Month: November 2024

USC vs. UCLA: Crosstown Transfer Expedition

Posted on by commbro

UCLA vs. USC (Crosstown Showdown)
November 23, 2024 at 7:35pm
Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA: 59,473 (of 92,000)
Total Time: 3 hours 18 minutes

The Trojans claw their way to bowl eligibility for the season on their first true road win of season—yet it’s another one that requires an asterisk. While technically a true road game…they traveled even less than their neutral site win. Somehow, they managed to miss every chance at winning a real one the entire season. Either way, at least the Victory Bell is back and even losing to #5 Notre Dame won’t stop them from going to a bowl.

The broadcast would have you believe there was a torrential downpour. At one point I seriously wondered if the weather was different between my location and the media booth. I left a bag out at the tailgate and I’m not even sure it could even be described as damp. It was almost just mist. Those broadcasters certainly can’t be accused of a mist opportunity to play up the drama. 

As if there wasn’t enough drama with triple agent, Kyle Ford, transferring back and forth between USC and UCLA. He found a way to rack up extra wins in crosstown rivalry games. Other than the Helton firing year, he found himself on the winning side of this rivalry. Not many people can claim 5 Crosstown Showdown wins (2019, 2020, 2022, 2023 [UCLA], 2024)! While he was the only one to change back and forth, Kamari Ramsey and John Humphrey joined defensive coordinator, D’Anton Lynn, on the crosstown transfer expedition, a.k.a CTE, a previously unused acronym! Maybe that is a joke in bad taste.

Lynn delivered some extremely satisfying defensive moments like stopping UCLA at 3rd-and-1 and 4th-and-1 on their own 34-yard line. Being able to stuff a QB sneak against a rival just brings a different level of joy. The defense then follows it up with stopping four straight passes to at UCLA’s 25 to end their possession, the game, and their bowl hopes all in one fell swoop.

The offense, on the other hand, barely hung on enough to survive. Even after the magical 4th down stop deep in UCLA territory just turned into a field goal. All in all, four out of five red zone trips ended in field goals. There were drives that ended at the 2, 6, 5-yard lines that were not touchdowns. If they had scored touchdowns on all of them, this game might’ve been out of reach by half time. Not being able to punch it in repeatedly is certainly disappointing. Curiously, they did run a play under center, only for it to be a play action. Although they got their only touchdown of the day from it, the play itself was a wild, unsafe scramble, a sketchy throw, and required a double clutch by Ja’Kobi Lane to complete. It could’ve been a fumble, it could’ve been a pick, it could’ve been a drop. Maiava continues to gamble big. Maybe he will continue getting lucky to balance out all the unlucky breaks this season.

Good/Badisms

Good: Speaking of Makai Lemon, his big plays like a catch and run for 64 yards, and the kickoff returns of 31 and 41 yards. And let’s not forget about the clean pass to Kyron Hudson for 39 yards.

Good: Michael Lantz making all four of his field goals. It’s the first time he hit all his field goal attempts in a game since September (on 09/28 vs. Wisconsin, 1-1). It’s also the first time he’s made a field goal since before he missed the field goal in overtime against Penn State (10/12, 3-4)

Bad: Before you start praising those special teams analysts that got us into NCAA trouble, Zachariah Branch’s performance as a punt returner continues to be butt clenching. Despite his improvement in the passing game, Maybe Makai Lemon should be the one doing those returns too?

Bad: Continued poor usage of timeouts, especially in the second half. At least they weren’t needed this time.

Bad: Hard to fault the defense that held the Bruins to their second lowest point total of the season (13, tied with #1 Oregon and #10 Indiana, below #4 Penn State [11 points]), but Garbers had thrown nearly as many interceptions as touchdowns this season, yet was near perfect for most of the second half. Bruin WR, J. Michael Sturdivant, got 100 out of 115 of his yards during that stretch. The worst one was allowing a 25 yard completion when the Bruins were starting from their own 1-yard line. He did not have any second half incompletions until that very last drive.

Good: Woody Marks continuing to carry the offense in both the ground and passing game.

