USC vs. ASU: Easy as 1-2-3

Posted on by commbro

USC vs. Arizona State
October 1, 2016 at 5:45pm
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA: 71,214 (93,607)
Total Time: 3 hours 20 minutes

For yet another game, USC gave up in the fourth quarter. Only this time it was because of a 35-point lead rather than a 3+ score deficit. The game ended before the torch was lit—the clock was about the only thing protesting that. Cheers and applause erupted as Max Browne entered the game. It was a testament to the respect earned by the captain and former starter.

The win was sorely needed. Pretty much everything from this point is a must win, so this was vital. There were still a few criticisms, but some of the naysayers are taking it too far. If Helton was nearly bad as people were making him out to be, beating anybody—even a supposedly “crappy” ASU team—would still be significant. These people are just trying to protect their pride after predicting a blowout going the other way. Don’t let it get in the way of celebrating a win. At least let the opponents do the trash talking.

Worry not, because I got you covered with the opponent trashtalking, man. When your friendly neighborhood CommBro was undercover at the local McDonald’s (because I had to eat somewhere with Cardinal and Gold colors preceding the game), I witnessed an ASU fan heckle a USC fan. The victim was wearing a Nike shirt that said “USC Never Stops.”

usc-never-stops

The genius ASU fan’s idea? “USC NEVER STOPS BEING 1 AND 3” before quickly realizing he painted himself into a corner. He still attempted to recover, though, by tacking on “UNTIL THEY ARE 1 AND 4.” Good try, homie.

By the way, ASU belongs to an undemanding fraternity of 80ish teams that spent a flatline ZERO weeks at #1 in the AP poll. No one ever even wanted to pretend they are a contender.

In all seriousness though, Arizona State is one of the teams closest to grabbing a winning record against USC. The overall record is 20*-12-0 *(including the vacated win, of course). It would still take them nine straight wins in order to overtake USC, but that’s one of the best the Pac’s got. That would be huge if it happen since USC could no longer claim they have a winning record over the entire Pac-12 Conference. The closest team is Utah (yikes!). USC is 10-4-0 against the Utes.

No matter though, the Trojans have staved off the Sun Devils for another season. The winning ways started out early. Olympic sprinter, Allyson Felix, led the team out of the tunnel (earning the distinction of being the first woman to lead the Trojans onto the football field). I’m not sure how she managed to run while carrying the weight of her six gold medals (no, she didn’t actually have them on her person), but it shows that she knows a thing or two about winning.

The announced 71,214 barely managed to file in (again, because of the long security lines), but gave the game a nice atmosphere. Quite a good turnout despite doom and gloom over a 1-3 start.

I have to qualify a statement I made earlier; there was a slight hiccup with the winning beginning. Clay Helton started out the game in a dubious manner. Going for it on 4th down with a sputtering run game on their own side of the 50-yard line on an uninspired play was straight up wrong. Nobody in the entire stadium believed in that call and unsurprisingly, it got blown up. Sure seemed like Helton wanted to appease a crowd rather than make a good decision. The situation was completely different from the 4th down against Utah and I genuinely believed that Helton wanted use it as a “see, I told you so” kind of moment. It gave us a strange first quarter that featured no punts, which usually is typical of shootouts. The 7-6 first quarter score was decidedly not a shootout.

Luckily, Jonathan Lockett covered well and made an athletic interception to give people a short memory. Lockett exhibited a vast improvement since the last time he got significant playing time. As a true freshman that entered the corner rotation, he failed to impress. He made many critical errors. He had a breakout game against ASU, showing that he really turned the corner. Instead of critical errors, he made critical plays ande made his presence felt as early as the second series.

Lockett’s pick set the offense up at the 5-yard line. Sam Darnold threw some legit passes to JuJu Smith-Schuster until Justin Davis decided he was tired of running for a loss. Davis drove it 49 yards to set up Darnold’s eventual touchdown pass to JuJu. The Trojans would never surrender the lead again.

In order to prevent back-to-back colossal posts, I’m going into summary mode:

Rest of the Positives (that I remember)

  • Started the first half strong: only 2 penalties for 10 yards
  • Boermeester making two 40+ yard field goals
  • Chuma at right tackle
  • Not allowing ASU to score for two and a half quarters
  • Darnold’s 4 total touchdowns, 0 interceptions and ~70% completion percentage
  • Deontay Burnett’s hard work paying off in tangible stats
  • Six tackles for losses
  • Back ups getting playing time so they can develop
  • CommBro trying to learn how to keep things concise with bullet points

Concerns

  • Referees gifted calls to USC…for once. I felt kind of dirty
  • The 2-4-5 nicket formation matches up better with ASU than with Stanford or Alabama
  • Weaker pass rush might work on this team, but might not against others
  • USC took advantage of a slow ASU secondary
  • Dependent on explosive plays (20+ yard plays) to spark scoring drives

The above are the kind of things that don’t quite fit into the negatives. In some of these cases, it was difficult to make too much of a judgment. Beating ASU in this fashion doesn’t allow for a proper measure.

Straight Up Problems (Negatives)

  • A 4th down call so bad I have to mention it twice
  • Mismanagement of timeouts continue to be a problem
  • Less than 11 out on the field for special teams again…
  • Boermeester missing two field goals
  • Helton developed more as a coach, but is still trying to learn too much on the job

USC is USC and a bounce back was bound to happen evetually. What is this team going to do going foward?

CommBro Breaker

At this point, you might be wondering what the heck the title means. Here’s why:

JuJu Smith-Schuster: 123 yards receiving
Justin Davis: 123 yards rushing

Yeah, sometimes the titles are that shallow. At least it’s not clickbait.

Misleading Stat of the Week: Arizona State celebrates America more than USC. See for yourself:

USA!

USA!

I guess it just depends on what angle you’re looking from.

