Losing Your Lunch: USC Game Pick

Hello Followers.  Hope you’ve had a tremendous first week of Zeptember!

As some of you may recall, a few years ago I had an unparalleled win streak calling Cougar football games.  Not only did I have a perfect season in 2007, I wound up being one game short of a perfect mark in 2008 (I picked us to beat Hawaii).  Since then, well, I’ve been Joe Average across the board.

And with my sterling 0-1 start to this year, one has to wonder if mediocrity should now be the goal for me moving forward.  I mean, I’m already 1/12 of the way to a winless season! ……

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Followers, when I look back at last week’s prediction, I feel like a chance at something special slipped through my fingers.  I mean, when you boil it down to its basics, we were literally ONE Mike Bowlin kick out of the endzone from winning that stinking game 31-24.  And if that had happened, well, we all know how famous I would be right now..

So, tonight our boys will board a plane down to LA-LA land to take on the 25^th ranked Men of Conquest.  And man, winning down there would be SWEET in so many ways.  For one, win tomorrow night and we’d stand at 1-0 in conference—only 7 or so short from the conference championship game!

But even more to the point, winning tomorrow would make 4 conference wins and bowl eligibility a tangible prospect for this bunch.  What’s more, I don’t think anyone can underestimate what a win tomorrow IN LA would do for recruiting—especially if we could light them up.

And truly, the idea of us laying the wood to USC is a distinct possibility.  I mean, last week we saw how close we are to really figuring out Air Raid.  We also saw how close our defense is to being able to play teams straight up—without a bunch of funky blitz packages—or stunts.  And so, when I think about how it is that we might be able to match up against a pro-style offense that has “normal” or even slow pace, well, I find myself starting to drool a bit. 

But then I start to think about the fact that we’re playing U-S-C.  I think about how hard it is to win a road game in conference when you’re re-building, and how hard it is to win a road game in front of friends, family, and 89,900 others.  I think about Connor Halliday and his propensity to not only make mistakes, but his uncanny ability to make mistakes of consequence—e.g.,  ones that lead to points for the opposition or result in lost redzone opportunities for us.

And when I think of the fact we ran EIGHTY EIGHT stinking plays last week but managed to tally only 24 against a pretty green Auburn team, well, breaking that mythical 30 point barrier feels pretty untenable for this group right now!

And truly, that’s before I even start to really think about the sheer strength, talent, and size of USC’s front seven as well as the speed they have along that secondary of theirs.

In the end, picking this game for me feels like it’s all about taking off the blinders.  I mean, clearly, we aren’t going to win this game if the play of Fullington and Forbes makes me think that their nicknames should be the “F-Bombs.”

We aren’t going to win this game if Kristoff Williams drops 3 balls or if key playmakers like Dominique Williams, Ricky Galvin, and Bobby Ratliff aren’t physical enough to get off the line.

And we aren’t going to win this game if Halliday turns the ball over inside our own 40 yard line or inside their redzone like he did twice last week.   And we aren’t going to win if we decide to actually kick-off to any of those SC burners either.

I sure wish Marquis could have done this again in 2013!

But let’s be honest folks, all of those so-called “keys to the game” apply to every game that we play against teams not named Idaho or Southern Utah.  Because if making those kind of mistakes becomes our modus operandi , we aren’t going to beat very many teams no matter how “improved” we think we are.

So, for me, this game comes down to a few simple “facts.”  Fact 1:  Lane Kiffin is NOT a very good coach.  Fact 2:  Depth issues always seem to REALLY strike probation nation outfits a few years AFTER probation is lifted.  Fact 3:  This is not your older brother’s, father’s, or grandfather’s USC.

I mean, since Matt Barkley went down against UCLA, the Trojans are 1-3 with that one “W” coming over a Hawaii team that was 3-9 last year.

Since Matty B. went down last year, the mighty Trojan offense is averaging a WHOPPING 16.6 points a game.  And while the scoreboard says that SC put up 30 points against Hawaii last week, the box score credits only 23 of those points to the offense—the other touch was the result of a pick 6!!!  Meaning, SC's offense is actually averaging 14.4 ppg since Matty B went down.

SC Sucks without Me!

So, even though I expect SC to come out with a much better effort than they did last week, the evidence does not support the notion that they are going to come out and light up the scoreboard—even if our secondary is already a bit beat up and/or suspect.  Instead, I am of the mind that SC is going to put up somewhere between 17 and 24 points in this game—assuming that we avoid the type of game wrecking mistakes (INTs and Special Teams gaffes) that make teams lose against any non-Directional school.

So, for me, the game comes down to how many points we’re able to score and how well we’re able to convert inside the red-zone.   And, while I’m still reluctant to believe that we are going to be able to win this one comfortably, I am of the mind that we’ll be able to do enough to score 24-27.

And that’s pretty much where we’re going to leave it.  Cougs shock the world by nipping the Trojans 27-23 in a game that will be close enough that I won’t be able to sleep until well after 2:00am (Eastcoast time) in the morning on Sunday….And yes, Furney is going to play a HUGE role in this contest.

All for now.  Go Cougs.