CommBro Breaker

Defensive Headscratching Stats: USC is #99 in sacks per game (1.64) and #119 in tackles for a loss per game (4.36), #60 in interceptions (9), #99 in fumbles forced (5), #93 in passing yards allowed per game (235.6), yet, in the only stat that really matters, they are #32 (21.2 points per game allowed)

Czaplicki Tracker Week 12: Czaplicki dropped back down to #3 in punting yard average with 48.8 (behind 49.1 and 49.7).

Lazy Stat of the Week: I already hid a bunch of stats into the good/badisms. No more today, thank you.

USC vs. Nebraska: Schrödinger’s Quarterback and Marksism

Posted on by commbro

USC vs. Nebraska (Homecoming)
November 16, 2024 at 1:05pm
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA: 75,304 (of 77,500)
Total Time: 3 hours 21 minutes

For the seventh game this season, USC finished the game within one score of their opponent. This is only the second time they’ve been on the favorable side of it.

The new starting quarterback, Jayden Maiava, has a stat line that could lull you into a sense of confidence, but watching the game footage would show you the truth: Every play he’s involved him sits on the precipice of both success and disaster. Maybe we should just call him Schrödinger’s quarterback.

Perhaps no other play better encapsulated his style of play than the one to Kyron Hudson in the end zone in the second quarter. The play barely slipped through the defensive back’s hands to hit Hudson in the chest and pinball off the DB’s helmet back into his arms as he barely lands inbounds. The absurdity of what we witnessed left both Trojan and Husker fans in shock. These kinds of plays seemingly happened often, sometimes in our favor and sometimes in a pick six or fumble in a red zone. Those particular plays primed Nebraska for half their total scoring—for free. Sure, things ended up in our favor this time, but this type of riskiness is probably what kept him on the bench for so long.

Of course, there were some positives to the overall composition of the team as well. Lincoln Riley used more option plays and got more creative with derivatives out of similar formations. Zachariah Branch got sent on some jet sweeps, tunnel screens, and the like to establish his threat. Then Woody Marks runs allowed Jayden Maiava to keep it on some runs. All of that finally set up a fake jet sweep to Branch with Maiava taking the ball on a speed option and flipping it out to Woody Marks for the 34 yard gain on 4th-and-1. That kept the drive alive on their last score. Being able to score in the fourth quarter to pad the lead, rather than fully putting it on the defense, and being able to drain 7 minutes and 40 seconds while covering 84 yards for the touchdown is the type of thing they haven’t been able to do at home or on the road.

But, back to Marks. Although they never really lined up under center, the way Woody was running the ball with those Cold War era uniforms and field, the shades of red and yellow are enough to make anyone a Marksist.

Seize the means of offensive yards.
City of Angles does not endorse any political position.

He finished the game with a 7.7 yard average on nearly 20 runs with 5 runs over 10 yards. That doesn’t even include his contributions to the passing game. He has also crossed the 1,000 yard threshold for the season.

Good/Badisms

Good: Interception by Jaylin Smith late in the 2nd quarter on a crucial possession to keep the game tied going into the half.

Good: Duce Robinson getting time to shine with the new QB

Bad: The way Maiava carries the ball. The aforementioned fumble presented the most obvious evidence, but even on the final touchdown play, the way he held the ball out in middle of the field on 1st-and-goal could have easily been knocked out and turned into a touchback instead of a touchdown. Things have generally cut in his favor this game, but if he keeps tempting fate, the eventual outcomes against UCLA, Notre Dame, or a potential bowl opponent may not be so positive.

CommBro Breaker

With more tape now on Maiava at USC, he may not see as much success in future games. UCLA is up next and has no margin of error for bowl eligibility. They will likely be practicing/studying hard to keep Maiava contained.

Czaplicki Tracker Week 11: Czaplicki managed to climb back into 2nd place (48.9 yards per punt) after having a 51.8 yard per punt average against Nebraska. All 4 of his punts pinned the Huskers in within their own 20-yard line (starting at the 12, 4, 13, and 1). Pretty impressive day for him.

