Weekly Musings - Arizona Edition

As I sit here at LAX in the lounge getting ready for a red-eye flight to the world's greatest city, watching my fourth college football game of the day (the first one being the USC one that I attended), I just want to throw out a Week 5 mid-season comment about the greatness of college football. It would be impossible for me to have more things on my mind than I do right now, yet I can not help bnut just absolutely love this sport. It would further be impossible for college football to have gone through more adversity than it has the last year, and yet it sure seems to me that the sport is flourishing as it always has. The merit for this sport is the raw talent and drive exhibited by these young men who play the sport. The struggles that permeate the sport are caused by third party bureaucrats who run the sport under the employ of an evil and intrinsically flawed organization called the NCAA. I am living in the era that will prove to be the unwinding of this malignant institution. I am excited for this to happen. I encourage you all to read the outstanding piece in The Atlantic about some of the more reprehensible iniquities of the NCAA. But in the meantime, I am loving college football once again, and certainly loved spending the day at my beloved Coliseum. I suppose it didn't hurt to see a USC victory eitherThe good news: A USC record courtesy of Matt Barkley for most passing yards in a single game in the history of USC footballThe bad news: A USC record for most first downs ever given up to the other time by the USC defense (37)More good news: Robert Woods will be at USC this year and next year, and Marquis Lee even has another year after thatMore bad news: Both of those guys will be GONE after that, as a massvie eight-figure pay day awaits them. Absolutely outstanding Wide Receivers, and in the case of Woods, a serious contender for the Heisman Trophy if there is any justice in the world.I was discouraged by the defense today, primarily in the second half (though even in the first half we really were fortunate to see the UofA quartterback just place two balls right into the hands of TJ McDonald - really bad balls thrown from a really good quarterback). The issues with the defense are two-fold: There are schematic flaws that leave major portions of the field wide open, and there are technical/physical problems that leave offensive players literally bouncing off of our would-be tacklers like Vince Young did off of the Ting brothers in the 2006 Rose Bowl. I do not know if it will get better or not, but I do know that if it doesn't, our offense may need to score 70 points to stay in the game with Oregon.Matt really played an amazing game today. The passing game went exactly the way I want it to - with the defense having to decide if they want Robert Woods to beat us (which he is happy to do), or everybody else but Robert Woods to beat us (which they are all happy to do). We did not get much of a run game going today, but we didn't need it with UofA's defense helpless against our aerial attack.Consider this: USC did not have ANY penalties today. Now, the book will say we had three, but one of them was a highly questionable personal foul call, the second was a completely fraudulent and unexplainable personal foul call (both of those coming on the same drive and resulting in a totally undeserved UofA touchdown), and one was a "sideline interference" penalty on Kiffin that cost USC a touchdown because he was standing two feet on the field roughly 40 yards from where the action was taking place on the field. Three total flags, and all three very undeserved.USC has now beaten Arizona nine of the last ten games and Arizona State ten of the last eleven. Yes, we are 19-2 against the Arizona schools in our last 21 contests against them (ay yi yi). I wish Northern Arizona University would join the Pac-12.More and more irrational attacks came against Lane Kiffin this week from the supposedly Trojan football. The common retort is "I have every right to love my program and want to see less mistakes and better football", which of course has nothing to do with the conversation whatsoever. Yes, Trojan fans can desire to see things go better. But what real Trojans can not do is take their incessant need to find someone to blame for something they don't like, and then cope with that need by shooting our own head coach (who is responsible for leading us into battle each week). Kiff has done some things I do not like (see my note below about today's decision to go for it on 4th down), but his loudest critics are living in a fantasy world right now. There is no such thing as a miracle worker coach who can come in and make all right in the universe right away, at least not one that you can know about. Pete may have done it, but no one - NO ONE - knew he was going to. Is Lane "learning on the job"? I hope so. Remind me never to hire any of these folks criticizing someone for doing that. Ay yi yi. If learning on the job is a bad idea, I don't want a job. In the meantime, he is our head coach, and that is unlikely to change for the time being. He deserves the support of the Trojan fan base, and if someone in their heart of hearts just doesn't think he will make it, fine. Hold that thought. I happen to have no idea (and by the way, neither do the Kiffin-haters). If he is one day let go, I will get ready to support the next guy. But in the meantime, the toxicity directed at him is silly, and of course, a by-product of the courage a keyboard and computer screen seems to give very troubled people these days.With that said, the decision to run that 30-yard pass play on 4th and 1 from the 50-yard line is the kind of thing that makes the job of us good loyal Trojans who are trying to be supportive of the coach very, very hard.Carswell, Butler, Grimble, and Ellison have a big responsibility on this team: Teams are going to have to focus even more on Woods (and Lee) going forward. These guys need to get open, find the ball, catch the ball, and hold on to the ball. We have a really special crew of receivers.I remain unhappy about the way we are recruiting at running back, and curious if Tyler will be an every down back for us here at USC (I think he should be, right now). I really feel that recruiting four or five star athlete playmakers at the same position, and then now ever giving any of them the chance to really shine at USC, is unfair, and ill-advised.I am glad we have the bye week now and can not wait for the Thursday night game on the water against Cal. We have tuned them up something fierce the last two years (and not lost to them since 2003 at all). I would love to keep that going. They want and need a big win. I want and need to deny them one. After that game, the back-to-back Notre Dame and Stanford games will be a real challenge. Fight on Trojans! Now, around the country:- I am shocked about the South Carolina loss to Auburn, and wondering if that Garcia as QB is just not the answer.- Now we know regarding Texas A&M - imposters- Stanford looks good tonight against UCLA but not great- Alabama looks like the real deal but Saban is SOOOOOO conservative I can see it catching up with him. I don't know how many of you watched the unbelievable Alabama-Auburn game last year, but I am 100% convinced that Saban's hyper-conservative methodology caused Alabama to suffer probably their biggest loss in Bama football history. I love Alabama's philosophy: Run hard, play defense. But something tells me Saban will need to take a few risks in some game this year ...- I don't often do the weekly musings without watching two hours of Saturday night ESPN highlights but with my plane boarding momentarily, and me tied up in New York for the next eight days, I will close out of the Musings here this week. I meant what I said earlier: this is a special time to be a lover of college football. Go Trojans, go away NCAA, and go Coach Kiffin. Fight on, and let's get better.