Oct 28

Lost in Space: Lane Kiffin and the 2012 Trojans

Were the expectations outsized? Obviously. Are the results – to this point – acceptable? No.

As I look ahead to next Saturday at what – win or lose – was to be a shining moment for a USC football program that was laughing in the face of overwrought NCAA sanctions to compete for a national championship only three years after beginning its probationary period, it’s a shame that the luster has come off the battle with Oregon. It’s even a bigger shame that Lane Kiffin’s USC football team is wholly responsible for that fact.

Matt Barkley made some mistakes in the loss to Arizona, but nothing to compare to Lane Kiffin’s tactical miscalculations.

Yesterday’s absurd 39-36 loss at Arizona was the ultimate antithesis of the Trojans’ epic 38-35 win at Oregon a season ago – the game that set the expectations for the 2012 team. And while the players on the field deserve their share of the blame for the mistakes that handed the game to a decent but outmanned Wildcat team, many of those mistakes trace back directly to the head coach’s office. And the fact that USC could have made all of those errors and still should have won the game going away with even the simplest of coaching decisions lies directly at the foot of Kiffin’s desk.

During the Pete Carroll era, one of the defining characteristics of USC football was the mentality – from the game’s opening kickoff – that we are going to play our game and you, the opponent, will have to adjust to what we do. It’s become clearer, week by week in 2012, that that theory is completely out the window under Kiffin. Whether you want to call it overthinking, timidity or (in the kindest possible evaluation) a coach looking to protect his players because of the depth issues facing a team on sanctions, USC has consistently showed the desire to adjust its game to minimize the perceived strengths of its more dangerous opponents. While in-game adjustments to the reality of what’s happening on the field are normal (and a place where Carroll-coached teams continue to regularly outshine Kiffin-coached squads), changing a team’s personality week to week is a risky way to coach football.

Not only that, but in games like yesterday – a game where the USC offense’s personnel advantage over its counterparts on the Arizona defense was massive – it reeks of conservatism. Late in yesterday’s game, I tweeted: “Defining difference between Carroll and Kiffin: given a chance for the killshot, Carroll always took it. Kiffin is becoming JRIII.” While, to the uninitiated, this reference to former USC coach John Robinson might look strange, Kiffin’s effort – both early and late in yesterday’s loss – brought the sometimes overly conservative Robinson to mind.

From the get-go, it was clear that USC was interested in running clock and trying to keep the Arizona offense off the field for long stretches. The Trojans continually put themselves in third-down situations early on and, while they were more proficient in those situations yesterday than they’ve been most of the season, needlessly extended drive after drive. When those initial three USC drives, all of which reached inside the Arizona 25-yard line, ended with a pair of turnovers and a failed fourth-down pass, USC found itself down 10-0.

Tell me: what’s the point? If you’re able to score at will against a defense, why not score as simply and quickly as possible and put the onus on the opposition’s offense to keep up with you? Why concede – immediately – that you’re playing Arizona’s game? Why show that you’re so concerned with what Arizona is capable of on offense that – instead of taking advantage of a defense that is comparable in talent and depth to Colorado, sadly – you’re going to slow down and minimize the capabilities of your offensive talent? Why do you want to run more plays, thereby giving your questionably-disciplined team more chances to commit silly, drive-stopping penalties? Why give the officials, who know USC’s M.O. now and come into games on alert for the most minor Trojan miscue, more chances to throw those flags? Why does it take a quarter-and-a-half to fully realize that Arizona couldn’t keep up with passes down the field to Marqise Lee (and for that matter, Robert Woods) if it had 14 players on the field? Why not just go for the jugular? When I watch Lee play, I see a player who completely believes he has a chance to score on every play. It’s inspiring to see that confidence and desire in a player. And, yesterday, he was actually in a position where he was as close as he’ll ever be to being 100-percent correct in that belief. It’s Lee’s kind of confidence that points out Kiffin’s timidity even more clearly.

