5 Thoughts for September 21, 2015 (all about football)

This is a rant against USC and Seattle.

1. I had to rewatch the USC - Stanford game to double-check what went wrong. It's fair to say that both the coaches and the players failed in their respective duties. If the players aren't in the right position to make plays, that's as much on the coaching staff as it is on the players, but many times players (even their super stars) were missing tackles or failing to keep the edge. The most frustrating error was when the linebackers made the wrong read and hit the wrong gap; not only do you hit the wrong gap but then the pulling guard / tackle is free to block down (to the other inside linebacker or the safety) and pave a lane for the runner. The second-most frustrating error was the lack of communication on the field on both sides of the ball.
2. The USC defensive scheme did not work. Stanford was lining up 6 and 7 offensive linemen -- I'm not talking about the tight end lining up, but extra guards and / or tackles -- and yet the free safety was 10 yards deep or there were just 4 or 5 defensive guys on the line. Here's the problem: Stanford was using 6-7 offensive linemen weighing 300# against USC's 3 defensive linemen at 300# and two other guys at around 240# -- so guess who wins that battle most of the time. If USC ran a 5-2 or a 4-3, the Trojans would have more heft against the power run like Stanford, but Wilcox's defense is instead stuck at the 3-4 to attack the spread offense.
3. The USC defensive play calling was also atrocious. On 3rd and 8 the Trojans went to zone defense. On 1st and 10 they went to zone defense. I understand the zone defense on 2nd and 15 or 3rd and 15, but 10 yards and under, you're practically giving away the soft zone below the corner and safeties, in between the slower linebackers -- the fastest linebacker, Su'a Cravens was playing the hybrid, so he wasn't usually in the zone defense. And when they went with cover-2, the safeties were so deep as to completely disappear off the TV screen -- it was as though USC were playing defense with 9 players. When they blitzed -- comically, they rarely blitzed -- they only sent linebackers and half the time they were delayed blitzes; they hardly ever changed from presnap formations, either.
4. Next weekend's game (September 26) is at Arizona State, at night, just as it was nearly two years ago (September 28, 2013). Similarly, the head coach was on a hot seat. After a dismal 41-62 loss, Lane Kiffin lost his job shortly after the plane touched down in Los Angeles. I think the odds are very high, given how Sarkisian and Wilcox played it safe on defense last year and practically handed the Sun Devils the game in the fourth quarter, that were the Trojans to lose in Tempe, the alumni will demand the heads of Wilcox and Sarkisian. I have some patience left for Steve Sarkisian (because he willingly gave up offensive play-calling this year), but absolutely zero patience left for Justin Wilcox. In his one year (2013) as DC, Clancy Pendergast removed the ghosts of Monte Kiffin's Tampa-2 (similar to cover-2) with a 5-2 base and an aggressive style, to boost USC's defense to 13th nationally (335 yards per game) -- back to the Pete Carroll years. Under Wilcox, the Trojans have sunk to 74th last year (408 yards per game) and 80th this year (395.3 ypg) -- and given that two of those teams were from the Sun Belt, I'd say Wilcox isn't yet fit to be a DC at a major program.
5. The Seahawks are in trouble on offense. Look, you know your offensive line stinks, so why don't you do more rollouts -- you know, like how you used to do two seasons ago when you won the Super Bowl? Worse still, you go out and get the second-best tight end receiver in the NFL in Jimmy Graham, and in two games, he's only been targeted 10 times (of those 10, just twice against Green Bay)? Last year with New Orleans, he'd had 10 or more targets in 7 games. I'm willing to give offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell the benefit of the rest of the season to turn around the play-calling, as the defensive secondary also stinks. However, it's hard to ignore the fact that most people considered the offense upgraded during the off-season, though it has clearly fallen far short of expectations -- that comes down to the OC.