USC vs. Utah: All Fun Until Someone Fumbles

Posted on by commbro

Utah vs. USC
September 23, 2016 at 7:05pm
Rice-Eccles Stadium, Salt Lake City, UT: 46,133 (45,807)
Total Time: 3 hours 21 minutes

A long season just got longer as the Trojans drop to 1-3 overall, 0-2 in the conference, and 0-1 in the Pac-12 South. We’ve all probably had our fill of the bad, so I won’t open with that. Make no mistake though, the bad will be covered—just later.

We’ll start with the best: Adoree’ Jackson deserves MVP for that game, even if he slipped at the end to allow the Utes’ go-ahead touchdown. He put life into the team with his 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown on special teams. On defense, he broke up two passes and recovered a fumble. He also ran for 11 yards on a single carry on offense. Maybe he should go full-McCaffrey and throw for a TD too. No, please don’t.

Defensively, Cam Smith, Uchenna Nwosu, and Porter Gustin all played relatively well. Cam Smith compiled 6 tackles, 1 for a loss, and a fumble recovery in just the first quarter alone. Smith and Gustin also showed textbook discipline when defending the read option plays. That’s a welcome sight.

Offensively, the entire unit was much improved. Sure, the big storyline going into the game was the switch for Sam Darnold at quarterback. That certainly helped—he made some big time plays and kept some drives alive that Browne likely couldn’t have—but the supporting cast also stepped it up. Unfortunately, it was three weeks late and a few hundred thousand dollars short or however that saying goes. Sorry, let me stay on the positives…

The offensive line actually made a lot of blocks as a unit, allowing Justin Davis burst through the holes. Davis used his limited opportunities well, averaging 17 yards per carry in the first half and scoring his first touchdown of the season.

The pass protection was also mostly adequate, allowing Darnold time to find receivers open on a variety of routes. Then receivers and tight ends actually hung onto the ball, despite the rain. I don’t really remember there being many—if any—drops during that game. Players like Steven Mitchell and Tyler Petite have really shown themselves to be reliable pass-catchers. Tyler Petite might need some ballet lesson to help him with his balance though.

Darnold might’ve been the biggest bright spot on offense. He improved in terms of not straying in the pocket. He took decent scrambles, while remaining disciplined enough to go for available passes. So many athletic QBs just tuck and run at the first sign of trouble. Darnold clearly isn’t one of those. He fit some tough passes into tight windows while avoiding interceptions. I think I really only saw one or two bad throws from him this game. His scramble on the last play of the game was very Russell Wilson-esque (that’s a good thing).

Overall, the first half was relatively clean in terms of penalties. By some stroke of luck or a straight up voodoo magic, the team had one penalty for 5 yards. It did contribute to a stalled drive and settling for a field goal in the redzone, but oh well. I’ll take what I can get at this point. Now onward to the brave, new frontier of  same old negatives for the team.

It was almost misleading to use the word “clean” to describe the first half. Despite averaging almost eight yards per play and not punting, they ended three of their own drives with fumbles. They were so close to adding a few more. Maybe it was the rain, maybe it was trying to do too much, but it just has to stop.

Then there was the penalties. Some of them were absolutely back-breaking. It wasn’t the free yardage that killed it, but rather the peripherals. I’ll intentionally leave names out because my purpose is to describe the effect rather than call out a player. For example, the team’s ineligible receiver downfield penalty only cost the offense 5 yards on paper. In reality though, it negated a 32-yard pass to Darreus Rogers. That 37-yard swing killed a drive. They punted without ever getting out of that set of downs. With the rise of RPOs (run-pass options) in college football, a greater emphasis has been placed on ineligible receiver downfield rules. Plays are packaged in a way that the quarterback can choose either a run ( can be set up as handoff or QB draw) or throw it to a receiver. That gets confusing not just for the defense, but for the offensive linemen as well. The result in this situation was a guard more than three yards down the field as if trying to make a run block. The NCAA considered this a big enough issue that they proposed changing the rule so that players are flagged at 1 yard out (like the NFL), rather than the current 3 yards. Instead of implementing the rule, they opted to emphasize that officials should call it. You can argue that it was a ticky-tack call, but unfortunately for USC, the refs were coached by the NCAA to look for it. Two years ago the Trojans probably could’ve gotten away with it.

Now that I’ve adequately waste your time with an entire 200 word paragraph on a single penalty, I can move on to the next costly penalty. It happened a flew plays later when Utah was 3rd-and-10 at their own 7-yard line. A Utah receiver was grabbed slightly out of his break by a USC corner, prompting a pass interference flag. The play quickly changed what likely would’ve been a three-and-out at the 7-yard line, to a 1st-and-10 at the 22. Quite the swing. They ultimately drove the entire 93 yards for the touchdown. It hurt that much more when it drained 5:29 of the remaining 5:45.

These two drives characterized the gulf between the two coaches. The difference can be hard to spot. You may be inclined to argue that the team was only a few plays away from turning it around. The problem actually started long before that. It’s about instilling a mentality in the players and team. It may sound cliche, but one team was playing not to lose and the other was playing to win. One rises to the occasion, the other wilts under pressure.

You run on a 3rd-and-6 to set up a 4th-and-3. That initially made me think they were playing that with a 4-down mentality. Instead, it was just a set up to settle for a field goal. Not too big of a deal in a vaccuum, I guess. On their next offensive possession, the pass to JuJu on 3rd-and-5 got spotted for 4th-and-3. Helton should have went for it. Instead, he elected to punt. Why? You just chose a short, 30-yard punt over the opportunity to put the game away.

You don’t need to look far back in the USC coaching history to find people that did that. Coach O took that shot when he put Arizona out of its misery and again against Stanford instead of punting for overtime. Even Steve Sarkisian tried it against Utah two years ago despite ultimately failing.