Depressing Stat of the Week: Zachariah Branch scored his FIRST touchdown of the season in the 10th game despite having the most receptions out of the wide receivers (41). Woody Marks actually leads the team with 43 receptions

Shocking Stat of the Week: Somehow USC is #14 in sacks allowed and #33 in tackles for a loss allowed. Despite how poorly it started, it appears things have improved statistically (and from an eye test)

USC vs. Rutgers/Washington: CommBro vs. Busyness

Posted on by commbro

-USC vs. Rutgers
October 25, 2024 at 8:01pm
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA: 63,404 (of 77,500)
Total Time: 3 hours 40 minutes

Washington vs. USC
November 2, 2024 at 4:40pm
Husky Stadium, Seattle, WA: 71,251 (of 70,138)
Total Time: 3 hours 30 minutes

So if it wasn’t obvious, I missed last week due to the busyness of life. Don’t worry, I didn’t pull another midseason disappearing act…but I will be doing one megapost for both the Rutgers and Washington games. 

In other news, even Meta couldn’t keep me down. They tried to silence me!! LOL. 

My writing hasn’t been as good, but damn, that’s quite the roast to call it spam LOL

Somehow this is kind of amazing. My first hate mail and it’s by AI. It seems the “Misleading Stat of the Week” is far too controversial for Facebook. Who would’ve thought that I’d be censored before even getting to sell out?

Anyway, I was at a wedding the day of the Washington game so I must apologize for not getting a complete look at the game. However, due to my dedication to the craft, I was mostly definitely watching the game…

USC looked solid while breaking their 3 game losing streak with the win against Rutgers. They dragged themselves up from 16th in the conference to 13th and back to a .500 record. Then they lost their way back down to 15th and a losing record. 

USC remains winless in true road games (since LSU in Vegas counts as a neutral site…probably even closer to a home game considering the distance and time zone). They’ve also now guaranteed a losing conference record with the 5th conference loss. I’ll keep things short since at this point, by now we all kinda know what is going on. 

Good/Badisms

Good: Makai Lemon’s emergence as a receiving and returning threat in both games

Good: Zachariah Branch showing some improvement from his slump

Good: Woody Marks continuing to carry weight as an every down back

Good: The offense managed to score on all their first half possessions against Rutgers

Good: The defense managed to stop Rutgers on 4th down three times

Bad: Three interceptions thrown by Miller Moss against Washington, despite the offensive line blocking a bit better overall

Bad: Another game where they have the ball and the lead in the fourth quarter and manage to squander it

Bad: Failing to convert a 4th-and-1 at the goal line and also failing a 4th-and-4 in the red zone to basically end the game. 

Bad: Despite pretty much every one of their 11 drives ending in Husky territory and 4 trips to the red zone, they somehow only scored 3 touchdowns (one drive ended at the USC 45). 

Bad: Lincoln Riley trying to force 50 pass attempts against one of the statistical top passing defenses. I personally believe the stats are a bit inflated by the lack of very many decent quarterbacks they’ve gone up against this season, but they have a good passing defense nonetheless. 

CommBro Breaker

  • It’s the QB making poor throws! …Yes
  • It’s the o-line’s poor blocking! …Yes
  • It’s the receivers dropping the ball! …Yes
  • It’s the refs making weird calls! …Yes
  • It’s Lincoln Riley not adapting the offense to the personnel! …Yes
  • It’s the NIL not being there for the earlier recruiting classes! …You’re not going to believe it, also yes.

It’s a team game and there are a lot of factors that go into what happened. And just look at that, even with all those problems, they are so close to winning every single game. Yeah, it feels really bad to be losing half your games, but once at least some (or maybe even one) of those above things are fixed, this team could easily be 10, 11, or 12 wins next season. 

Whether we like it or not, Jayden Maiava will replace Miller Moss as the starter. And regardless of which subset of group(s) you personally would like to place the blame on, Maiava theoretically covers for the weakness of the offensive line. All we can hope for now is winning out, becoming bowl eligible, and carrying some experience and momentum into next year.

Czaplicki Tracker Week 8: Eddie remained at #3 last week, with the gap slightly widening. He’s averaging 49.3 yards per punt compared to FSU’s 49.6 and Baylor’s 51.1. Moss even helped him out by eating up one of the shorter punts on a pooch

Czaplicki Tracker Week 9: Czaplicki dropped down to #4 with a 48.5 yard average. The true depressing stat of this game.

A Stat of the Week: There’s been a lot of trash talk about the refs this season, but one thing’s for certain: USC has significantly less penalty yards per game than either of Riley’s USC seasons in the Pac-12.