Musings from Arledge: Pressure's off as USC looks to Beat the Irish

They’re not who we thought they were. And that’s okay. It really is.

Most of you are expecting an old-school Musings rant. Not today. There’s no point. 

I thought coming into this season that USC had a legitimate shot at a national championship. We know now that it’s just not true. USC is not a national title contender. There are too many weaknesses. I’m not really sure USC is better than Arizona. Arizona had the two best receivers on the field, a running back that nobody wanted to tackle, a young QB who made some mistakes but who also played with a lot of guts, and the Wildcats were tough. I can understand how they competed with Washington. That’s a pretty good football team that is getting better. They’re going to beat some people. And last night, the team they beat was themselves. Take away the huge number of devastating penalties, and Arizona probably pulls off a huge upset in the Coliseum.

As for the Trojans, there are weaknesses all over the place. The offensive line is really struggling. Arizona just stuck defensive backs all over the field last night to stymie the passing game, and USC still struggled to run the ball consistently. The defense is soft on the edges, still doesn’t tackle well, and had no answer for Arizona’s two star receivers for much of the night. (Lots of teams will struggle with those two guys, I think.) I don’t want to talk about Alex Grinch, but you already know I have great reservations. The truth is that the Trojans might be a seven or eight-win team if they didn’t have possibly the greatest college quarterback of all time. 

But they do have that guy. And because they do, they’re going to have a chance to win some games that they probably shouldn’t. 

I don’t say any of that in anger. To the contrary, last night really takes the pressure off. It’s time to stop measuring this USC team against Georgia and Michigan and simply appreciate them for who they are. And who they were last night was a struggling team with some big holes playing against a highly motivated and pretty good opponent—and they played with guts. They won a game they should not have won. It was ugly and frustrating—and it was also kind of glorious. 

Guys, that first quarter was about as bad as it gets. Arizona dominated USC the way USC dominated Stanford. It was that bad. It’s hard to climb out of a hole like that. But they did it. It wasn’t always pretty. Scratch that: it was never pretty. But that defense, which sometimes looks like it couldn’t stop the other team’s marching band, found itself down 17-0 and back on the field after a devastating turnover. And that much-maligned USC defense got an interception and then forced two straight punts. That’s why USC eventually won that game. The defense bailed out the offense and kept the game from becoming a blowout by halftime. 

The second half wasn’t pretty, but the defense still forced two long field goal attempts and a punt. Arizona moved the ball pretty consistently, and nobody watching that game could possibly confuse this defense with USC’s great defenses of the past. But the USC defense reminded me a little of Rocky Balboa—getting pummeled most of the night and fighting ugly, always on the verge of losing, but they kept fighting. They weren’t good for the most part, but they refused to get knocked out. And at the very end, they came out with a huge left hook to end the game in the third overtime. It wasn’t good football, but it was great cinema. I guess that’s how it will sometimes be at the alma mater of George Lucas, John Wayne, Ron Howard, Will Ferrell….

This season isn’t going to end with a national title. But there’s plenty to play for and plenty of reasons to enjoy the last half of this season. This season is about beating the rivals, trying to score an unlikely upset at Autzen, and watching one of the greatest to ever play do things on a weekly basis that nobody else can do. 

And I’m in.

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That being the case, let’s talk about what really matters. The undercard is over.  The heavyweight championship is about to start.  Let’s get ready to rumble!

USC has exactly the record we expected after six games even if they’re not who we expected them to be. But I really don’t care about any of that right now. That’s all in the past. Don’t talk to me about Arizona! Arizona doesn’t matter! Even Arizona knows this.  

It’s Notre Dame week. Let’s continue with the stupid Rocky analogy. This is where we are in the film: Rocky has defended his title against a string of hacks, and now he’s staring at Clubber Lang’s sneering face.  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, stop reading right now, and go watch the movie.  Because for better or worse, I’m committed to this theme.) Clubber is dangerous. He’s foul. He’s ugly. And he’s taunting Balboa. He’s hitting on Adrian. He’s ruining Rocky’s statue-unveiling ceremony. And Rocky knows that everything—his career, his legacy, his life—depend upon the outcome of this next fight. That’s what USC-Notre Dame is.  It’s Rocky versus Clubber, and both sides are predicting pain.

I mean it. Stop thinking about Arizona and Colorado and ASU. I don’t have time to wait for you to catch up.  We have places to go.  This is rivalry week.  The real rivalry week.

Four years ago I wrote what I intended to be my definitive article on USC-Notre Dame. I poured my heart into that piece, and it’s been my favorite work for WeAreSC ever. I think it still holds up.

But it’s time to revisit the subject. Because things have changed. That old piece was written in the middle of the dark ages. I can feel the pain and frustration pouring out as I read it again, years later. Then, USC football was under the grip of extreme incompetence. Not run-of-the-mill incompetence; I’m talking about warrior-ball incompetence, son-of-an-O-line-coach incompetence; incompetence you have to see to believe—and incompetence that, once seen, is impossible to forget. Then USC was led by a man who could have bankrupted Amazon by lunch of his first day. From his position in the mail room. A man who, if he had control of the Wehrmacht, would have been crushed by Poland in hours. We haven’t forgotten those days; how could we?  But we also cannot forget that those days are gone.