In the post game presser, the JuJu, speaking for the offense, said they even wanted to go for it. Denied the opportunity—again. Like against Stanford, Alabama, Oregon in 2015 and probably more that I’ve forgotten about.

The team lacks a killer instinct because the coach lacks one. Kyle Whittingham clearly did. His team went for it on 4th down a total of four times, going 4 for 4. On that final drive, he even did it twice and was vindicated.

I know this comes with the benefit of hindsight, but consider all the possibilities that stem from the choice to punt or go for it.

If they punt, there are really only three possible outcomes (especially with only one timeout left, but more on that later):

  1. Win, after the defense stops Utah (What Helton was “hoping” for from an ailing defense that generated 0 sacks and only 4 TFLs all game)
  2. Utah drains the clock and kicks a field goal to force overtime
  3. Utah drains the clock and wins it (what happened)

On the other hand, if they had gone for it:

  1. Convert and go for the eventual touchdown to win the game
  2. Convert and continue to drain the clock to win the game
  3. Fail and allow Utah the extra 30 yards from not punting
    1. Utah cannot drain the entire clock with a shorter field giving Helton and the team another chance to catch up if Utah scores

You’re putting your fate in your own hands in the second case. More of the latter outcomes look favorable, especially with the benefit of hindsight. Both in NFL and college football, rules favor the offense. A perfect offense would beat a perfect defense, if such things existed.

A perfect defense, USC was not. Before that final drive, USC had already allowed the second worst offense in the conference (statistically, at 26 ppg) to score 24 points. They somehow only managed to put up an average of  26 against Southern Utah, a weakened BYU, and San Jose State. At least USC, being the statisical worst offense in the conference (20.3 ppg) had some semblance of an excuse, having played #1 Alabama and #7 Stanford. That’s the defense he trusted. Speaking of trust:

Maybe he just misspoke, but officials are wrong all the time—even if they aren’t the terrible Pac-12 ones. The game moves fast, the guys are human. Why would you ever say that you trust them? It took me a careful review of the play to come to the conclusion that the spot was actually correct. Smith-Schuster made contact with the ball at the Utah 35-yard line, but did not establish his possession until one foot hit the ground at the Utah 37-yard line. Somehow though, he trusted that they got it right. It’s another thing if he said one of the coaches in the booth relayed that information, but, no, it was based on trust. Helton says a lot of things about trust and hope in regards to what’s happening on the field. I really hope that’s just semantics, but it really looks like he lacks a cohesive plan. Just winging it and hoping things bounce his way.

He will tell you that a few plays would’ve been the difference—that they would’ve won the game. Winning is a threshold, sure. That’s a big thing, no doubt.Had his team come out of the gates meeting even only a majority of their potential, this game would’ve been a blowout, not a barely achieved victory he couldn’t even get.

Rest of the bad:

  • Fumbling on 3 of the 3 first drives and almost 4 of the first 4 had Darnold not sold the pass so well
  • Allowing 12 straight run plays for a TD
  • Ahead 24-10, averaging 8 yards per play, still can’t put the game away
  • Taking out Justin Davis from the game when he was averaging over 12 yards per carry
  • Still being too liberal with timeouts

And just so I don’t finish on a sour note,

Rest of the good:

  • Being able to string together an 8 play, 91-yard drive for TD
  • Going 6 for 10 on third down conversions
  • Converting on 100% of field goals. Boermeester is 6 of 7 on field goals and 10/10 on PATs this season.
  • Credit for not giving up after three fumbles, I guess

CommBro Breaker

After nearly two thousand words, you can have some easy to read snippets.

Morale Boosting Stat of the Week: USC #1 in the country in punt return yardage, averaging 40.25 yards per return

Misleading Stat of the Week: USC maintains its perfect record against unranked opponents. They also have a perfect record against G5 teams. Yeah, that’s 1-0 against Utah State on both counts.

Also, I’d like to announce that one of my favorite stats has increased by 1. I knew I started the count for a good reason!

Turnovers off of turnovers count: 2

Kubo: A review

Posted on by commbro

Kubo and the Two Strings

Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes
Budget: Estimated to be $60 million

I was busy prepping to leave the country and was busy catching up on everything after I got back. As a result, I have not published any movie reviews in a while, so I hope no one was sitting on their Netscape Navigator hitting the reload button. What’s that? You’ve all moved onto Internet Explorer and it’s called a refresh button?

Yes, as the resident Slowpoke, I am now about to give you new stuff about old things. Here are mini reviews on all the movies I watched between Finding Dory and Kubo:

Warcraft– Pretty good, but critically panned for what I perceive to be shallow reason. Could’ve and should’ve been longer to make cuts less awkward.It was made with care.

The Shallows– Summer movie for the shark obsessed. Small cast, low budget. Not terrible, not great. Pretty decent considering how cheaply it was made (Estimated $17 million).

Star Trek Beyond– I feel like since the reboot series started, each one has been getting worse. They haven’t gotten to the point of bad yet and they’ve got some watch value. However, if the trend continues, the next one will be a waste of money.

Suicide Squad– Terrible movie. I actually opted out of reviewing it rather than just being a time constraint.

Now that your trailers are over, time for the feature film.

Kubo was an intelligently made film that somehow maintained a PG rating in this day and age. It can get dark at times, so don’t go running to take your kids just yet. You should be the judge of whether your kid is mature enough…unless he/she is 20 years old. At that point it might be time to let them screen what movies they watch on their own. Just a suggestion.

One aspect of the intelligence was the quick, snarky remarks tossed back and forth by the characters. The movie had more quips than one of my posts. Again, I’ll let you be the judge on what that means.

From a cinematography standpoint, it viewed like a pop-up book. I mean that in the best way possible.

So not like that one. Yeah, I’m not letting you be the judge this time. What I actually meant is that the film was very artfully done and visually appealing.

