While we are certainly enemies come Saturday, we at BuffsWire have done our best this week to tolerate our TrojansWire counterparts. After COVID-19 canceled Colorado’s matchup with USC last year, these two struggling Pac-12 South schools will try again at Folsom Field this weekend. To get a clearer picture of just what is going on in Los Angeles, TrojansWire Editor Matt Zemek answered a few burning questions.
Q: How far in is the panic button pushed for USC?
There is no panic button right now, because Clay Helton has been fired. That is what fans needed to see more than anything else. They are simply hoping Mike Bohn—whom you guys in Boulder know well—will hire the right replacement. Given that he had the stones to fire Helton after Week 2, there is increased optimism that Bohn understands what’s at stake.
There are no expectations for this season. Frankly, all USC fans REALLY want to see out of this year’s team is for young guys to play and get some reps without burning redshirts, and most of all, for the Trojans to give a damn. There was no pride, no effort, no energy in the performance against Oregon State, with the exception of Drake London, who looks like a first-round draft pick and is trying hard on every play. USC needs 21 other Drake Londons, but cloning is not yet able to be done on a large scale. Just getting maximum effort from players would be good for USC, because if a hotshot coach is going to come here, that coach needs to see players who try hard.
The 2021 season has shown just how much damage Clay Helton did to USC—not just in recruiting, but the lack of professionalism in practice and everyday operations. Helton’s lack of player development is a scandal. Iowa, UCLA and a not-very-good Texas program have more actively rostered NFL players than USC does. USC’s place in the first two rounds of the NFL draft has become minimal in recent years. The program has been wrecked. This season will limp along to the finish. It’s all about hiring the right coach.
Q: What plagued USC on defense vs. Oregon State?
I could just say “lack of effort,” but there is a deeper story to USC’s defensive disaster against Oregon State.
First off, Todd Orlando isn’t really the answer to the Trojans’ problems. The bar was very low for him when he replaced Clancy Pendergast after the 2019 season. Compared to Pendergast, Orlando was certainly better in 2020, though the Trojans still had many flaws. When USC held San Jose State—a team which won the Mountain West and went unbeaten last year—to seven points in the 2021 opener, it seemed the defense would be the side of the ball the Trojans could count on. The offense was always going to be a mess, but there was a sense after Week 1 that the defense could keep this team competitive. Clearly that is not the case.
It’s instructive to note that San Jose State’s offense has been TERRIBLE this season: 27 points in three games against FBS teams, not counting a first game against an FCS cupcake. San Jose State just lost to Western Michigan, 23-3.
Clearly, USC’s 30-7 win over San Jose State was a commentary about San Jose State more than USC, but in Week 1, it didn’t seem that way. San Jose State has massively regressed and isn’t one of the top five or six teams in the Mountain West. That might have been a one-year pandemic season fluke. USC’s defense thought it was good. I thought it was good… but it’s not. USC got destroyed by Stanford and Oregon State. Outhit, outworked, outplayed, outschemed. No USC defensive player won his individual matchup. No USC defensive player impressed or stood out in a good way. There isn’t much else to say.
Q: Which under-the-radar Trojans should the Buffs be worried about?
Given that USC is playing poorly up and down the roster, one could make the argument that every non-Drake London player is under the radar. That point aside, the place where USC has to evolve the most is on the front lines. The Trojans got trucked by Oregon State in the trenches, especially their defensive line. Before the season began, the defensive line was supposed to be a USC strength, but that hasn’t materialized. If Colorado wants to have a realistic chance of winning this game against USC, it needs to hope that USC’s defensive line remains pillow-soft and can ram the ball down the Trojans’ throats, which will have the added benefit of keeping the USC offense on the sideline.
USC becomes dangerous if its line play improves, and if guys decide to play with fire and anger. Right now, this is a flat and listless team. USC getting some smelling salts and emerging from slumber is the larger possibility Colorado does not want to see on Saturday. The Buffs hope USC remains
asleep and disinterested, which is certainly possible.
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Q: How has former Buff K.D. Nixon fit into the offense?
One of the big stories of this USC season is that the other receivers aren’t helping Drake London. Tahj Washington dropped three passes against Oregon State. Bru McCoy was supposed to be the best non-London alternative, but off-field problems have likely ended his USC career. The Trojans and offensive coordinator Graham Harrell have not yet been able to identify a clear No. 2 target, and K.D. Nixon is part of that larger reality in Los Angeles. He made a catch in the Oregon State game, but only when the Trojans trailed by a billion points. The big question with Nixon is whether his lack of central involvement in the offense is a product of what he is doing himself, or what Graham Harrell is failing to do with the USC Air Raid offense. This offense has been a massive failure except when Jaxson Dart breathed life into it in Week 3. Harrell could be to Nixon what Adam Gase was to Sam Darnold with the New York Jets.
Q: With the emergence of Jaxson Dart, is there a quarterback competition in L.A., or is Kedon Slovis still the guy?
The Jaxson Dart situation—and by extension, the USC quarterback situation—is a mixture of clarity and confusion. The clarity comes from the fact that Dart will be out several weeks with a torn meniscus. He definitely won’t be back before November IF he even plays again this season. The confusion comes if Dart is healthy enough to play in November. Where will USC be then? How would playing Dart figure into USC’s head coaching search? Would it be politically wise for Mike Bohn to allow Donte Williams to play Dart, or will Dart be kept on the sidelines? USC won’t run the Air Raid offense next year under the new head coach, so it could be that Harrell and Williams will play out the rest of the schedule with Kedon Slovis and preserve Dart for 2022 and the new coaching staff. As you can see, that’s a very tangled and uncertain situation which will take a while to sort out IF Dart is healthy enough to play in November.
