Q and A: Josh Webb of Trojan Wire on USC-Alabama cancellation

Josh Webb with Trojans Wire gave us a little of his time to talk about the cancellation of that USC-Alabama game.

The Pac-12 has already announced that it would be moving to a conference-only schedule as response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which means that Alabama will not be playing USC to open the 2020 season.

It was an unfortunate development considering the excitement surrounding two blue blood college football programs, who are both expected to be top 20 teams, going at it to kick things off, but life goes on.

With that said, Josh Webb with Trojans Wire, one of our college wire partner sites, gave us a little of his time to talk about the cancellation of that USC-Alabama game.

1. How is the cancellation of the Alabama game being received with USC fans?

To be honest, fans are somewhat relieved. Aside from the fact that these games should’ve never been played at AT&T Stadium, the way the Coronavirus is trending means that the Trojans might likely have been a little unprepared as they fought to get ready before the game. In other words, the prep time might not have been what USC would’ve liked heading into a game against the Crimson Tide. Then you factor in the last time they played and how that all went down, and it wasn’t really the worst cancellation from this side of the globe.

2. Did Trojan fans have more confidence this time around knowing the quarterback play would be improved?

Uh, no. If we’re being honest, I’m not sure how improved that play was going to be. While Kedon Slovis is much better than Max Browne, who peaked in high school, it’s hard to tell how good the quarterback play would be after trying to fend off the Alabama Crimson Tide defensive line all day. The offensive line is still a work in progress, as are the running backs. It’s a tough thing to play Alabama at any time, but having to play them the first game of the season doesn’t seem to favor the Trojans either.

3. How will the loss of this game affect the Trojans financially, if at all? 

Probably won’t affect their bottom line too much. USC is an incredibly well-funded school, way more funded than Alabama across the board. The Endowment at USC is $5.7B compared to Alabama $1.5B and athletic boosters are just as generous as Bama’s boosters, who definitely more than help to make up some of the endowment difference. In this case, USC is the richer school and it likely hurts “Bama more than it hurts USC. But this is honestly a scenario where neither school are going to take much of a hit.

4. How badly do you think conference-only scheduling will have an impact on the way we process the postseason? 

I gotta be honest, I have no idea how the postseason is going to work. We have some conferences using conference-only scheduling. There has been talk of conference plus one with the SEC and ACC, meaning they will play one team outside their conference. College football already has a problem with trying to avoid the perception of bias during the postseason award of games.I don’t see how they avoid it when leagues are conference-only scheduling or using the plus one model. I think it’s going to be a really hard conversation that we really should be having before trying to play a season, but nobody seems to be having it. Everyone is using the “let’s see what happens” approach and there’s no way to know how that’s going to work. It’s too ad hoc.

5. How do you think it would’ve been received by USC fans had Bryce Young been somehow named the starter?

Maybe three people would’ve cared. Bryce Young is a talent, but USC is more than happy with Kedon Slovis, who trained under Kurt Warner for his high school ball. Kurt Warner couldn’t say enough things about Kedon, and he’s been right. The kid was better than J.T. Daniels and it did not even take a competition to prove it. Once Daniels went down with his injury, it just became obvious that Slovis was the better quarterback and there was no way Daniels could get the job back. If they weren’t gonna worry about losing J.T. Daniels, they aren’t going to care about Young for Alabama. It’s very “next man up” at USC, especially when that next dude up is a legit baller, as they tend to be at both of these schools.

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