Musings from Arledge: I'll take the win

Only good teams should worry about style points. USC is not a good team. Ergo, screw it—I’ll take the win.

I mean that. Good teams can have bad wins, wins that expose a flaw that might later ruin the good team’s season. But average teams? Average teams can’t be picky about their wins. For an average team, every win is gold. You just try to stack up as many as you can, and you should be thankful for every single one of them. 

Right now, USC is a pretty average team. Some of you may think that’s harsh. The Trojans are 7-2 overall and 5-1—and in second place!—in the best conference in the country. That’s above average, isn’t it?

Nope. This is a deeply flawed team with an inconsistent offense, an historically bad defense, and collapsing special teams. 

And if we want to be completely honest about things—we can do that, right?—USC is an average team because USC is a poorly coached team.

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But let’s wait on that. Because before I get into all of the bad, we should talk about the good. This may not be a very good team, and this season is a bitter disappointment. But I haven’t quit on this team, either, and for one very good reason: because they haven’t quit. 

I worried before this game that USC might not be in the right head space, and I wasn’t sure if the team would show up ready to play.  They did. They didn’t always play particularly well. But they never quit. Even when things looked really bleak, even when their own errors made the game a long, uphill slog, they still fought. That was a game that could have gotten away from them had they not been willing to fight for it.  So fine. This is an ugly season. That was an ugly win. But you guys are still willing to scrap, so I’m still in. I’ll scream myself hoarse Saturday. And—we’ll talk about this in a minute—I actually think the Trojans have a chance for a huge upset. 

Want some more good? Caleb Williams is still amazing. I’m worried about him. He doesn’t look comfortable out there. He’s often not willing to get the ball out on time. His accuracy isn’t what it should be right now. But he’s still the greatest show in college football. Every week he’ll do one, two, maybe five things that are incredible, things that nobody else can do. I no longer trust him the way I once did; the mistakes are more frequent, the frustration more evident. But I still love the dude and love watching him.

Tahj Washington has turned into a really good football player. I don’t know that he’s entered the pantheon of great USC receivers yet; I’m not willing to group him with BMW, Keyshawn, Marqise, and all of the other superstars that USC has pumped through its wide receiver ranks even in the down years. But the guy has turned into a reliable, big-play guy who is scrappy. I really like him, and I’m proud of the way he plays.

MarShawn Lloyd is a stud. (Hold onto the football!) He’s explosive, he’s tough, and he can make plays in the run game or the pass game. (Hold onto the football!) I don’t think USC has had a big-play threat like him in the backfield since Ronald Jones, and I think Lloyd is the better all-around player. (Hold onto the football!)

Bear Alexander is a man. He’s exactly what USC hoped he would be, and I don’t think we’ve seen the best of Bear yet. Can you imagine where this defense would be without him? Yes, of course you can. The first half of the Cal game. Bear is a difference maker. 

And let’s talk about a couple of linebackers for a second. Mason Cobb isn’t always great; we know that. His whiff on the quarterback run in a key situation against Cal was painful. (Don’t dive at him. Keep your feet!) But you know what? I like how hard he plays, and I like his production. He runs around and he hits. Even with the inconsistency and the mistakes, that’s a guy I can appreciate.  

As is Eric Gentry, and for some reason, nobody on this USC coaching staff seems to agree with me. That Gentry has sat on the bench for so much of the year while USC’s defense has struggled to make plays is foolishness. Whoever has decided to keep him on the bench should probably be charged with a misdemeanor. I know he doesn’t look like a linebacker. I don’t care. That guy is a football player, and when he’s been healthy and on the field, he is consistently one of the biggest—if not the biggest—playmaker on that defense. Eric Gentry makes plays. Over and over again. Can we please stop messing around and play the guy?!

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There are probably other guys that deserve a shout out, but I don’t have it in me. The frustration is starting to boil over, and it’s coming out, whether we want it or not.

This USC team is a mess, and it shouldn’t be. Football coaches—probably like teachers, military leaders, CEO’s, and anybody else who leads people—get what they tolerate. And what USC’s coaching staff gets is a whole lot of undisciplined nonsense. That’s on Lincoln Riley. It’s his fault, and if he doesn’t fix it, he’ll never be the elite coach that USC is paying him to be and USC fans are praying he’ll become.

I know the artillery has been aimed at Alex Grinch for most of the season, and not without cause. It’s beyond clear that Alex Grinch has to be replaced. Somewhere in Strawberry Canyon yesterday was a 10-year-old girl watching her very first football game who pointed at Alex Grinch and told her mom, “I’d fire that guy.” Indeed, you would, dear; everybody would. That Lincoln Riley is the last person in America to discover that his defensive coordinator is a liability is a shocking thing. It’s the sort of thing that, if we’re being honest, leaves significant doubt that Lincoln Riley is even close to being the coach we thought he’d be when he was hired and given a Jeff Bezos-like salary. How do we trust a head coach who thinks—in year five!—that Alex Grinch is a championship-level defensive coordinator. That’s just silly. 

