pictured below) ... A few people hesitantly booed the 10-10 halftime score, but applause broke out a couple of seconds later ... The stadium got pretty loud late in the fourth quarter and had some energy that was lacking against Stanford.
• Did you know? USC's last great streak was snapped. A 62-game run in the AP top 10 came to an end due to the team's uninspired performance against the Wildcats ... USC is third-place in the Pac-10 (Arizona State is first, followed by UCLA) ... Arizona outscored USC, 3-0, in the third quarter, an unusually flat second-half start for the Trojans. Unlike last week, USC came up big in the fourth, outscoring the Wildcats, 10-0.

Comments

[scbtnd]

All those empty seats are in the student section. USC allots too many seats to the students. Wasted revenue.

[Adam Rose]

Two thoughts on that:

- Yup, that's the student section. Many students sat in assigned seats with their families because it was Parents Weekend, but bottom line it was still the smallest crowd of the year and the students should be the biggest supporters of the team. There were plenty of small gaps (like in the bottom left of the picture) all over the stadium, too.

- At the beginning of last season, USC got itself in trouble when they didn't allot enough seats in the student section. They fixed the problem pretty quickly. Remember that students pay for their tickets, and this season's football package isn't lumped in with other sports. That means those are PAID seats that went unused, student section or not.

[24-23]

Just whose empty seats next to their parents did these students sit in?
And where were these people displaced so that the students could sit
next to their parents? Southern Cal has fair weather fans. And storm
clouds are on the horizon. Red skies in morning Trojans take warning.
Red skies at night opponents delight.
Where are the empty seats at Baton Rouge, Gainesville, Columbus,
Norman, Columbia, Austin, Knoxville, Happy Valley?

[PK-IN-THE-MESA]

24-23 ARE you TJ or BP

[24-23]

PK; "No."