5 Thoughts on USC's Loss at WSU

1. As Expected: I wish I wasn't right, but as I suspected might happen, USC's secondary wasn't good enough to handle a really good passing team and the offensive passing game was only modestly successful. The defense kept losing the battle of the 3rd and long which is absolutely puzzling -- the odds are normally stacked against you in 3rd and long but WSU kept converting on midrange passes. Now believe me, WSU is a really good passing team, but they're nowhere close to being a championship-caliber team. So unless USC steps it up several levels, they're going to end up 9-3 after the regular season and out of playoff contention.
2. Too Balanced: It is obscene at this point, that USC's has this bullheadedness about pursuing a perfect balance in the offense. They ended the game with 29 rushes for 163 yards and 29 passes for 164 yards. It's a failure in logic, really. WSU is completely unbalanced with huge lean on the passing game, yet, as you might have seen tonight, their run game is doing well enough. Why? Because the defense is tilted to protect against the pass, leaving 6 guys near the line with a wide open lane to get to the second level if you get past the line of scrimmage. That's how Jamal Morrow broke those two long runs. If WSU can move the ball with an imbalanced game, why can't USC go with the flow of the game? It's one of the most perplexing and annoying parts of the USC offense, going back to the Sark years.
3. Stop Making it About the 4th Quarter: Except for the Stanford game, every game this season has pretty much gone the same way with USC coaches and players expecting to make a huge surge in the 4th quarter to win games. That's not how you get to an undefeated season. Ask any oddsmaker and they'll tell you that you're not always going to come from behind to win the game, late in the 4th quarter; you have to rely on too many things going the right way in order to win. They're setting themselves up for failure in the 4th quarter -- which is exactly what happened to Sam Darnold and a hobbled offensive line relying on three backups including a pair of true freshmen. 
4. Good Loss or Bad Loss?: On the one hand, this was a bad loss because it exposed all of the shortcomings of the USC's coaching staff and likely cost Darnold his top spot in the draft as well as any awards. On the other hand, it's like they needed to lose in order to get the monkey off their backs or maybe a slap in the face. They have to stop pretending to be contenders; either they know they're contenders or they're not. This season has so far looked more like a team relieved that they survived than a team of gladiators relishing the next, bigger challenge. It's up to them whether this turns out to be a bad loss or a good loss. I think this will be a good loss, but we won't know it until they, figuratively speaking, punch both Utah and Notre Dame in the mouth and crush them.
5. Bad PAC-12 Refs: This is one of those games where the PAC-12 refs were so awful in every aspect of the game, that they had a huge impact on the outcome. They correctly called targeting -- a player used his helmet to hit the receiver in the upper chest/helmet who was already being tackled -- only to have it reversed upstairs. What the hell? It is clearly visible in the video. The defensive player turned his helmet down just before he made the hit. You can see the helmet hitting the face mask. They talk about protecting players but it's not true; it's mostly fake and it's been this way even after the studies linking CTE and concussions.