USC’s defense is a disaster of epic proportions right now. It’s not that they’re incapable of making plays. They had a string of stops in the second half when the offense was busy falling all over themselves, and without those stops, USC would have gotten blown out. The defense is more like a band with some pretty good individual musicians all of whom are asked to play a new instrument and all of whom are playing a different song much of the time. You look at the final product bewildered that the sum can be so much worse than the individual parts. 

It’s at this point that some USC fans are grumbling at their computers because they believe USC has no defensive talent. You’re wrong. USC doesn’t have Georgia, Alabama, or Michigan defensive talent, but they have more than enough to play good defense. This is an historically bad defense that has far above historically bad talent.   

USC has a significant group of guys that are either extremely talented or have played very well in other programs or both: Bear Alexander, Anthony Lucas, Kyon Barrs (previously second-team all-conference), Jack Sullivan (experienced and productive player elsewhere), Solomon Byrd, Jamil Muhammad, Mason Cobb (previously second-team all-conference), Eric Gentry, Calen Bullock, Christian Roland-Wallace — all of these guys are quality players right now or have played very well in the past.  And guys like Tackett Curtis, Domani Jackson, Braylan Shelby, and Zion Branch were all elite recruits with substantial talent.  Every program in the country would have taken those guys. Romello Height has a ton of talent. De’jon Benton, believe it or not, does too. Don’t tell me that group isn’t capable of playing decent defense, because it’s just not true.

USC is terrible defensively because it is horribly coached.  There are three fundamental problems: scheme, personnel, and discipline—and the latter two are related.  Eric Gentry couldn’t break into the lineup for much of the year. That’s coaching. Zion Branch couldn’t get on the field. Coaching. USC gets burned deep because guys are asked to cover people they can’t cover. Coaching. 

And let’s be honest about something. USC has guys that are playing that shouldn’t be, because they refuse to do their jobs. I’m not talking about a guy like Tackett Curtis, who doesn’t know what he’s doing yet. Curtis is a true freshman who is playing a new position. (In high school, from the highlights I’ve seen, Curtis wasn’t a true linebacker. He was often lined up at safety; his high school coaches would line him up deep, point him in the direction of the offense, and press the “release” button, at which point Curtis would fly into the offense and unleash a wave of destruction.) Curtis isn’t ready right now, but he’ll be more than fine. I’m not down on him.

I’m not down on guys who have trouble playing their positions because they’re undersized or a step too slow. USC has a few of those guys—some of whom are playing because USC coaches won’t give a more talented guy more time. But I’m not down on those guys. I get it; believe me, from personal experience, I get it. Being an undertalented guy who is playing his butt off but can only do so much—that’s something that makes sense to me. I’m not down on those guys. Especially when Alex Grinch insists on giving those guys extremely difficult assignments week after week. So I’m not down on defensive linemen that can’t defend the pass. I’m not down on safeties with average athletic ability who are supposed to cover the other team’s best slot receiver without deep help and with no pressure on the quarterback. I’m not down on those guys. I feel for them.

But USC also has players who consistently refuse to do their jobs, and the coaches continue to tolerate it. That’s not okay. I do not feel sympathy for players who refuse to keep contain when that is their primary job and when contain breakdowns are killing the defense week after week. If you’re the contain guy and you refuse to do your job—if you continue to duck inside and let people run around you for big gains even when you’re unblocked—or if you frequently attack the running back on the read option and let the quarterback pick up a big gain to your side because you’ve decided to do your own thing instead of doing your job, I have no sympathy for you. I would put you on the bench and never let you leave. You’d be covered in cobwebs by the time your scholarship ran out. 

Sound harsh? It’s not. Refusing to do your responsibility when the responsibility is clear is selfish. That kind of undisciplined play destroys football teams. Good coaches don’t tolerate it. You think Nick Saban or Pete Carroll would keep a guy on the field who consistently chooses to lose contain, not from a lack of physical ability or because he gets physically beat, but just because he decides over and over not to do his job? Not a chance. That guy would be firmly planted on the bench forever under either of those guys. Or John McKay. Or Urban Meyer. Or Bear Bryant. Or any other great football coach. 

Great football coaches don’t tolerate guys who refuse to perform their assignments. Because if you tolerate that, it’s what you’ll get. A young guy who is confused and makes mistakes? They’ll tolerate that. A guy who is physically average and has trouble performing his assignment? They’ll tolerate that, especially if they have nobody better. But a guy who week after week chooses to play selfishly and let his teammates down by not taking care of his fundamental responsibility? No. A great coach would never tolerate that. But Lincoln Riley and Alex Grinch do. And that’s my biggest problem with both of those guys.