While mostly well done, the film does harp on some of the same corny refrains that family movies like to do. Despite pushing these good ‘ole values, they somehow gave quite a dubious message at the end. Staying true to my no spoiler effort, I can’t really say much more than that.

CommBro Breaker

The ADA and PETA can probably collaborate on a class-action lawsuit against Kubo and friends. Watch it and you’ll see.

USC vs. Stanford: False Start, True Struggle

Posted on by commbro

Stanford vs. USC
September 17, 2016 at 5:14pm
Stanford Stadium, Palto Alto, CA: 48,763 (50,424)
Total Time: 3 hours 3 minutes

This was one of those games where everyone asks “Oh my gosh, what happened?” It’s really hard to describe even with a few sentence explanation. Quite simply, that was a pretty horrible game. You can blame the refs for some bad calls/non-calls, but that’d be quite disingenuous.

Frankly, this coaching staff and team have shown almost all that they need to at this point. They’ve played tough opponents, mediocre ones, and conference foes. I almost don’t even want to write about it. There are no excuses left to give at this point. They aren’t sandbagging against lesser opponents, they aren’t just overmatched by the #1 team in the nation. This team has serious problem and they just aren’t where they need to be or where they should be.

With a few key exceptions, the team needs to take a quantum leap to stay competitive this season. I’m afraid that it won’t happen fast enough. They didn’t show anything new since playing against Alabama. It was the same deal, down to the first half 3-17 score.

Taking a look at the USC-Stanford games since 2010, a lot of the games were within one possession. Starting with the first game in 2015, it moved up to two possession. It then moved up to three possessions in the 2015 rematch, and remained that way in 2016. Meanwhile, they continually score less on offense—hitting a 24 year low in points score on Stanford. They lost 9-23 back in 1992…before most of the players on either rosters were born. It suggests that the team’s trajectory is going in the wrong direction.

Game USC Stanford Differential Result
2010 35 37 -2 L
2011 (3OT) 48 56 -8 L
2012 14 21 -7 L
2013 20 17 3 W
2014 13 10 3 W
2015 31 41 -10 L
2015 (Pac-12 CG) 22 41 -19 L
2016 10 27 -17 L

There is a growing vocal minority clamoring on making the switch from Browne to Darnold. As cathartic as it can be to blame such an easy thing, such a risky change probably wouldn’t produce the results they seek. Browne carries a similar problem as Cody Kessler did in holding onto the ball too long rather than trying to throw a receiver open in the middle of the field.

Everyone has issues: Browne, the receivers, the offensive line. The bigger problem is that they tend to succeed out of phase. Here are a few scenarios:

Receivers get open>QB sees them>One o-lineman allows DE in for a sack
Receviers get open>O-line blocks well>QB holds onto ball
O-line blocks well>QB ready to throw>Receivers covered completely

Then sometimes they step up their game, with two failing:

QB ready to throw>Receivers can’t get open>O-line allows LB in for a sack
O-line blocks well>Receivers can’t get open>QB holds onto ball too long

Or an even better scenario:

O-line false start

About those false starts…seriously embarrassing. The Trojans amassed six false starts in the game. They actually had more false starts than points in the first half—5 false starts, 3 points.

Good thing we couldn’t hear them though since the officials’ mics weren’t even working. The Pac-12 is really the model conference!

Another glaring obstacle—other than trying to find new synonyms for “problem”—is Helton’s management of timeouts. He habitually burns throughthem too fast and too furiously.

By my judgment, he has a very basketball-like mentality with them. He uses it to draw up specific plays. That stuff should really have been prepped long before and just signalled to the QB. Yet somehow, they can leave the sideline confused and unorganized. Perhaps that’s where they planned their little hot potato trick play that ended with an incomplete pass.

What’s the purpose of the no huddle if you can’t even communicate properly? They aren’t even really using it for hurry-up offense and yet they have to suffer all the drawbacks like each individual player needing to understand the call.

I’m going to stop droning on and go into hurry-up mode:

  • Christian McCaffrey consistently picked up 5 or 6 yards on first down, allowing Stanford to continual run on second and third down in order to convert.
  • USC on the other hand, had negative plays on first down and/or penalties, making them need 10+ yards on third downs (average of 10.08 to go on third down)
    • Forcing them into passing situations or just running to set up a punt
  • Like the Alabama game, miscommunications and defensive breakdowns allows explosive play for TD
    • Team gave up like in Alabama game too

Sad Stat of the Week #1: The last time USC started 1-2 is 2001.

Sad Stat of the Week #2: USC’s offense is averaging 20.3 points per game, tied for 108th in the nation

Justin Davis had this to say: “If we don’t play disciplined with this talent, this talent is going to waste”

CommBro Breaker

The real Commbro Breaker is nobody got ejected this game.

Positives in hurry-up mode:

  • Deontay Burnett deserves recognition for his efforts. I didn’t mention him last game, but he definitely has contributed his fair share the past two games
  • A decent redzone stand, holding Stanford to 4th-and-goal at the 1-yard line. Stanford still went for it, and got the touchdown in the end, but I guess you can’t stop them forever at the 1.
    • I’m really bad at this positivity thing
  • Adoree’ Jackson’s interception
  • Browne continues to have above average poise in the pocket that you’d like to see in a quarterback
  • USC offense while lining up under center
  • Steven Mitchell continues his consistency
  • Touchdown against a ranked opponent?
  • At least we’re using tight ends now
  • Okay, I give up…kind of like the team did

Misleading Stat of the Week: Stanford actually decreased USC’s tackles for loss allowed per game from 9 to 7.33.

