New "Inside the Trojans' Huddle" (July 12): Dr. Carol Folt, a USC-to-Big Ten scapegoat, hero, or villain? Road games wrath? 2024 Big Ten divisions; USC NIL success or failure? "Musings with Arledge", FOX Sports, and more...

On this week’s “Inside the Trojans’ Huddle”, panelists Marc Kulkin, Chris Arledge, Erik McKinney, and Greg Katz discuss should USC president Dr. Carol Folt be a Pac-12 scapegoat, hero, or villain for the Trojans’ decision to go to the Big Ten in 2024? How much wrath will the Trojans endure at Pac-12 road games over their departure to the Big Ten? Should there be concern over the Trojans losing recruits due to NIL competition? Who is responsible for a FOX Sports fan poll on social media over more potential Pac-12 additions to the Big Ten? And, of course, viewer questions and panel answers.

In the first quarter of ITTH, the panel gives their opinions on whether USC president Dr. Carol Folt is being unfairly blamed for the Trojans departure to the Big Ten and is she merely a scapegoat? The panel looks at the overall perspective of potential heroes and villains for the Trojans heading the Big Ten, but is Dr. Folt the bottom-line villain? You might be surprised at the panel’s answers.

In the second quarter, now that Pac-12 schools know the Trojans are headed to the Big Ten, just how uncomfortable will conference road games be for the Men of Troy. The panel discusses the potential hostilities. Erik McKinney says that the folks in Utah will be more than up to it to give the visitors from Los Angeles a hard time. Katz says the real road game challenge will not be in 2022, but when the Trojans visit a certain university in the state of Oregon.

For the halftime segment, the panel addresses the changes of divisions in the 2024 Big Ten Conference. The Trojans and the Bruins figure to be placed in the Big Ten Western Division, but what two current Big Ten schools will be switching from the Western to the Eastern Division in two years? While the panel agrees that the structure of the Big Ten could be drastically changed into no divisions or just plain pods for 2024, there’s discussion on whether Northwestern or Illinois will be shipped to the east along with Purdue, which seems like a natural divisional rival with Indiana.

In the Huddle’s third quarter, the panel discusses how many recruiting losses should be blamed on the new aggressive and competitive NIL wars between the Trojans and their recruiting adversaries? There is a lot of discussion not only on the direction of money shifting towards offensive linemen, but who is going to pay for it? 

For the lighting of the traditional “Chris Arledge Coliseum Torch” between the third and fourth quarter, Chris’s “Musings with Arledge” welcomes Big Ten fans to Inside the Trojans Huddle and gives those fans a USC football recent history lesson on all things USC football.

In the fourth quarter, the panel discusses a recent FOX Sports poll tweet that asked viewers what four schools from a list of potential candidates should be added to the Big Ten to form a 20-team conference? Given that FOX Sports is likely behind future Big Ten expansion plans, should the network be doing such a poll? The panel has some disagreement on whether the tweet came from a major FOX Sports executive who may have been doing a marketing survey in earnest or a low-level employee just having some fun at the expense of the TV network’s Twitter account?   

And in Overtime, the panel answers viewer questions regarding advice on attending the Notre Dame Weekender in 2023. Will the offense and/or defense over or underperform in 2022? Are the Trojans trying to keep Oregon out of the Big Ten? And the possibility of the Trojans building new football facilities on campus.