10 Reasons why USC got pwned by the Bruins.

1. The defense's 3-man front could not reach the quarterback. No surprise here, when you've got 5 on 3. When they switched to a traditional 4-man front (with the rush linebacker up on the line), they performed better.
2. The defense blitzed so little during the season that they looked like they didn't know how to blitz.  Rushing 5 or 6 players, only to have them stood up at the line of scrimmage, left the secondary exposed.
3. The o-line had trouble handling twists and stunts of the basic 4-man rush, so when UCLA blitzed with 5+, the outcome was predictable.
4. Even when there was space in front, the quarterback did not tuck the ball and run.  In previous games he's taken advantage of the defense, but against UCLA he didn't.
5. They looked like they didn't do any game planning. 90% of the time, it was as though they'd never seen the Bruins play.
6. A team with an offense that had previously used the wide receiver bubble screen with few positive results in live games, could not figure out how to defend the wide receiver bubble screen. I guess this just points to the defense's consistent inability to defend the bubble screen, whether against another team's offense or their own in practice.
7. The coaching staff got out-coached at halftime and the offense came out of the locker room without a sense of urgency while the defense could not get a stop.  It's telling that in their four losses, USC had scored a total of just 3 points in the third quarter -- see the charts at the bottom.
8. The players are extremely talented, but sometimes the most-talented players made mistakes at the worst time.  
9. Sark screwed up the offensive play calls at critical moments. Just once, I'd like to see a rollout with multiple options, instead of tricking no one with a run up the gut at the goal line, or likewise on 4th down. And more to the point, when your o-line is getting beat, why would you expect them to miraculously get a push to convert two yards?
10. Yes, the sanctions hurt. At almost every position except the o-line, the third-string players are all walk-ons or former walk-ons. When a player gets injured or is otherwise unavailable, the game changes significantly as the talent level drops off. Had those juniors who'd left for the NFL draft (but failed to get drafted) stayed, the team would have been three-deep at multiple critical positions.

The lack of consistency:

In wins
	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Points scored, ave	15	8	10	4
Points allowed, ave	-2	-6	-5	-6
In losses
	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Points scored, ave	8	8	1	10
Points allowed, ave	-5	-12	-8	-9
In all games
	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Points scored, ave	12	8	7	7
Points allowed, ave	-3	-8	-6	-7