USC vs. Utah State: Win of the Year

Posted on by commbro

USC vs. Utah State
September 10, 2016 at 11:00am
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA: 62,487 (93,607)
Total Time: 3 hours 18 minutes

Early in the morning (at least in the college football world), the Trojans scored their first touchdown of the season en route to their first win since November 28, 2015. They ended a 0-3 losing streak that carried over nine and a half months. That first touchdown was also the first since early in the fourth quarter of the Holiday Bowl on December 30th. It feels good to celebrate touchdowns and wins again.

That was also Max Browne’s first career touchdown at USC and first win as a starter. Clay Helton joins in the “first win” crew, bringing him to 1-3 as non-interim head coach. The climbs back to .500, sitting at 1-1 overall. In case you wanted a win ratio that looked better than either of those, know that the Trojans are 6-0 against Utah State. Perfect! Let’s hope they can also start off “perfect” in Pac-12 play in Palo Alto next week against Stanford. It kicks off at a decent time, so there’s that.

The culmination of this week’s 11:00am start and being the first game with new NFL safety regulations, crowds got stuck at the gate. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the ticket scanners weren’t working. They just tore my ticket printed paper ticket. I’d also like to eat my pasta by hand and call my friends to chat from a payphone. Such barbarism. Either way, it was a great combo (commbro?). Thanks Pac-12! You’re always looking out for us. Yeah, nah. Look at what they did:

Their superior scheduling led not only to the morning mess, but low attendance. The announced 62,487 looked a lot more like 45-50,000. Then a few thousand more filed out after the first two quarters. So basically the half full Coliseum half emptied after halftime. That’s the lowest attendance in quite some time. It’s lower than those lame Thursday night games. You’d have to reach back to 2013, right after that Washington State game to find a number lower. There were 62,006 attending that unnaturally short game against Boston College.

Perhaps that was why the game started like my 1982 Mercedes-Benz does on a particularly (California) frigid morning. At first, it looked like they picked up right where they left off from the Arlington outing. They even capped it off with an ejection! With all this drama, who needs high school prom or TNT.

As the final score would indicate, they cleaned up their act after a big play from Michael Pittman. His punt block and ensuing return by Quinton Powell set up the all the firsts.Special teams turned out to be impactful during this game, including missed field goals on both sides and, of course, JuDoree’ JacSchuster’s 77-yard punt return for a touchdown.

What’s interesting about that return that he hadn’t picked up a single punt prior to that. He even appeared to misjudge the distance and let one sail over his head. It almost looked like he was going to let that one be downed as well, but got a running head start before scooping it up. The entire return teams deserves credit for making it possible through the blocks.

The defense performed admirably for the most part except for the last drive of the third quarter. There was still some confusion sometimes on the defense, which is concerning, but they managed to hold the Aggies to a mere 7 points. Can’t complain too much about that—especially after considering that former walk-on safety, Matt Lopes, had to come in for an injured Marvel Tell in the second half. They also managed this defensive performance without the aid of punts pinning the opposing offense deep in their own territory. Clancy Pendergast’s previous squad had a lot of help from that back in 2013. On Saturday, they showed that they didn’t need it. The offense, however, might need some more help on their side.

You can’t criticize too much in a 45-7 win, but, of the three phases, offense clearly needed the most work. They still lack a clear identity and the next game isn’t really the time to be having a quarter-life crisis. Stanford will be coming off a bye week following a Friday game. That’s a lot of time for preparation for an already consistent team. Let’s not get ahead of oursevles though. It all begins and ends with the offensive line. They have really take it up one more step. If they continue like this, Browne’s decision-making will suffer even when he’s not pressured. The receivers need to contribute by putting more distance between themselves and the DBs at the top of their route (then catch the ball, but more on that later). They all go hand-in-hand, actually. To summarize:

  • Better blocking by offensive line
  • Receivers need to get more separation sooner
  • Browne needs to improve decision making

Browne floated up a few passes that could’ve been picked off. One of them actually was, but Leon McQuay was there to bail him out with his own interception. Browne did take lots of deep shots and, sadly, most of them ended in PIs and drops.

Speaking of drops, Browne dropped an accurate pass right into Darreus Rogers’ area. Rogers did the polite thing and treated others how he was treated. Yes, he dropped it. Great work, Darreus. Football etiquette. Super simple stuff. Too mean? Maybe. He did tie for most catches on the team after all.

With that being said, Steven Mitchell has actually been a much more reliable pass catcher. I don’t think he dropped a single one against the Aggies. All in all, the combination of Browne and Darnold spread the ball to 10 different receivers, with a majority going to Darreus Rogers and JuJu Smith-Schuster (7 each).

Having a few long drives, being 6 out of 6 in the red zone, and 2 out of 2 on fourth down converstions are also a plus.

CommBro Breaker

I honestly think Helton should stop constantly switching QBs. It screws up the rhythm of the game. If you want to do it for a special situation like with Ajene Harris (he opted not to throw anyway) or Jalen Greene, sure. But doing it a few times a game can destabilize the offense. Also, with a situation like Saturday, when both QBs come away with two touchdowns, it can stir up some controversy again. Is Helton showing a lack of conviction in his decision? All of this may end up hurting team down the road. Or perhaps I’m just mad that the switching invalidated by prediction of Browne getting three touchdowns. You’ll never know.

Misleading Stat of the Week: Take a look at the 38-10 Western Kentucky-Alabama score! They managed to score more and allow less than the Trojans team did. The same Western Kentucky that we poached a few coaches from. Interesting.

There are so many factors that make this misleading. Alabama and Lane Kiffin were probably significantly more motivated against USC. Also, the touchdown was scored in garbage time. The week after playing a big game also tends to be a bit of slump. One game like this doesn’t mean much.

Statistics Gore of the Week: USC is scoring 22.5 points per game and allowing 29.5 points per game. By my calculations, they are 0-2 and will have zero wins for the rest of the season.

Useless Stat of the Week: USC turnovers off of turnovers count: 1

USC vs. Alabama: Being Blunt

Posted on by commbro

Alabama vs. USC (Advocare Classic)
September 3, 2016 at 7:14pm
AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX: 81,359
Total Time: 3 hours 19 minutes

We are nothing.

