Comments on: Bill Walsh on USC, Pete Carroll, Oklahoma and Stoops

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Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:20:16 +0000

[...] even more fundamentally, his brand of football is a relic, for good reason. As the great Bill Walsh explained in the L.A. Times after Pete Carroll’s Trojans demolished the Oklahoma Sooners to win the [...]

By: Charles

Charles — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:11:23 +0000

To AERose:

I agree. I’m not doubting Folletts’ draft position. I was just trying to point out USC’s depth.

By: AERose

AERose — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:23:26 +0000

“In the NFL draft, FOUR USC linebackers were selected before Follett.”

To be fair, Follett is undersized and carries some neck injuries with him, among other reasons why he could be so fantastic at Cal but be drafted so late.

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:56:13 +0000

I’m a west coast guy (a Cal grad, and the fact that our only loss in ‘04 was to that USC team by 6 at the Colosseum and we still didn’t go to the Rose Bowl still tortures me) and see USC play frequently. I find it hard to believe that they’ve ever lost a game during the Pete Carroll era.

They are so deep with talent (especially on defense) and get their pick of recruits. Last year, Cal was considered to have an excellent linebacking corps and their best linebacker, Zach Follett, was All Pac 10 and a Butkus semi-finalist. In the NFL draft, FOUR USC linebackers were selected before Follett. Last year, SC essentially had a pro defense. It doesn’t help that they are, in effect, LA’s pro team and have remarkable support from locals who didn’t go to USC.

Besides the talent, it’s tough to win in the Colosseum too (I can’t believe Stanford did it two years ago). Last year, Cal lost 17-3 and had their only touchdown called back on a play where the officials didn’t even throw a flag. When you’re Pete Carroll, you can talk the officials into calling back touchdowns.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:19:27 +0000

Yeah, SC seemed to keep the fullback in to protect for most of the game. But there were a couple of matchups in the passing game that OU had no answer for. One was Steve Smith who got to his spots at will and made some spectacular catches and Dominique Byrd who spent most of that night running past OU’s helpless linebackers with ease and watching the ball sail over his head into the arms of the even more wide open Smith and Dwayne Jarrett

By: James

James — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:47:27 +0000

While USC looked great, I think it was pretty clear that they were one of the most talented college teams of all time. Great players always make coaches look good. The USC passing offense, if I recall, was very simple during that specific game. Just from looking at the highlights, USC 7-man protected for most of the big passing plays. It almost seemed like they knew they were so much better going in that they decided to reduce risk by playing it simple.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:34:03 +0000

That was a poor matchup from the start. OU was known for having a poor secondary to defend against the pass and they were burned heavily in that game. After watching that game I’d put USC, AU, and VT as the top three teams for the season as I believe VT would have thumped OU as well.

By: brophy

brophy — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:18:43 +0000

whoops – sorry, I see this is an excerpt (?) of analysis is written by Walsh for the Times

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:49:56 +0000

10 QBs in the NFL out of the ‘05 draft? Let’s see how good a prediction that was.
Projected starters (4): A. Rodgers (GB), J. Campbell (WAS), K. Orton (DEN), M. Cassel (KC)
Projected backups (4): A. Smith (SF), D. Orlovsky (HOU), D. Anderson (CLE), R. Fitzpatrick (BUF)
Current camp bodies, possible cuts (2): C. Frye (OAK), A. Walter (NE)
Out of NFL (3): D. Greene (UGA, SEA), S. LeFors (UofL, CAR), A. McPherson (“FSU”, NO)
Obviously, you need a longitudinal comparison to intelligently evaluate whether or not “10 QBs in the draft” is something true more often than not, and I don’t have time to do that right now, but I see 10 guys on that list who started at least a little. Bravo, Coach Walsh, bravo.

By: brophy

brophy — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:48:59 +0000

How does an East Coast guy become a West Coast USC fan?
J/K, while I agree that the cat is out of the bag in terms of how the passing / spread game has unfolded in the last decade, but doesn’t history’s trends show us that the pendulum will once again swing back in the other direction?

What is to be made of the dominance Alabama showed last season with their successful run game (it wasn’t JPW) and/or the emergence of contracted offenses, such as the double wing?

I guess the (counter) point I’m trying to bring about is the rise of ‘bad spread’ teams, where everyone spreads it out, “that once was old is now new”, where the teams who revert to the classic schemes of the past (bone, power-I, veer) now become the niche offense where coordinators who don’t see these looks often enough, struggle to cope with the (uncommon) threat they pose?