If ever there was a player who shouldn’t have been disappointed in a game, it was Marqise Lee after his epic performance in Saturday’s loss in Tucson.

So, after 20 minutes of screwing around and trying to “protect the defense,” Kiffin finally realizes, “Hey, let’s get the ball downfield, especially to Marqise, and see if they can stop it.” Great! Almost immediately, USC takes off on a 28-3 run – overcoming even the dumbest of penalties (and, by the way, who knew that if you run fewer plays to score, you have fewer opportunities to commit the dumb penalties that are becoming one of this USC team’s trademarks) – and takes total control of the game early in the third quarter. Lee is setting records with every catch, and the USC defense (much to Kiffin’s consternation, I imagine) is actually performing better through the game’s first 40 or so minutes when the Trojan offense is pumping the ball up and down the field.

And then? Kiffin reverts to the formula that had put USC in a 10-0 hole in the first place. You saw it. I saw it. Instead of going for the kill – and USC had two possessions with a chance to take what would have been a deflating 35-13 lead, likely ending all Arizona hopes – the Trojans almost voluntarily removed Lee from the offense, got conservative (aside from one lonely deep shot to Woods that Barkley overthrew) and went cold. Before Kiffin readjusted, Arizona was not only back in the game but in the midst of a 26-0 run of its own that would put USC in Hail Mary mode at the end of a game it should have rightfully won going away – even with the ridiculous penalties and turnovers that haunted the performance.

This was the outcome Kiffin and the Trojans barely avoided two weekends ago in Seattle, when some timely hits by the defense stunted Washington’s burgeoning momentum while the USC offense played it needlessly safe. Those timely hits weren’t forthcoming yesterday, and a defensive performance that, through about 40 minutes, was looking rather solid fell apart against the performance of a much better quarterback operating a much more creative offense than UW’s Keith Price.

So, aside from the disappointment the loss to Arizona heaps on top of (what at the time felt like) a more acceptable defeat at Stanford, where the Trojans were simply outplayed over the course of 60 minutes, what does 6-2 (with a very high likelihood of 6-3 a week from now, facing must wins against Arizona State and UCLA just to get into the Pac-12 title game) tell us about USC and Kiffin?

For one, it tells me the image of Kiffin as a master of “Eff You” football, amusingly posited on a regular basis in Zack Jerome’s fantastic and comedic Arrogant Game Previews and Recaps, is becoming more and more difficult to back up. Certainly, the journalists who cover college football are on alert for any Kiffin error, be it on the field or off. The mistakes he made in his early days as a coach with the Raiders and Tennessee haunt him, though he’s grown more mature, every time anything remotely questionable (like last week’s ridiculous number-switching “controversy) comes up. But how Kiffin has coached the 2012 USC team leaves him open to even more criticism, for how the Trojans have played and how Kiffin has coached are far from the brand of “arrogance” that has long been a positive for USC football. The aura of timidity turns that “arrogance” – read here as the Carroll Way of “Here’s what we’re gonna do. You figure out how to stop it.” – to a perception of petulance and immaturity. I’d far prefer the Kiffin of Jerome’s columns to the one operating on the USC sideline this season.

When you toss in the ridiculous number of personal foul and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties committed by USC – even supposed team leaders – that perception grows. There is no excuse for nearly all of those penalties – especially at this point – but to see a captain like T.J. McDonald take an obvious taunting penalty on the game’s THIRD DEFENSIVE PLAY (a penalty that turned a three-and-out for Arizona into an eventual touchdown), well, that’s just plainly a failure by the player to learn. And who do we look at first when a player fails to learn such a lesson? His coaching staff.