All the national championships, Heismans, and top ten recruiting classes couldn’t protect the Trojans from what just went down. Alabama made USC look like an FCS team in its worst loss in the past half century.

Even Fort Worth recognizes that the USC flag should be flown half-mast

Even Fort Worth recognizes that the USC flag should be flown half-mast

Not since John McKay’s 0-51 defeat against Notre Dame in 1966 have I ever seen a margin of loss that wide. The gulf is a sobering and succinct reminder of how far the team still has to go.

After suffering through sanctions and a head coaching situation as stable as North Korea’s economy, the team collapsed in primetime.That ended USC’s streak of 18 season opener wins and drops USC to 2-6 against Bama.

USC started out well enough. A deep pass on the second play to Darreus Rogers set up a long field goal. Matt Boormeester, in his first USC first goal attempt, barely bounced the ball off the upright and crossbar to give them the lead 2 minutes and 32 seconds into the game.

They led 3-0 for the next 19 minutes and 42 seconds. It was almost a good half of football (22:14 to be exact). Since that opening drive squeaker, the Trojans didn’t score for another 39 minutes and 54 seconds. More depressing than the contents of my refrigerator.

It was a far cry from that charmed first quarter when the defense held Alabama to zero points and 12 yards. We already mentioned the crazy field goal. There was also the safety blitz by Leon McQuay on 3rd-and-9 that de-cleated Blake Barnett and ended Alabama’s first drive.

Max Browne pulled out a 17-yard run from his bag of tricks on 3rd-and-10. Sure, they ended up failing a 4th down play, but it was okay: they forced a three-and-out for Bama. Even their impressive punter kicking coffin cornering it couldn’t phase USC. Tilbey bailed them out on his first kick as a Trojan, punting 52 yards.

Saban figured it wasn’t working and made the change at quarterback. USC spent a timeout in order to account for it. Turned out that was a sound decision because the call totally caused Jalen Hurtsto fumble during a zone read play. Magic.

By midway through the second quarter, whatever hocus pocus crap the Trojans took advantage of clearly subsided. Next time, put more quarters in the machine Clay (by the way, did you know you still need quarters for parking meters in Dallas? They don’t take credit card. How archaic is that?).

After USC’s fourth straight three-and-out, they kicked a shorter punt that was compounded on by a 15-yard penalty on the little freshie, Michael Pittman. That was a signal of the things to come.

I don't mean to be blunt, but is he signalling for a blunt?

I don’t mean to be blunt, but is the defensive coordinator signalling for a blunt?

Iman Marshall makes a key mistake during the drive. He turns around to look at the quarterback after shoving Ardarius Stewart out-of-bounds. That gave Stewart the separation he needed to catch the incoming pass for a touchdown. There was some controversy over this play, but, sorry, it was completely legal. Stewart did not go out-of-bounds on his own accord and managed to reestablish himself in the field of play before catching the pass. Even if Helton wanted to challenge it (illegal touching is one of the few penalty non-calls you can challenge), he burned all the timeouts for the half already. Obviously, 3-7 is not an insurmountable score differential, but the problems didn’t stop coming.

Next thing you know, Edoga is limping along to the sideline, followed shortly by Noah Jefferson from the defensive side. Losing a key guy like Jefferson on an already thin defensive line had immediate reprecussions. Damien Harris slips through that line for a 46-yard run. Only Adoree’ Jackson’s speed and strength of will prevented the touchdown. The silver lining is the defense recovered in the red zone, holding Bama to a field goal.

I can keep going about the problems in the second half, but I don’t want to. I’ll sum up a few points and circle back to the big picture:

  • Jabari Ruffin ejected for being dumb (probably)
  • Max Browne pass deflected for pick six
  • Cornerback blitz leaves Ardarius Stewart wide open for a 71-yard touchdown.
  • Chris Tillbey fumbles a perfect snap
  • Who kept track after that

The overall key points (or at least the ones I remember after that mind-numbing experience):

  • USC still has the Sarkisian trademark of depending too heavily on explosive plays
    • USC also still depends on making people miss in space. Bama has disciplined tacklers so that doesn’t happen often.
  • USC tried to win with speed on the outside. Alabama’s defense is probably the fastest any Trojan has  seen in about ten years. The perimeter plays don’t really work on them.
  • Being unable to establish the run forced the OC to always call plays off his back foot
  • Offensive line was the biggest weak point of the game, allowing too much pressure even though Alabama rarely rushed more than the standard four. That’s a telltale sign that your team is being dominated
  • Quarterbacks displayed some of their old issues we’ve seen from practice
    • Browne tends to not lead receivers off well on routes across the middle (leads to things like pick six)
    • Darnold has problems meshing with running back on hand offs
  • USC lack of depth/experience
    • Example: Edoga allowed an unimpeded Jonathan Allen—All-SEC first teamer, 5th in the nation in sacks last year—to come off the edge and sack Browne from the blindside. Set up halfback screen on 3rd-and-long when Browne just skips the ball off the ground because the play was horribly compromised.Yet, it probably got even worse once Edoga left the game.
  • Alabama remained consistent throughout the game:
    • Rare, if not non-existent, breakdown in coverage
    • Superior special teams play
    • Capitalized on USC mistakes (USC failed to capitalize on Alabama errors)

No respectable City of Angles post will give you the bad without the good, or the good without the bad. So here are the positives I saw:

  • Leon McQuay continues where he left off from last season. He is a playmaker at safety. Appears to really study his film
  • Adoree’ made not one, but two touchdown-saving tackles. That demonstrated not only his insane athletic ability, but his inability to give up on a play or game. Also, he managed to keep Calvin Ridley in check on an island.
  • Noah Jefferson is young, but was a impact player at defensive tackle.
  • Max Browne showed a lot of poise and made smart decisions in his first start. I full expect great things out of him this season. I would not be surprised to see him bounce back and throw for three touchdowns against Utah State.

