Hold Your Horses

Posted by DontBendDontBreak | Filed under Media Bias

After USC’s win over Ohio State, everyone (well, almost everyone, more on that later) is talking about how USC is the clear #1 team and will be in the national championship game come January.  We’ve heard that before, only to have Pete Carroll screw things up.

Ohio State was clearly overrated.  They got blown out by LSU and Florida the last two years.  It would have been a disappointment for USC NOT to blow them out.  In fact, failing to score 40 points on them is practically a loss.

Sure USC gave them their most lopsided loss under Jim Tressel and held them without a touchdown for the first time in 140 games.  Big deal.  They were missing their leading rusher, Chris “Beanie” Wells, a extraordinary talented running back who surely would have won the Heisman this year if not for his unfortunate injury.

You can’t expect a team to replace that kind of talent.  What if the Trojans lost Joe McKnight?  Or C.J. Gable?  Or Stanley Havili?  Holding the Buckeyes to an average of 2 yards a carry doesn’t seem so impressive when you consider the fact that we were basically playing against the second, third, and even fourth string RBs.

Also, this “amazing” victory came in the Coliseum, where the crowd was predominantly on the Trojans’ side.  Coach Carroll has only lost three times at home during his 7+ seasons.  Just wait until he gets into a hostile road environment.  That’s when his true colors show.

One important stat from the game that’s been glossed over is the time of possession.  Ohio State had a four minute advantage, a number that could have been a lot worse if not for how often they stopped the clock with incomplete passes in the second half as they attempted to make up the deficit.

It’s simple.  Every minute that the other team has the ball is a minute that USC can’t score a touchdown.  A team with USC’s talent should have easily scored two more touchdowns, and if Pete had felt like doing any real coaching, perhaps four.

Maybe if that had happened USC would be a unanimous number one instead of losing first place votes to Georgia (whose coach is smart enough to know that a close score makes the other team look better and thus the win appear more impressive) and Florida (whose coach actually gives his QB a chance to win the Heisman by not being afraid to let him run).

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Permalink | September 17th, 2008

One Response to “Hold Your Horses”

  1. Andrew Pitman Says:
    September 23rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Thank you! I have an idea. Let’s play 4 quarterbacks in the 4th quarter. Apparently there is something wrong with the 2004 model of playing the best guy the entire game and racking up 600+ yards of offense. Peter Caesar Carroll has consistently shown that he is incapable of following through on his own philosophies. Tell me, how exactly is it promoting “competition” when you let every quarterback and their helper monkey (that’s right Garrett Green, you’re a hairy monkey) into the game? We haven’t seen this level of “affirmative action” on a football field since OJ Simpson stumbled through here.

    Assuming I can actually SEE the game at Oregon State this year (I’m hoping the Corvalis fog machine is in the shop for repairs) - I would like to see the following come Thursday:

    1) Pete Carroll’s Cornerbacks not give up the 5 yard out six times/quarter

    2) Pete Carroll’s “Stable of Running Backs” actually score more than one touchdown each.

    3) Pete Carroll’s Coaches hide their playcalls behind their playcard. When Bill Belichick takes over for a bedridden Charlie Weis at Notre Dame next year, the Trojans mustn’t allow The Cheater to preemptively film these signals. Or else this run of only 7 (eight if we’re lucky!) victories over the rapidly improving Irish will surely come to a bitter end in South Bend next year.

    4) Pete Carroll’s Middle Linebacker to actually lead the team in tackles like a real middle linebacker should do. After all these years, he finally gets his first pick six? Leave it to Pete to get the least out of his other-worldly talents.

    5) Pete Carroll to not act like this is “just another game!” After all, if USC loses “just another game,” which they are completely capable of, how much hotter will the seat be then?

    Final thought (from Captain Obvious’ Department): How good of a coach is Pete Carroll? So good that the quarterback so good he replaced future hall-of-famer Tom Brady never started a game at USC. Seriously though. Imagine if Cassel had been leading these past few teams instead of the Cardinals backup or the Bengals overrated/over-the-hill starter. We’re looking at at 4 or 5 Crystal Balls in Heritage Hall instead of the ONE that currently resides there.

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