This isn’t Pete Carroll’s USC. It isn’t John McKay’s USC. But it’s not completely inept USC either. Lincoln Riley is 17 and freakin’ 3! No, we can’t tackle anybody. Yes, we want to play seven-on-seven ball. No, we can’t kick a chip-shot field goal at the end of a game. But we’re winning a lot of football games. 

And USC has Caleb Williams, the greatest player ever at the most important position.  

And never, ever forget, that in this battle with the Irish, USC also has goodness and righteousness on its side.  

Some of you might be new. You might not understand what this USC-Notre Dame rivalry is all about. You might not know who our next opponent is, and what we intend to do about it. So I’ll tell you, and I’ll use the words of the only person in the English-speaking world who can really do justice to this rivalry:

You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.

That’s right, I’m using Winston Churchill to make ridiculous and deeply inappropriate historical analogies. Because that’s what rivalry week is all about! If you can’t deal with that, Musings is not for you. 

Let us not misunderstand the challenge, my friends. Our Trojans are walking into the most historic, the most legendary venue in all of college football. Many have fallen there. And we, too, could fall, for everything will be arrayed against us: the weather, the officials, that stupid leprechaun, Alex Grinch, those tall guys that come out with the band wearing the stylish plaid skirts, the greatest fight song in college football, Satan, the world’s ugliest coeds, Knute Rockne, poor tackling, the awful parking situation, the toll roads with their never-ending demand for loose change, angry nuns, the gold helmets, the Golden Dome, Lou Holtz’s lisp, the mural, the grotto, the wooden horse, tall grass, and all of ghosts that, even now, occasionally rise from the depths of Hades and come back to torment the opposition at that stadium.  

I’ve seen things there I never want to see again. Tony Rice and Rocket Ismail in 1989. The wind changing sides against the hapless Paul Hackett in 1999. Marc Edwards in 1995. Pete’s fake punt in 2001. Everything—and I mean everything—about 2017.

But I’ve also seen things glorious things, beautiful things. Ron Powlus getting sacked to end my first game in South Bend in 1997. The 38-0 beat down in 2007 that looked more like a medieval punishment than a football game. Reggie exploding on the Irish in 2003. Jawanza Starling’s 80-yard fumble return for a touchdown in 2011. And, of course, the greatest of them all, the event that ripped out Notre Dame hearts in a way never seen before or since, the magical ending in 2005 with its two classic plays: 4th and 9 and the Bush Push. It was my favorite moment as a USC fan. It was my favorite sports moment, period. It was the greatest moment in American history.

USC-Notre Dame is like nothing else. If I didn’t hate them all so much, I’d feel sorry for Ohio State and Michigan, for Oklahoma and Texas, for Auburn and Alabama. Because they have great rivalries, but they don’t have the greatest rivalry. This isn’t a rivalry between two midwestern neighbors that hate each other but pretty much look the same to everybody else. It’s not a rivalry between two teams separated by a small, muddy stream. It’s not a rivalry between two groups of intolerable southerners from a state that has nothing but football. It’s a battle between two proud and elite institutions separated by 2,000 miles and vastly different cultures. USC-Notre Dame is a clash of civilizations. It’s the best rivalry in sport. And don’t argue otherwise: Hyman Roth wasn’t watching OU-Texas. 

So it’s time. Time for the biggest game in college football. Time for the one that makes or breaks careers. Time for the one that makes legends. Time to watch college football’s greatest quarterback play in college football’s greatest venue. Time for my favorite game of the year, every year. 

Notre Dame is flawed. They’ve shown it the last few weeks. They’re big and physical but they’re not explosive. (And after watching that Arizona game last night, big and physical scares me a little. How about you?)

Yes, Notre Dame is flawed. They’re also embarrassed. They’re hurt. They’re angry. And they’re coming home to play the team they hate the most in one of the greatest stadiums on earth in front of 80,000 fans that hate us with a burning passion. It’s going to be an unbelievable atmosphere for a football game. USC can win this game, but our guys better come ready to play. And they better come with some fire. Because the Irish will.

I can’t wait. I have butterflies already. And I can’t do it justice, either. I’m committed to this ridiculous analogy and there’s no turning back now. So bring us home Winston:

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend Troy, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of Irish tyranny, if necessary with the help of the defense, if necessary with offense alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight on special teams, we shall fight in the run game, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend the Jeweled Shillelagh, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on special teams, we shall fight in the tunnel (maybe—it’s happened before), we shall fight in the trenches and in the secondary, we shall fight in the offensive backfield; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this football team or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then Caleb Williams, armed and guarded by the greatest skill set college football has ever seen, will carry on the struggle alone, until, in God’s good time, Caleb, with all his power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of his teammates.  

Beat the Irish.