Here’s the reality: Lane Kiffin likely will be USC’s coach through the 2014 season at the very least. With a 24-9 mark over 2 ½ tumultuous and sanctioned seasons, there’s no way (at this point) for the USC athletic department to sell that Kiffin is unfit for duty. However, with key leaders like Barkley, McDonald and Khaled Holmes now down to their final full month as Trojan footballers, Kiffin faces a clear turning point in his career over the next 13 months. This is a team that could literally finish the season anywhere between 6-7 and 12-2. It’s physically capable of beating any team left on the schedule – but its lack of a true personality and error-prone ways also mean that the Trojans can be beaten by every team left on the schedule. And, especially after yesterday, can anyone rightfully figure out what to expect from the Trojans in 2013?

Kiffin needs to decide who HE is going to be as a head coach. By making that decision, which is one that will require a big jump in maturity and self-searching, only then will he be able to tell us what the real personality of the USC Trojan football program will be under his control. Burying your head in a play card while the season slips away because of your timidity and your team’s lack of self control is not going to cut it. This is a team that’s clearly in search of a leader, and Kiffin hasn’t gotten the job done on that score through the season’s first eight games.

Look, Kiffin sure as hell isn’t Pete Carroll (not many are). But – even with a performance like yesterday’s that was mindful of the late 1990s USC program – he isn’t quite Paul Hackett either. Yet. He’s too young of a coach – too unfinished a product – to be tossed aside that blithely. But, he’s not the coach at a mid-level school working his way up (he could have stayed at Tennessee if that was the gig he wanted). He’s the coach of the premier college football program on the West Coast; the only football program west of Texas that has any respect on a national level. It may not be fair, but he needs to become a finished product quickly or risk heading down the Hackett Highway.

How Kiffin and the Trojans respond to Saturday’s brutal, senseless and needless loss over the next four weeks will write the first chapter in one of two books – Kiffin’s ultimate demise at Troy, or the beginning of a truly new era of USC football personified by a more steadfast and professional young coach.

Oct 10

Weeks 4-6 Review: Pac-12 Picking the Winners Recap

The past three weeks of the 2012 college football season began to give fans some focus on who the contenders and pretenders really are. Here’s a quick look back on the past three weeks of Pac-12 action, centered around my 12th Annual Picking the Winners Pac-12 preview, which appeared prior to the season on USCFootball.com. To recap my initial picks:

A Mixed Bag as We Shift to Fall

After pair of very difficult three-loss weeks – thanks mainly to the emergence of a surprise Oregon State squad and the falterings of Utah and California – my 5-0 mark in Week Six is hopefully a sign of things to come. Let’s take a look back.

Week 4

Beaver Celebration

Oregon State Coach Mike Riley, in a photo uploaded to Twitter, is all smiles outside a Pasadena-area In-N-Out Burger on Sept. 22 after his Beavers beat UCLA, 27-20.

Oregon over Arizona, 49-0 (picked at 54-17); USC over California, 27-9 (picked at 45-17): My only two wins of the week were eminently predictable, even though Arizona had stirred up enough interest with a 3-0 start to land near the bottom of the top 25 just in time to give the Ducks an easy win over a very questionably ranked opponent. Still, Oregon’s defense was impressive against RichRod’s redesigned (and heretofore stellar) UofA offense. USC’s bounce-back win against the Bears in the Coliseum was another clockwork win for the Trojans in their 100th meeting with Cal. USC has now won nine in a row over Jeff Tedford.

Among my three losses suffered, the Beavers’ 27-20 win over UCLA in the Rose Bowl — followed by their much publicized trip to a local In-N-Out Burger after the game — was perhaps the most surprising. Oregon State had played just a single game (an upset win over Wisconsin on Sept. 8) thanks to a postponement of its opener and an early bye. But the Beaver defense was more than up to the task of slowing the Bruins’ previously impressive offense.

The other losses — Utah’s 37-7 throttling at the hands of Arizona State in Tempe and Colorado’s shocking 35-34 comeback win at Wazzu — were wholly unpredictable in late August. Heck, the Cougars’ loss was wholly unpredictable with 10 minutes left in a game against a team that had given up 69 points to Fresno State a week before. Injuries and inconsistency have really hampered Utah in the early going. But, at the same time, this Sun Devil team looks like one to watch in the coming weeks.

