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Trojans Beat by UCLA (and themselves)

December 3, 2006

I watched in disbelief in what was in my opinion possibly the biggest college Football upset in recent memory. A David slays Golliath. Maybe….. 

UCLA will no doubt get a ton of acollades for a tremedous Coaching & playing effort in yesterdays game against cross town rival USC Trojans.

I guess thats what happens when a nobody upsets a #2 ranked ball club. I submit it was more USC than it was UCLA. The UCLA hero’s have a QB, a Coach and an entire defense as suspects. But …….

Let me introduce some logic.

Last weeks game against Notre Dame was not as lop sided as it looks on paper. The Fighting Irish dropped perfectly thrown ball after perfectly thrown ball. It was a closer game if the Irish receivers whould have showed up to the game.

In yesterday’s game, the Bruin’s Quarter back Cowan is a Cinderella story and he got ton’s of credit for yesterday.

The fact is that USC gave up less points than they have in a very long time. It was in many ways a stellar perfomance by Nick Holt’s defense.

It was all capped off by an amazing pursuit of Cowan by Dallas Sarz and Rey Maualuga. Maualuga gave a hit that is a warning to mothers across America to reconsider putting their baby into football and perhaps Golf is a better way to grow up.

What lost this game was a complete lack of productivity by the Trojan offense. In particular was an Offensive line that gave probably the worst Trojan performance in a long long time. Most pundits will put a stellar performance by the UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker and his speedy D-Line as the reason for the win.

Ever been in the right place at the right time? Maybe the shorter speedier defensive unit was really great. Which if this is true then perhaps programs will stop going with the fat 6-5 300 inevitably,non athletic O lineman.

Or, maybe it just was that the Trojan O line is not that good. This is hardly believable as the USC Coaching staff is one of the best in College Football.

Or maybe, like the Irish receivers of a week ago, the Trojan Lineman just did not show up. The latter is probably true as these guys were giving up penalties in abundance.

Phantom Sack

I had a Los Angeles Rams moment at the end of the game. We all remember the Phantom sack? It was at that moment I lost my allegiance to the Rams.

Yesterday, towards the end of the game. In a very important 3rd down play. I saw a trap play that if executed would have been at least a First down and perhaps more and it was ended by a UCLA Defensive lineman running right past the trapping blocker.

Now, for those of you that don’t understand X’s and O’s. A trap play is supposed to be a surprise, hence the word trap. However, the blocking guard ran his pull wide as the UCLA linman easily slid down the line (like he is supposed to), and made the tackle. It was at that point that I uttered the blaspomy, “They don’t deserve to win this game or go to Glendale, AZ for the National Championship”. I felt dirty having uttered this. I looked around and was thankful noone heard me.

But the truth is that this offense has not lived up to the Trojan tradition. They have been inconsistent, however it did seem as of a few weeks ago they were back on track.

I saw an interview the other day whether John David Booty would put himself in the Draft. I couldn’t believe that anyone would ask that.

As UCLA proved Booty does not adjust well when on one leg. More importantly many teams have proven that the shorter than usual QB will get his balls batted down from time to time.

This is why I cannot believe that I did not see Booty in a shotgun hardly at all this season, and not at all yesterday against the Bruins.

Just like their only previous  loss was ended as Booty took a short drop against Oregon State, it was ended yesterday again in a short drop and Bruin Eric McNeal batted the ball down, but not before catching it to end the game.

One more thing, in the Trojans last gasp of hope they threw a hail Mary pass that was all for naught. But I did see a referree throw a flag on the play. Noone mentioned it, and then the field littered with happy Bruin fans. Game Over.

Written by untiled · Filed Under Uncategorized 

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