This team stinks. This team stinks so badly I can still smell them every day when I pass by Palo Alto on my commute to work. The best decision I made this year was traveling to San Diego for the Kaaboo Music Festival instead of personally attending my sixth loss against Stanford. The worst decision I made in my life this year was finding a sports bar at the festival and being fixated on our defense’s inability to stop Christian McCaffrey while the Goo Goo Dolls played less than 100 yards away from me.

Great time to be a Trojan!

This article will be a little different. No research. No sections. A lot shorter. And the order will be more random than a Quentin Tarantino movie. Mostly just angry ranting I think about throughout the day as I see more and more rumors circulating about the turmoil of the program.

If you read last week’s article, I touched on the inadvertent QB controversy Coach Helton created for himself. Well the chickens finally came to roost this week as another subpar performance from Max Browne led to his benching and the starting of Sam “Hey” Darnold. Is it the right choice? I mean, probably. The offense really couldn’t get much worse. But was it really Max’s fault and not the play calling of the in over his head OC Tee Martin.

The issue is how Helton strategically used the starting quarterback position to guarantee he would have a solid backup that could start just in case USC shit the bed twice in three weeks. I was told this during the Utah State game and brushed it off as absolutely ridiculous. Helton named Browne the starter so that he wouldn’t transfer as a grad student and play elsewhere immediately? And he benched the better quarterback just to start him later on in the year? LUDICROUS!

But now it makes a lot of sense. Helton saw the opponents and knew his team didn’t have a chance with either quarterback. Mostly because of the discrepancy in coaching more than talent, but I will save that for later.

Should you feel bad for Max Browne being the sacrificial lamb for the 2016 USC Season? I guess. But on the bright side, he received a completely free education from one of the best schools in the nation and also is in the process of earning his MBA, just for being an over-hyped high school football player. And if Helton made the right decision and allowed him to transfer? He probably would have just wound up tossing ducks at an FCS school and then trying out for an arena football team.

Like what is Aaron Corp doing right now? Like seriously what is he doing, my internet search yielded no results.

Here’s a silver lining for anyone who is still optimistic about this season. More foreshadowing? The coach who made that decision was fired and replaced by Pete Carroll. Those who don’t study history are bound to repeat it. USC has been making the same mistakes over and over but this may finally be a good one.

Cody Best Buy! Going to be slinging those screens in Cleveland this weekend (Until he gets devoured by Dolphins’ pass rush or gets pulled for Kevin Hogan).

Checkdown Cody starting before Jared “Which Direction Does The Sun Set?” Goff. What a time to be alive!

In other positive news for former USC QBs

Matt Barkley is back on an active NFL roster. Barkley please enjoy those $26K weekly checks for a few more weeks before you retire at the end of the year to an idyllic life in Newport Beach.

I guess we should talk about last week’s game.

UMMMMMMM, YA THINK!? The most significant position in football and the person in charge of the whole team are the most responsible for the outcome of the game? NO DOY!

The New England Patriots have been good for 15 years with just those two while cycling out the rest of the team.

The best part of this quote is the irony. Helton immediately benched his quarterback a day later, effectively putting the blame on the QB (and the person who chose to start him, the coach).

Love the indecision here. Helton spent the whole offseason saying Jackson would focus primarily on defense and once shit hits the fan you go back on months of quotes to try and gain a “spark.” Adoree’ Jackson is playing like an All-American right now at cornerback. He is never thrown at and when he is, it results in a poor decision by opposing defenses.

Hopefully he doesn’t get too overworked on offense and can maintain his dominance in defensive coverage. He’s playing for the NFL Draft now and it would be unfortunate if this change affects hist stock.

What in the hell is this? EIGHT players on the field. Surprised Stanford didn’t audible and try to go for two (Kiffin would have).

What is the explanation for this? I have to think that because this was after the long touchdown pass to Christian McCaffrey, three of the players who were not on the field at that time were so shocked and demoralized by the play that they forget some of their responsibilities. I’ll admit I did this once or twice in high school. But I didn’t have over two dozen coaches and assistants telling me what to do and where to be at all times. On the bright side, I found our next special teams coach:

You can have drama on and off the field. You can have an inept offense and the inability to make a decision on your starting quarterback, but when you punt from midfield down three scores in the fourth quarter, I have lost all faith in you as a head coach. You can throw out stats on why it was dumb. You can use basic common sense. But for the sake of an argument let’s go through some scenarios against punting and for punting.

Against Punting

Best Case: Convert on downs and continue drive.

Bad Case Scenario: Turnover on downs, and Stanford moves the ball into their territory but they are held to a field goal. Still a three score game with six to seven minutes on the clock.

Worst Case Scenario: Turnover on downs and they take the ball at midfield and score. Game over.

For Punting

Best Case Scenario: You pin Stanford back behind the 20 and force a three and out and hopefully get good field position or an Adoree’ punt return touchdown.

Bad Case Scenario: They march down the field, eating clock, but you hold them to a field goal. Still a three score game with four to five minutes to go.

Worst Case Scenario: They march down the field, eating clock, and eventually score a touchdown. Four score game with barely any time left. Game over.