UW’s Bishop Sankey celebrated with thousands of Husky fans after a 17-13 upset win on Sept. 27.

Week 5

Oregon over Washington State, 51-26 (picked at 48-21); UCLA over Colorado, 42-14 (picked at 30-17): Again, my two wins during the final weekend of September (while I was traveling in London), were about the most predictable of the week. The Ducks’ first foray onto the road in 2012 wasn’t even a true road game (the Cougars hosted the game at Seattle’s CenturyLink Field), while the Bruins unloaded on a Buff team that may have still been hung over from what may end up being its lone win of 2012.

On the other hand, even after Stanford’s victory at home against USC, anyone who was shocked that the Cardinal lost at Washington, 17-13, on a Thursday night in Seattle really wasn’t paying much attention. Stanford QB Josh Nunes was bottled up by the Huskies, Stepfan Taylor couldn’t get on track in the running game, and in a game very similar in style and pace to the Cardinal’s win over the Trojans, it was the Huskies who came up with the key plays late in a close and not-all-that-pretty contest.

My other two losses featured road wins for the conference’s early surprise teams: Oregon State over Arizona, 38-35, in Tucson, and Arizona State over Cal, 27-17, in Berkeley. The Beavers moved to 3-0 and up the rankings, while the Sun Devils’ win in the Bay Area got a bit of a road monkey off their backs.

USC’s Keystone Kops routine in Utah got old really fast in a Paris hotel bedroom in the middle of the night.

Week 6

USC over Utah, 38-28 (picked at 27-20); California over UCLA, 43-17 (picked at 31-19); Oregon over Washington, 52-21 (picked at 43-23); Oregon State over Washington State, 19-6 (picked at 33-30); Stanford over Arizona, 54-48 in overtime (picked at 38-24): Finally, a perfect week — though not without some moments of worry. The Trojans’ comically bad first three minutes in Salt Lake City left them in a 14-0 hole. Let me tell you from first-hand experience, that’s really not what you’re looking for when you’re in Paris at 3 a.m. on a Friday, waking up to an alarm to watch the game on your laptop. But, for the next 56 minutes, USC hammered Utah to the tune of 38-7, perhaps finding itself for the first time in 2012.

Stanford’s wild win against the Wildcats on the Farm could finally set Nunes on his way to stepping out of Andrew Luck’s shadow (and, yes, after an impressive first three weeks, the past three weeks have pointed out the deficiencies that remain on defense in Tucson). Across the bay, nothing is a better salve for a pained Cal squad than a visit from its little brother to the south. The Bears’ surprisingly impressive trouncing of the Bruins was Cal’s seventh consecutive home win against UCLA, which last won in Strawberry Canyon in 1998.

Oregon’s ninth-consecutive win over Washington was wholly unsurprising — especially after the Huskies looked so shaky as a group in falling behind 21-0. You can bet that won’t be the UW team USC sees in Seattle this Saturday. The Huskies have a truly split personality at home and on the road in 2012. Finally, though the Beavers moved to 4-0, what’s next after QB Sean Mannion went down with an injury that’s likely to keep him sidelined for the rest of October (at least)?

Record through six weeks: 33-15

Enjoy this weekend’s games!

Sep 18

Weeks 2-3 Review: Pac-12 Picking the Winners Recap

The second and third weeks of the 2012 college football season featured plenty of surprises. Here’s a quick look back on the past two weeks of Pac-12 action, centered around my 12th Annual Picking the Winners Pac-12 preview, which appeared prior to the season on USCFootball.com. To recap my initial picks:

Week 2=At least I’m not a Buff. Week 3=However, I am a Trojan.

After a shaky second week (7-5) – mainly due to a series of big Pac-12 surprise victories – things returned closer to normal in week three (8-2). Let’s take a look back.

