Five Thoughts on USC's Win Against Oregon State, Halfway Mark

1. Good Enough, Not Great: If not for USC subbing Matt Fink for Sam Darnold with 7-1/2 minutes left in the game and Fink taking that QB option to run for 51 yards and a touchdown, it's not clear that USC would have scored again. Had the final score been 31 - 10, USC would have owned the ignoble distinction of scoring the least number of points by an OSU opponent this season. The Trojans are good enough to win most games, but they're not great enough to win the national championship, at least, not if the season ended today.
2. Best Unit: I really like the defensive line (and more broadly the front seven). So many questions, so many difficulties, yet, the defensive line seems to answer the call and step up -- Big Kenechi Udeze (BKU) will eventually become a defensive coordinator, I'm sure. If not for the subpar offensive line play of late -- largely because of the rash of injuries -- I would have had the running backs as the best unit. Both units looked spectacular in fall camp drill videos and all that work carried over into games. If you look at special teams, aside from a ton of mistakes, they've improved the most since the first game. That's it.
3. Getting Better?: This is the question everyone is asking. The answer, of course, is that over the first half of the season some players definitely got better -- Christian Rector, Jack Jones, Ronald Jones, Tyler Vaughns -- and yet, it doesn't feel as though this year's squad has made the big improvements over the first six games as last year's squad. The inconsistency is why it's so difficult to see where the improvements are.
4. The Talent-Results Differential: For the past four years, OSU has at or near the bottom of the PAC-12 in recruiting while USC has been ranked #1 all that time. Yet, it wasn't clear through the entire game that the teams were separated by talent by a wide margin -- something that was hoped for and expected. All teams have lulls, but USC seems to constantly fall into them this year. Still, if USC ends up 11-3 or 12-2, wouldn't that still qualify as success? I think I understand why people are frustrated and it has less to do with results and more about the clash of culture -- see #3 below.
5. Father Knows Best: Helton is very much like the 50s iconographic TV father who was stern but loving. Helton's soft delivery grates on so many people because we live in a completely different period in time where our caffeinated, intensely competitive world has eschewed pats on the back for chest bumps. We enjoyed the Pete Carroll - Jim Harbaugh feud because it lined up two very intense personalities against each other. With Helton, everything feels deconflicted. We miss the intensity. We miss conflict. When you listen to the players speak about the game and their opponents, they're projecting Helton. They deconflict.