What Actually Happened

Stanford ran an eight-play drive, wasting around 5 minutes on the clock, effectively ending the game.

We went from “Big Balls” Pete to “Small Cranberries” Clay.

Stating that his decision was a mistake would show that he has the ability to improve in his decision-making in real time as a coach, but no, Helton doubles down on his idiotic and cowardly decision to punt. Next time, just wave a white flag so no one gets injured playing garbage time.

Maybe JuJu is overrated. Half the time he’s pouting over not getting the ball (that kind of body language probably does wonders for team morale during games) and when he does get targeted he transforms into Ted Ginn Jr. Would Max Browne still be starting if JuJu catches that pass?

He had better hands when they were broken.

Technically USC is in first place in the Pac-12 South as they are the only team in the division to play a conference game. Spin Zone!

This is a particularly odd offensive alignment, mostly because it’s fairly obvious where the ball is going. The four linemen are sardined next to each other to provide the running lane for Ronald Jones while Chad Wheeler is 10 yards away spreading out the outside rush. If these kinds of alignments are happening consistently throughout the game, then it’s obvious why the rushing attack is so awful. A couple of film sessions on USC and the opponent will be able to predict every play.

Tailback U looks more like Tailback Community College. USC is averaging less rushing yards than Washington State. This is incredible given that Mike Leach locked up all the running plays in the Cougars’ equipment room.

Players alleged that the Stanford defensive line was simulating the snap count. Could be true but from what I’ve seen from the line this year (hell, the team as a whole), I’m leaning towards lack of discipline. USC eventually switched to a silent snap count and the false starts reduced. I’m sure the penalties will stop when we head to Utah this week (they won’t).

Is this team the guy from Memento? Do they need to tattoo “Stop #5” on their arms?

Apparently they do.

How one lets the star of the team (and Heisman candidate) get this wide open on the first drive is mind-boggling.

Especially one that has picked apart our defense three times in a year.

For the most part, I’d say our defense has been solid all season. Except for the whole “let a receiver get wide open for a touchdown” play we run once or twice a game.

Forward to where? A 6–6 record and a bid to the New Mexico Bowl?

Remember when we thought Helton was a solid hire because he was drama free. Well, I guess it’s more the institution than the coach, as rumors have been rampant this week over coaches getting punched in the face, Tee Martin breaking into a player’s only meeting to scold the team, and over half a dozen players requesting to transfer. I’m glad we are traveling to Utah because I’m going to need to stop by the lake and collect as many grains of salt as I can to take with each of these rumors.

Is this even accurate? I mean, Notre Dame and Ole Miss are 1–2 as well and they both look a hell of a lot more competent than we do.

Oh. He’s making fun of us.

We can win on National Signing Day! We can win in the Preseason Rankings! But actually playing? Ehhhhh… we will get back to you on that one

USC has dug its own grave. When Pete Carroll left and the sanctions came down, we went for immediate solutions instead of a total rebuild. Instead of trying to identify a coach with the ability to recharge a university with all the infrastructure, resources and appearances of an elite powerhouse, we have just been aimlessly clinging to branches from the Pete Carroll coaching tree. But these entitled, alcoholic, and unprepared branches leave us realizing the solution was to buy a new tree from the very start. Sorry, I was at a music festival and still can’t stop thinking about Stanford’s domination of our program, forgive all the tree analogies.

News flash? Times have changed and being a historically great program doesn’t get you as much as it used to these days. It’s convenient (or coincidental) that this team is located in the same city as the Los Angeles Lakers, who are suffering from the same problem. They currently lack a sound organization but every delusional fan thinks every top free agent is signing there because “It’s the Lakers.” You can point to the banners all day but the only free agents you’re signing are Timofey Mozgov and Yi Jialian.

What should we do? Blow it all up. Fire everyone. Throw every dollar and donation at a good coach and start from scratch. We suffered through two years of bowl bans. We need to be able to have patience and rebuild the program from scratch. Pete Carroll is gone.

Well, not GONE gone.

Okay, onto the game this week.

This Utah team is the same every year. Great defense, okay offense, and a huge home-field advantage. I’m just sad I won’t get to see Travis Wilson try to jump 10 yards for a first down.

So close.

I don’t see USC winning at Utah. They’ve shown nothing on offense besides beating up on a defenseless Utah State. They lack discipline and are led by coaches that are in over their heads. Not to mention, they are traveling on the road on 5 days rest after playing the most physical team in the Pac 12.

Oh, and they are going into one of the loudest stadiums in the nation with a quarterback with no starting experience.

Last year, I wrote a similar article laying into the team right before the Utah game, but they ended up proving me wrong. I hope that in hindsight, they make this article look embarrassing, but I don’t have my hopes held high.

USC 13 Utah 24

Note: I really don’t believe this prediction. My goldfish brain still thinks we can go 10–2

You can follow me on twitter at Sports By Scondi

Special thanks to my numerous “editors”; Jordan, Ashton, James and Sam

Sources: USC Athletics, SBNation, Conquest Chronicles, ESPN, Reign of Troy, Rivals, Scout, Deadspin, Wikipedia, Google, ESPN, and a lot of other places