CommBro Breaker

What’s City of Angles without bad photoshops? Cheer up with this one:

I don't have words for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKMGVBZXXnM

I don’t have words for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKMGVBZXXnM

Maybe defensive coordinator, Jeremy Pruitt gave all his players a hit of weed during half time to improve their performance. Disclaimer: This is a troll conspiracy theory, not an attempt at libel or defamation.

Misleading Stat of the Week: USC is worst in the nation (127 out of 127) with 2.9 yards per offensive play. That’s what week one against the #1 team feels like. The average will get pulled much higher as the season progresses.

Useless Stat of the Week: USC has almost as many punting yards (403) as Alabama’s total offense (465)

USC 2016 Depth Chart and Rankings

Posted on by commbro

The long awaited depth chart for the 2016 season has been released. The starting quarterback has been named for the season opener. That means it’s almost time for some real action to take place. Only two weeks to go!

If you’ve been keeping up with everything, nothing in the depth chart should come as too much of a surprise. If you haven’t, then it’ll be like Christmas for you. Enjoy!

Something of note is how many wide receiver positions have “OR” listed on them. It really show how deep the receiving corp is for this season. Hopefully the days of using walk-on receivers against Notre Dame are long behind us. It’s the kind of OR that should make you happy, unlike a Denny’s menu or QB battle. Sorry, didn’t mean to zing Kiffin twice.

I didn't mean it. We're still cool, right? Please just screw up one more game though.

I didn’t mean it. We’re still cool, right? Please just screw up one more game though.

But seriously, Denny’s…bacon OR sausage? I want both! I usually solve this by ordering two grand slams. Now how do I connect this back to the post to make it look like I know what I’m doing? Ah, yes. I like my stomach like my rosters: full.

With a return to a near full roster, depth at most positions, and no critical injuries to essential personnel it may seem like 2016 is the year for a good run. You can hope and dream that will happen—as I will—but it likely will not be the case. Even though the roster is near full, there is far too much youth on the team. Normally, there would be a better distribution of juniors and seniors across the roster, but the team is too heavily weighted towards underclassmen.

Out of the 30-some upperclassmen, quite a few do not have significant game experience or are specialty positions like long snapper and kicker. That leaves about 20 of the 85 scholarship players as upperclassmen with decent experience. This team may have some substantial growing pains early in the season.

Speaking of early in the season, the Trojans play all the preseason ranked teams at the beginning and end of the season. Schedule order can matter a lot in whether or not a team succeeds or fails during a season.

USC’s bye week precedes a Thursday game against Cal. Prepare your butt for traffic that night. That’s pretty good timing because the team will get an extra 2 days to recover and prepare for Oregon and a long string of ranked teams until the very end. Who knows though—these rankings can and will fluctuate a lot before it’s all over.

Date Team AP Rank Coaches Rank
09/03/16 Alabama 1 1
09/10/16 Utah State UR UR
09/17/16 Stanford 8 7
09/23/16 Utah 28* 28*
10/01/16 Arizona State UR UR
10/08/16 Colorado UR UR
10/15/16 Arizona UR 46*
10/27/16 California UR UR
11/05/16 Oregon 24 22
11/12/16 Washington 14 18
11/19/16 UCLA 16 24
11/26/16 Notre Dame 10 9
N/A USC 20 17
*Not in top 25 but receiving votes

CommBro Breaker

Order has been returned, and power has been restored to the House of M. Sam Darnold’s biggest mistake in the quarterback competition was not changing his name to Mam Darnold or something. I hope you have a name change petition on your clipboard this season, Darnold.

My advice to fans that are fathers: better pick the right name for your kid if you hope for them to be a starting quarterback at USC.

USC Fall Camp 2016 Report 2 of -1

Posted on by commbro

Monday’s practice at the Coliseum marked the final of the 5pm Fall Camp practices. That also means I won’t be able to attend and report on anymore of these. I’ll try to make the best of our short time together. Just kidding, I’m not going to mince words much this time. You’ll just have to wait until there’s more stuff I can write about.

The team came out in full pads and looked sluggish. During one on one drills, defenders had sloppy tackles. Daniel Imatorbhebhe absolutely embarrased one guy with his jukes and cuts. I’m not sure if he even managed to touch Imatorbhebhe. His burning cuts always look impressive. Hopefully he’ll get more consistent with his catches though.

The defense managed to redeem themselves a bit in 11 on 11 red zone drills. For the most part, they were stopping a fairly stagnant offense. They denied an offense for a substantial period. Eventually, both Max Browne and Sam Darnold were able to get a touchdown apiece. Before they could, though, Quinton Powell was heckling them from the sideline. Funny and all for practice, but I hope it doesn’t bleed into taunting penalties in live games…

…because they got enough penalties on their own. So many flags for false starts and other assorted garbage. It feels a little weird to see that many yellow flags fly during a glorified practice. Basically, the team did not look game-ready. Luckily, it’s practice number five and they have a lot of time to get their crap together. They’re going to need it because—in case you forgot—Alabama is up next. And they’re sure as hell not going to be in Texas to compare US News rankings or GPAs.

CommBro Breaker

Even if they did just show up to compare GPAs, y’all still may lose.

Useless Stat of the Day: University of Alabama’s acceptance rate is 51%. USC’s is 16.5%. They even beat us at that. Wait…Yup, the numbers check out. 51 > 16.5. Trust me, I was a Comm major.

Don't worry, I got you another sweet picture. It's totally not just the previous one reversed.

Don’t worry, I got you another sweet picture to distract you from my mathematics. It’s totally not just the previous one reversed.