Week 2

If it was possible for Colorado to be more embarrassed than it was after losing to Sac State, they might have accomplished it last weekend in Fresno.

Cal over Southern Utah, 50-31 (picked at 44-10); Oregon over Fresno State, 42-25 (picked at 49-14); Stanford over Duke, 50-13 (picked at 38-13); USC over Syracuse, 42-29 (picked at 41-20); LSU over Washington, 41-3 (picked at 31-17): While these four were winners, all by predicted double-digit margins, I only came within 10 points of the final spread on the Trojans’ sloppy victory over the Orange. On the other hand, the Huskies did the conference no favors by laying a massive egg in already provincial SEC-land. My other two wins, Arizona State’s 45-14 whipping of Illinois and Washington State’s too-close-for-comfort 24-20 win over FCS Eastern Washington, were flip-flopped from predictions (I had ASU tight and WSU big).

Two of my five losses were pretty disappointing for the conference. Utah’s horrific performance in a 27-20 loss at Utah State was only overshadowed by Sacramento State taking down a Pac-12 foe for a second consecutive season in a 30-28 win over Colorado (the Hornets toppled Oregon State in 2011).

UCLA’s Johnathan Franklin has been spectacular through three games.

The other three losses in week two were all Pac-12 upsets that gained the conference some national respect. As I said in my preview, before picking Nebraska in a close one against UCLA, “this type of game – early September, traditional football power opponent, at the Rose Bowl – has been when the Bruins play their best.” That they did, notching a 36-30 upset. Arizona gained a measure of revenge for a pair of blowout losses to Oklahoma State the past two seasons by hammering the Cowboys, 59-38, in Tucson – and also serving notice that the Rich Rodriguez Regime is truly underway. And Oregon State, opening its season after the postponement of a Sept. 1 game vs. Nicholls State, stunned two-time defending Big 10 champion Wisconsin, 10-7.

Week 3

Washington over Portland State, 52-13 (picked at 56-10); Oregon over Tennessee Tech, 63-14 (picked at 69-6); UCLA over Houston, 37-6 (picked at 34-14): It’s always intriguing to me to see how close my picks come in games with an overwhelming favorite. In week three, I did pretty well in the Huskies’ and Ducks’ victories over FCS foes, as well as in UCLA’s win over Houston. Not so impressive were my picks in a couple of other victories that also appeared to be lopsided. I underestimated Arizona’s firepower, picking them only by 27 in an eventual 56-0 win over FCS South Carolina State. In reverse, Washington State’s closer-than-expected 35-27 win at UNLV was far less than the three-TD win I’d called for.

I’m not sure if this is right before the second or third time Ute fans stormed the field against BYU.

My other victories included a pair of hard fought losses for the conference. I picked Ohio State to whip Cal by 18. The Bears fought hard, dropping a 35-28 decision. I also picked Missouri to notch a 10-point revenge victory for last season’s loss in Tempe, but the Sun Devils rallied to make it close before losing, 24-20. I also had Utah over BYU, 31-21 – not the craziest call in the Utes’ eventual (and, by eventual, I mean Utah fans rushed the field three times before the game was officially over) 24-21 win.

This was a familiar site on the Farm last Saturday.

Speaking of rushing the field, it’s time to wonder when Stanford’s fans will come to expect a win against USC as their coaches and players seem to? The Cardinal’s fourth consecutive win in the series, 21-14 in Palo Alto, was an upset – sure (I had USC, 38-27, in my preseason picks). But, No. 16 beating No. 3 in an ugly, error-filled early season game sure didn’t seem like a rush-the-field moment. My other Week 3 loss featured, unsurprisingly at this point, Colorado. What was surprising was the score: a lower-divisionesque 69-14 loss to Fresno State. The Buffs will have to pull off one heck of an upset during conference play to avoid an 0-12 season.

Record through three weeks: 24-9

Enjoy this weekend’s games!