USC is now at the point where it’s defense is a liability because Alex Grinch’s scheme asks some players to do what they cannot reasonably be expected to do and because other players who have clear responsibilities that they are capable of performing choose not to, and the coaches tolerate that selfishness.

I hate stupid, selfish play. I hated it from my teammates when I was playing. I hate watching it at USC now. I wish Lincoln Riley and Alex Grinch hated it as much as I do. 

I’m pretty sure Alex Grinch is gone after this season. We won’t miss him much. But it’s highly unlikely that Lincoln Riley is going anywhere. And it’s well past time that he took his focus off the chalkboard and figured out how to bring some discipline to his program. It’s nice to have a head coach who is good with the X’s and O’s. But it’s vital to have a head coach who has high expectations for his players, enforces those expectations, and does not tolerate a team-killing lack of discipline.

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It’s hard to know what to say about the USC offense, which is sometimes unstoppable and explosive and sometimes a mess.  Usually, it’s both at different times in the same game.  Riley did, for the most part, make a real commitment to the running game against Cal.  With USC’s struggles in the passing game, that is critical and critical that it continue.

The offensive line gets the bulk of the blame here, and that’s not unreasonable. That group has not come around as it should.  But—like the offense as a whole—it’s not inept, just terribly inconsistent.  USC can run the ball, just not consistently.  USC can protect Caleb, just not consistently.  And the penalties come out at all the worst times.

USC’s offense has not played the way we thought it would play. Maybe the expectations were just too high. This offense is still second in scoring and seventh (amongst the major programs) in total yards. That should be enough offense to be an elite program, even with the inconsistencies. 

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The special teams are a growing disaster. The two missed kicks—both short—are a problem. When you don’t play defense, you’re going to be in close games with almost everybody. You can’t leave four points on the board because of easy, missed kicks. You just can’t.

Maybe worse is the fact that USC has now given up on the most talented return man in the country because it can’t block for him. At all. True, they were right to start fair catching the kickoffs, because you can only afford to start inside your 15 so many times before you throw in the towel. But USC’s inability to find a scheme and personnel that can give Zachariah Branch a shot is really disturbing—unacceptable, really. The gap between USC’s weak kickoff coverage and the overwhelming, devastating kickoff coverage of every single one of USC’s opponents is striking. USC has voluntarily taken off the table one of its best assets because the USC coaching staff can’t find a handful of guys who can do their jobs on the kick return team. That’s really frustrating. 

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And here’s the crazy part: after all that gloom, after watching USC play like hot garbage for most of the season, I still think USC can beat Washington Saturday. 

I know, that’s probably crazy. And there’s a very real possibility that Washington will score touchdowns on their first 12 possessions. 

But Washington is a team ripe for an upset. Washington hasn’t lost yet, but they certainly look like they’re trying to. They had the huge win over Oregon. That was impressive, because Oregon is good. But other than that, in the last month they barely beat a pretty good Arizona team, they barely beat a dreadful Arizona State team, and if not for an awful drop by a Stanford receiver, they might have lost to a terrible Stanford team. 

Washington is a team constantly living on the edge. The offense has underperformed worse than USC’s for much of the last month. They obviously have a dangerous passing game, but they don’t run the ball particularly well. Their defense isn’t inept like USC’s, but it’s the kind of defense that USC can deal with, because they can’t pressure the quarterback. Washington has ten sacks in eight games. That’s bad. And if they don’t pressure Caleb Williams, there’s a good chance they’re going to give up a lot of points. 

Washington is a team that has not been playing up to its lofty ranking. I suspect it’s a team that is starting to feel some pressure. It’s a team that is weak in those areas where USC is weak. The Trojans can win this game. Keep Washington’s receivers in front of you, and make them drive the field in small chunks. I know that’s not Alex Grinch’s specialty; he likes to invite the other team to score immediately in soul-crushing style. But if USC’s defense makes Washington earn its points, Saturday could get really interesting.

I would beg the fans to go Saturday and support the team raucously. But I won’t bother, because USC fans won’t do that. At USC, if the team is struggling at all, the fans just stay home. So be it. But I’m going, and I think there’s a chance that USC will upset a highly ranked, undefeated team. And that’s always worth watching.  

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One last thing: a game is delayed because a handful of students want to protest the firing of a professor? Such a Berkeley thing. Such idiocy. I’m about as close as you can get to a free-speech absolutist. But that wasn’t free speech. It wasn’t a lawful, peaceful protest. It was trespassing, and it should not have been tolerated. 

I’ve been to Berkeley. There are lots of places to protest, and lots of places where that protesting will be seen and heard—even cheered in many cases. And that’s good. It’s an important part of a free country. I wouldn’t want their protests to be interrupted, even if I question the substance of it.  

But where there are ample public places to protest, you cannot choose to trespass and disrupt the lawful activities of others. The fact that these students said before the game that they intended to disrupt the football game, and Cal’s administration still allowed it to happen is so stupid, and so, so typical. Enjoy the ACC, clown college.