if he had to do it again.
Through the first six games USC's defense was mostly smoke and mirrors.
Based on a gambling, high risk, high reward , turnover forcing, sack rewarding defense.
It was 6 and 0. AND It was against cupcakes. But it worked. And it fit USC's limited personnel.
Maybe he would have gone back to it had USC been able to run up a 3 TD lead? The refs saw to that. The smoke and mirror show might have lasted 3 more games. And The Grinch would be actually getting offers, through his agent of course.
But USC on Sat Night went all in on stopping the run. Maybe it was an ego thing. I thought it was smart.
USC was playing what the closest thing the pac 12 had to a big boy. Utah ran the ball well. It was thought that way to beat SC was to control the clock and keep USC's offense off the field. It was the knock on USC's d that it couldn't stop the run. (guilty myself) . So the grinch went all in on stopping the run.
And it worked. Sort of. Utah was held way under it's rushing season average.
But since USC sold out to stop the run, it was lit up by a mobile quarterback and an uncovered tight end.
hindsight is always 20 20. After rewatching the game on tape, I think with SC's lack of defensive personal . USC was damned either way.
Still no excuse for not spying Rising on the two point conversion , and at some point adjusting to covering the tight end, but did anyone really think Caleb could drag Hug's leftovers to an undefeated season? Really?
Well The Grinch isn't winning any awards or going anywhere. Let's see if recruiting improves and there are a handful of good decent sized football players in the portal that can do what he wants them to do.
With Caleb , it doesn't have to be great, it just has to keep other teams under 30. sc
Whenever you lose your do things different. He made a commitment beginning of game and made some adjustments throughout. Problem is you can’t just scream ok. We are gonna do this. And then 4 plqye later do skmetjing totally different. Utah is going no huddle as well. So there’s little to no time. You can small moderate adjustments at half and minor adjustments between drives. Other than that you have to commit to executing what you decided to be that night.
im guessing if they play again the te doesn’t catch the ball as much and the run game of Utah is stronger
It matters. Just not nearly as much as you think.
But youre stubborn, and have a difficult time admitting youre wrong. So you’re trying to pick the fly poop outta of the pepper in an attempt to prove you’re right. I get it.
If Grinch gets a HC gig, that means he did a good job and SC won a lot of games. That’s a good thing. But if he leaves, then it’s all moot. The focus then becomes finding a replacement DC.
And if they sat back and kept everything in front of them, youd be pissed we didnt do a good job stopping the run.
Whatever.
They stopped the run, forced one player to have a career game and thanks to the refs, we lost by one.
It’s modern football man. Just ask Nick Saban, his vaunted defense just gave up 52.