Losing Your Lunch: The Breske Bunch

Hello Followers.  Hope your week is off to a great start.

Today, I take an ever so brief look back to the SC game—with particular attention to the crew that I am now dubbing “The Breske Bunch.”  So, to check out my thoughts on what has become a pretty exciting defense– plus my weekly Pac-12 rankings, then read on..

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Midway through the second quarter on Saturday night I got a text from my good buddy Seanhawk.    His message: 

"We keep dropping eight, interesting."

Of course, we wound up dropping eight all night, resulting in a swarm of linebackers and defensive backs around Marquis Lee and the rest of those hapless Lois Lanes.

Then yesterday, we learned from Junior Guanta’s media session with that Breske and company have been practicing rushing 3 and dropping 8 since fall camp.  The reason?  Well for one, we know that other teams are going to give our offense that look all year long—so it makes good sense to have them practice against what they're gonna see in games.  But the other one became very apparent on Saturday night:  The reason why we can rush three and drop eight is because our defensive line might just be THAT good.

And truly, after just catching the game again on the Pac-12 network, their performance was the lost story—at least nationally.  Moreover, while I understand why everyone wants to focus on SC’s quarterback situation, their O-Line got pretty worked in the passing game most of the night.  And truly, I haven’t seen SC’s offensive line so unable to get a push up front since a certain Stanford team knocked off the then #1 Trojans in Palo Alto this year.

So, HUGE Kudos to Mike Breske and the staff for coming up with a game plan that USC was clearly not prepared for.  And hats off to the kids for having the moxy, toughness, and focus to put it all together.  Without question, this is the best defense that we’ve had since the 2003 season.   And so, if we can figure out how to put 28-31 points a game the rest of the way, we’re going to have a REAL chance to win 7-8 games.  And who would have even dared to imagine such a possibility a few short weeks ago?

Now, to the game balls:

Damante Horton.  Played relaxed and aggressive all night.  A couple of nice tackles for loss to go with the two picks.  Simply a brilliant performance by a senior that has perservered through some tough days.  Good for him.

The D-Line.  Not much else to say other than each of them was a factor throughout the game.  I still can’t believe that we have three players that opposings teams actually have to deal with.

Daquawn Brown.  Played fantastic and even more importantly, he’s just a joy to watch.  I love his enthusiasm, his ability to both talk trash AND back it up, and his speed.  As the year progresses, he's going to get better and better, a la Lamonte Thompson (yes, I know he was a safety).  He’s just got to stay healthy!

Dom and Kristoff Williams.  Nice to see Dom break that big play despite not getting the time on the field that he needs and deserves.  And Kristoff, despite having a bit of the dropsies the week prior, was a beast against SC.   Once again, I thought that our second group of receivers (D & K. Williams, Ratliff, and Galvin) was more effective than the guys who start in front of them.

Needs Improvement

Joe Dahl.  Played so well against Auburn but really got his lunch handed to him all game against SC.  Hopefully, he’ll learn from it and move on.  But man, he had one tough, tough night. 

Connor Halliday.  Not going to belabor this, but I can deal with the periodic turnovers, I really can. What I can’t deal with is 6 points over 6 quarters.  It would be really great if we could score 28-35 points in the first half this week, get Austin in, and then see if we can score in the 60’s.  Our offensive needs confidence in the worst way—and Connor appears to need it the most–even if he comes across as a kid that's (overly) sure of himself.

Weekly Pac-12 Rankings

1.        Oregon—looked beyond terrific against Virginia last week.  I still believe that it will be the Quack playing Bama for all the marbles in January.

2.       Stanford—Moved up from the four spot because of the play of their offensive line.  Although I wasn’t altogether impressed by what I saw from San Jose State’s front, Hogan had ALL DAY to throw the football against them.   Simply put, if that offensive line can pass protect like that, Hogan will put up McCarron type numbers by season’s end.

3.       UCLA—This week’s match-up with Nebraska will give us all a good idea about how good the Bruins are, but I am starting to think that the Bruins may be a contender for an at-large BCS slot.  

4.       Arizona State—Probably should put the UW here, especially given their performance against Boise State two weeks back.  To be sure, Sac State is NOTHING to write home about, but when I saw the size and stature of ASU and how much quicker Kelly is getting the ball out of his hands, well, I think they’re going to blow Wisconsin’s doors off.  Their tilt with Stanford in two weeks may be the game of the year that no one is talking about.

5.       UW—After what Illinois did to Cincinnati, it was probably a good thing that the UW didn’t play them last week:  It might have been a disastrous “let down game” for them.  But now?  I think the Pups are going to roll in a big way.  Their game against Zona in a few weeks will be really telling.

6.       Arizona—Thought about putting our boys here, but when I look at Arizona’s running game, well, I just can’t imagine that we’d beat them right now on a neutral field. 

7.       WSU—People are going to laugh me off the blog-o-sphere for writing this, but I think the Cougs can wind up being the fourth or fifth best team in the conference in a few weeks IF the offense can start to figure it out.  Unfortunately, the current direction also suggests that we could still wind up as tenth, eleventh, or (gulp) twelth if we don’t start scoring points.

8.       Utah—Offense looks good.  Defense looks good.  Problem is, the schedule now gets tough starting with upcoming tilts against Oregon State and BYU.  I’m thinking the Utes are going to be 2-2 heading into Week 5.

9.       Oregon State—Lots and lots and lots of O to go with a D that looks like its really going to struggle this year.  Of course, they have a HUGE opportunity to right the ship this week in Salt Lake City.  But a loss in this game and the Beavs may struggle to become bowl eligible this year.  It doesn't help that Colorado looks like they can score–that game may also be interesting in a few weeks.

10.   USC—Big drop for the Trojans who could see this season get really, really ugly if they can’t turn their own offensive ship around next week.  In fact, a poor showing against BC this week will probably land Lane Kiffin in the Tub before the start of next week.

11.   Colorado—2-0 and still not getting any respect.  Well, this week, the Buffs get to play a pretty good Fresno State team.  Win that, and Mike Mac will not only have Coach of the Year nearly wrapped up, he might actually get the Buffs to 5-6 wins.   What an incredible coach and get for that program.  (Thank god CAL didn't take him!!!!)

12.   CAL—I am going to continue to rank the Bears here as long as I possibly can. This week, CAL gets Ohio State.  Next week, a bye.  The week after that?  Oregon.  And then us.  We really need them to be a BROKEN 1-3 by the time we head to the Bay Area. 

Okay, that’s all the time I have for today.  I’ll be back later in the week with my game pick. 

All for now.  Go Cougs.