Musings from Arledge: A Reasonably Optimistic USC Season Preview

Cheer up, fellas. This is the time for optimism. It’s the middle of August; everybody but the Aussie breakdancer is undefeated, and nobody has yet been disappointed. This is the time for everybody to feel like things are going to break their way.  

Right now, UCLA thinks they will look masculine in their baby blues. Georgia thinks the arrests will stop.  Oregon thinks their players could read The Cat in the Hat from start to finish all by themselves. Like I said, anything seems possible in the middle of August.

And that’s good. Embrace it. 

I know what some of you are thinking, so let’s just deal with you now. You’re all standing in the back, shaking your heads, muttering under your breath. But don’t miss the message here. I haven’t gone all in on sunshine pumping. How could you even think that? You know me; I know you. We stood shoulder to shoulder when Hack n’ Jack lit the program on fire and almost ruined Carson Palmer’s career. We roasted Alex Grinch together as he starved his defensive players into runway-model bodies and insisted they not know their assignments. We mourned together for years when Clay Helton was practicing his Faith, Family, Failure routine.  

(Faith, Family, Fumble?  Faith, Family, Fecklessness? I don’t know. So many choices. Faith, Family, Floundering?  Faith, Football, Feeble?  Faith, Football, Fatuity?  Faith, Football, Foolery?)  

So, no, you don’t have to be blind. You don’t have to act like those clowns who were still cheering Clay Helton minutes before his firing like some deranged passengers cheering Captain Smith as water covered the last bit of the Titanic.      

But I’m worried about some of you, and I don’t want you going over the edge the other way. You don’t even cheer verbal commitments anymore. You just Eeyore your way into a bad mood talking about Uncle Phil’s bags. It’s sad.

Look, the great thing about sports is the drama; you just don’t know what will happen. Don’t be one of those people who complain all the time about everything. That strips all the joy out of fandom. You remember the people who complained when Pete Carroll won Rose Bowls and finished in the top four every year? They were miserable during the entire second half of one of the great runs in modern college football history. Gross. You don’t want to be that guy.  

Wait until things go south. And then pounce; complain loudly and tell everybody you knew all along.  That’s the key to life and this column. But not now. It’s too early. You’ll look ridiculous. And if things go well, you will have missed the good times. 

So, this, my friends, is the right time for some reasonable, well-adjusted optimism. And that’s what you shall get.

Welcome to The Musings Reasonably Optimistic Season Preview.  

Here’s the first thing you need to know: USC is going to score points. Lincoln Riley’s teams always do.  He has never had a team finish lower than 8th nationally in scoring offense. That’s a crazy number, isn’t it? At this point, it’s just foolish to bet against a Lincoln Riley offense. It will score.  

And scoring is good if you want to win football games.  

(I know. I felt silly even writing that sentence. But I put it there just in case Kirk Ferentz is reading. Always looking to help.)

Riley has explosive skill talent. Wait until you see what Zachariah Branch does this year with another year of experience and Riley using his magic to get the ball to #1 in space.  He’ll be Rocket Ismail playing for the good guys rather than the bad guys. And I’m not even sure he’ll be the best receiver on the team. The other super sophs—Duce Robinson, Ja’Kobi Lane, and Makai Lemon—are all so talented and should also make that big, second-year jump. And there are good players with experience behind them.   

The backs will be solid, and Woody Marks is going to be a star. He’s explosive running the ball and a receiving threat out of the backfield.

And, yes, Miller Moss will be fine. Riley’s quarterbacks always are, and Moss has talent and knows the system. He will play within the system, get the ball out on time, and be a steady distributor for the talented backs and receivers.  

And he looks like a surfer. Now I’m obviously okay with quarterbacks who don’t. But I miss the days when all of the programs who think they’re big and tough would talk about how USC is just a bunch of soft, west-coast surfer kids who won’t be able to handle their physicality. You remember those days, right? Auburn, Iowa, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Michigan, Arkansas, and all the rest. And then Pete’s boys would drop ‘em with a straight right to the nose. Those were the days.  

I’m not saying Pete’s days are back yet. This is called the Reasonably Optimistic Season Preview for a reason. I’m just saying that moving to the Big 10 is the best time for that silly surfer talk to start up again, and Miller Moss’s appearance should get the ball rolling.  

And the offensive line—everybody’s big worry—should be able to move people in the run game to set up play action. You’ve seen these guys; they block out the sun.  

Will they be able to pass block!? What if there are injuries!? Should we be worried that nobody has established himself at right guard!? You know what, knock it off! Quit asking hard questions. We’re trying to be optimistic here. And I already told you that only a fool doubts that a Lincoln Riley offense will score points. Let’s not be fools.   

That finishes the offensive preview. What? Tight ends? Nope, I’m not talking about them. Not because it’s a bad group. Actually, it looks like a pretty good room. A lot of young talent. It’s just that USC hasn’t used its tight ends since Fred Davis left for the ‘Skins. And until they change that, I’m not writing about them. Next year I hope to have a solid paragraph of tight end material. Hit me up then.

Here’s the second thing you need to know: the defense will be much better.  

Imagine having a small business. Imagine that one of the primary divisions of that business was run for the last two years by Tommy Boy. Imagine also that Tommy Boy was partying with Sark every day before going to the office. Then imagine you fire Tommy Boy and hire Jack Welch. Don’t you think that division might be a little stronger now? 