USC Fall Camp 2016 Report 1 of 0

Posted on by commbro

City of Angles and CommBro bring you firsthand information hot from the second fall camp practice. I got there late and left early though. Life obligations and stuff, y’know? That’s basically the same reason I dropped off the face of the Earth for a while. And sadly, that’s why I’ll probably only get to attend one more fall camp practice before the actual season starts.

It wasn’t an extended gag from the Finding Dory post carrying on over the past month, in case you were wondering. Sorry folks, didn’t mean for that much silence.

With these unfortunate circumstances, I have to ease myself back into this whole blogging thing. I mean, how hard can it be to barf onto your keyboard? Even your friendly neighborhood cat can do that. Even though we’re less than a month away from the big showdown against Alabama in the season opener, I find myself constantly trying to say “spring practice” instead of “fall camp practice.” Yup, don’t see any problems here. Don’t worry, I am so on top of this that I even managed to sneak in a picture despite the camera ban.

Some people call me a photoshopper. I consider myself a prankster.

I didn’t Photoshop, okay? Some people call me a liar. I consider myself a prankster.

At first, it seemed like quarterback hopeful Sam Darnold was sharing in my suffering on post-Spring transitions. Just when it looked like the other hopeful, Max Browne, was starting to get some separation and yank the starting job away, Darnold rallies and Browne stumbles. I am really starting to see why Coach Helton wanted to keep the competition going into Spring. I still don’t like it—but I understand it.

What I can understand and like is how Helton handled the little tussle that took place during the practice. Two players got into it in the right corner of the end zone, resulting in a serving of up-downs for the entire team as punishment. Or are they down-ups? Which came first: the up or the down? The chicken or the egg. Classic questions.

CommBro Breaker

I have long pondered the latter question and found myself in a deeper quandary. In either case, where did the rooster come from? Were they parallel pairs, both originating from eggs or fully formed? Maybe one started as an egg, the other fully grown. These dangerous ideas must be what drove men of old into book burnings. Absolute nonsense.

/CommBro Breaker

Their little up-down session will hopefully lead to a more disciplined team. That has been an area of weakness for the past several years. Life with the Pac-12 officials is difficult enough. Why encourage them with free unsportsmanlike conduct penalties? Make them invent penalties to fuel fan outrage instead. All part of that fun of a gameday.

Anyway, much like the first practice, they went with helmets and no pads so nothing too crazy happened. The highlights were Browne throwing a long touchdown pass to JuJu Smith-Schuster in the right corner of the end zone. It was one of those impossible grabs.

Darnold wouldn’t be upstaged, so he threw one to the same spot into the hands of Josh Imatorbhebhe. It was one of those well thrown floaters that no DB would be able to reach. But yeah, all the action was in the right corner of the end zone.

That’s all I got this time. Like I told you, I’m getting back into the swing of things. Stay tuned for more posts leading up to the match on September 3.

Finding Dory: A review

Posted on by commbro

Finding Dory

Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes
Budget: Estimated to be $200 million

After the abomination of a short preceding Inside Out, Pixar seemed to have stepped up their game. This short, Piper, was about a sandpiper hunting for shellfish. Why not, right? They’ve already done all the work for the sky, sand, and water. The animation was actually superb. Maybe Pixar just wanted to show off how far their visuals have progressed. The rendering must’ve taken forever. The poor intern probably put the short in the render queue and left to finish college before it completed. Anyway, they created a good, self-contained story.

I’ve noticed a trend in all the good Pixar shorts. Guess what they all have in common. They’re told without words—unlike Lava. We should all try applying that advice to our lives. Here, I’ll start:

 

 

 

 

 

 

CommBro Breaker

Okay, I tried. Hard to make a blog without words. Onto a real review:

I really thought Pixar did a good job with the movie. Again, the visuals were a solid “A.” The real trick is pairing that with a compelling story—and they did that admirably. No major complaints in that department.They somehow flushed out an entire, believable backstory for Dory.

In the end, I think the biggest theme of the movie was exploring limitations.  For one, they are fish and limited to water in some form. However, most of the characters—major or supporting—had limitations that reached beyond that, whether it was a physical disability, mental disability, or just mental blocks. They really stuck to that and delivered some corny messages in a palatable way, as opposed to in-your-face and cheesy. Those touching moments should serve as encouragement for those suffering from disabilities and mental illnesses. Unfortunately, it also comes with some suspect lessons. Hopefully kids don’t take it all to heart…like those kids that flushed their fish after the first movie came out. Some drains lead to the garbage disposal unit or a septic tank. Ugh.

The character Hank was essentially a get-out-of-jail-free card for their oceanic obstructions. They could’ve cheated by making him the solution to all their problems. Luckily, they Pixar team put some constraints on themselves, allowing other characters to thrive and problem-solve. That crazy octopus was one of the highlights of the film.

Surprisingly, the movie had more humor than even some comedy movies. And while there weren’t any sharks this time, the movie sure jumps the shark at some point. Towards the end, everything goes wild before it all comes together. It was like one of those well-crafted sitcoms, where everything comes back together to create one final super gag.

Overall, great film. I’d tell you to go watch it, but I bet most of you already beat me to it.

The CommBro Breaker Strikes Back

Nemo was easily the worst part of the movie. Why did they bother to find him in the first place? It kind of makes me think that Pixar knew what they were doing when they made Nemo disappear for half of the first movie. Makes me want Finding Nemo 3 to be Finding Nemo 3: Left in the Aquarium. I’m not advocating for child abandonment, by the way—even if they’re annoying brats.

Hopefully Hank doesn’t go on to join the Flying Dutchman’s crew after after Nemo bugs the crap out of him.

hank davy jones

He would think twice before going onto land again.

Or he could also become Zoidberg. He would get to go to space!

With his abilities, he should really go into acting.

With his abilities, he should really go into acting.