That’s essentially what happened with USC’s defense. Coaching is the key to college football success. These college guys are young. They show up on campus as uber-talented kids who could dominate in high school just on God-given physical gifts. Somebody needs to teach them to play and put them in positions to succeed. Utah plays good defense because they coach it well. Kansas State under Bill Snyder played good defense because they coached it well. There are lots of programs that do not recruit at an elite level but build the discipline, toughness, and skills necessary to play good defense. USC will start doing that now. 

We know USC doesn’t have Georgia’s defensive roster. But this roster is more than capable of playing solid defense. We’ve spent the entire offseason worried about the defensive line. And that’s fair. But that D line has some blue-chip talent. Bear Alexander? Braylan Shelby? Anthony Lucas? Kameryn Fountain? Those are elite talents. We’ll see if they play like future NFL starters, but they bring elite physical skills. They look and move like Georgia’s guys. 

And they’re not doing it alone. Solo Tuliapupu was a five-star recruit who is currently healthy. The coaches are raving about Gavin Meyer. Nate Clifton is a 300-pounder who was quick enough to play DE in the SEC last year and have 5.5 sacks. Elijah Hughes is quick and big. And I haven’t mentioned Kobe Pepe, Carlon Jones, Jide Abasiri, or Ratumana Bulabalavu —all well over 300 pounds. 

We don’t know what Coach Henny and Coach Nua will be able to do with this group. But there’s talent. And a lot of size. And Alex Grinch is busy ruining the secondary in Wisconsin, so we should be in the clear. Nobody is telling them to run around blocks. They’ll get lined up this year before the snap. I think this group will be more than competent. Don’t tell anybody, but this group might actually be good.

At linebacker, you don’t have the depth yet. But you have two guys who have been all-conference in the past, and you have the unusual skill set of Eric Gentry, a guy who makes plays whenever he’s healthy and on the field. That’s a pretty good start. With Raesjon Davis and the three young kids, the Trojans should be okay if they avoid injuries. I’ll say no more, because I don’t wish to speak evil into existence. Light a candle tonight for the linebackers if that’s the kind of thing you do. 

The secondary is going to kill it. That’s the best position group on the team. They’re long. They’re experienced. They’re being coached by a position coach and a coordinator who have a history of getting a lot out of defensive backs. There is talent at corner, and I love the safeties. The safeties are so good, future NFL players Christian Pierce and Zion Branch may have a hard time seeing the field. That’s a good spot to be in. 

USC has played embarrassing defense for the last three years, and the Trojans weren’t great defensively for quite a few years before that. The national media is focused on that. No problem. We can understand why, and that’s their right. 

But that’s also over. This group will be good. This is a top-40 defense. And a top-40 defense paired with a Lincoln Riley offense can do some damage.

Even against this schedule. Because here’s the third thing you need to know: this schedule is tough, but manageable.

LSU is a tough opener. They’re great on the O line and will have athletes everywhere. But they also are breaking in a new quarterback and a new defensive staff to replace one that failed last year. This is anybody’s game. Win it, and USC is in a very good position to make a playoff run. Play well and lose a close game—which we would all hate—and USC still has a chance to have a very good season. This is also the 40^th anniversary of my first USC game in-person. It was a loss to LSU. Time for revenge. This one’s a toss-up. 

Michigan? Solid defensively but a shell of last year’s team. This is not a program that churns out blue chipper after blue chipper. They don’t recruit like Ohio State or Bama. They develop good classes and have a solid culture. Last year was magic because they had about 17 seniors, like an old-school football team. (And maybe a technological advantage.) Those guys are all gone. The first-round QB is gone. The entire O line is good. The head coach is gone. That’s not the same team. Road games are tough. Road games against good teams—and Michigan will be a good team—are very tough. This is not an easy game. But it’s also winnable. Toss-up. 

And are you ready for some more good news? This is the hardest road test on the schedule, and it’s nowhere near as difficult as last year’s trips to Notre Dame or Oregon. The Trojans have a bye and will be playing in good weather against a good but depleted team. 

Notre Dame will be solid, not great. And playing the Irish at the Coliseum is very different from playing them in South Bend. Hackett beat the Irish at the Coliseum. So did Clay. Toss-up. Unless we run Pete out of the tunnel before the game, and then it’s Trojans by 17.

Penn State? Tough team. But they come to Los Angeles, and they almost never win a big game. Toss-up. Besides, surely the football gods haven’t forgotten about you know who and you know what. They deserve to lose every big game for the next 648 years. So forget the toss-up. Trojans win.

Washington will be well-coached, but that’s a six-win football team. They lost everybody. Trojans win. 

UCLA? Forget the clown school. DeShaun Foster has a better chance of beating Winston Churchill and MLK in a public-speaking contest than he does of beating USC this year. Trojans big.

Nebraska? They’ll be better. The kid QB is talented. The coach is solid. But I just checked the roster, and they don’t have any Tommie Fraziers or Trev Alberts over there. They’re just not that good—not nearly good enough to beat USC in the Coliseum. 

Wisconsin? They hired Alex Grinch. That’s all I need to know. Trojans by 97. 

And the rest … whatever. I’m not saying those games are gimmes. Other than Utah State, there probably aren’t any true gimmes. But these are the teams that make it so almost every Big 10 team finishes in the top 10 of the defensive rankings. With a few notable exceptions, Big 10 offenses are garbage. And the Big 10 offenses from the non-name programs are like the Clay Helton-Tee Martin gumbo offense without JuJu, Sam and Adoree. Forget it.

USC is winning 10 games this year. That will be good enough to make the playoffs. So shut up, grab your cardinal-and-gold attire, and enjoy the ride. Good times are back.

And if the wheels fall off the wagon again this year, this preview will self-destruct and I will deny, deny, deny.