Tag: Matt Zemek

Which former Pac-12 team has the highest ceiling in year 1 of the expanded Big Ten?

A look at which former Pac-12 team has the highest ceiling year year 1 of the expanded Big Ten conference in 2024.

Next season of college football is going to be very different and strange.

Oregon, Washington, and the Los Angeles schools will compete in the Big Ten and the College Football Playoff is expanding by six more teams.

USC began this process with the other schools following and going their own way. The end result was the death of the Pac-12. Although the Ducks will be playing in a new conference, according to TrojansWire, Oregon will be the prohibitive favorite thanks to one player.

“Dillon Gabriel is a much better quarterback than Will Howard (Ohio State), and certainly much more proven and established than (USC’s) Miller Moss,” TrojansWire.com editor Matt Zemek said. “The Ducks are recruiting well and adding players via the transfer portal well across the board. They appear to have the most balanced team with an anchor at the sport’s most important position. They’re in the driver’s seat right now.”

While we at DucksWire would like to agree and Zemek is probably right, we would like to think Oregon is just one of several really good teams in the Big Ten in 2024. The Buckeyes, Wolverines, and Nittany Lions will provide stiff competition.

Since he does cover one team in Los Angeles, Zemek has a unique perspective on UCLA as well and for some reason, he’s not as high on former Bruin and current Duck quarterback Dante Moore as most people.

“Moore struggled in 2023. I didn’t get the sense he was about to turn the corner or that one more year was going to bring forth his best,” Zemek said. “He just didn’t live up to the hype. The Bruins need an elite portal quarterback in the spring.”

He is right, however. UCLA is in trouble if they don’t find a quarterback soon.

What’s gone wrong with the USC Trojans so far this season?

At 6-5, USC’s Andy Enfield still has time to figure this out, but he’s skating on ice if he doesn’t.

The last Pac-12 men’s basketball season begins on Thursday and in one of the openers, an under-performing USC Trojans squad comes into Matthew Knight Arena to play an injury-riddled Oregon team.

It’s not quite the scenario either team planned on when the season got underway, but the Ducks do get Keeshawn Barthelemy back this week with Mookie Cook and N’Faly Dante expected to be back soon.

As for the Trojans, it’s not injury, but chemistry. The talent is there, but as we discussed with TrojansWire editor Matt Zemek, coach Andy Enfield needs to figure some things out. We asked if there’s still time to turn this around and if they do, what needs to happen.

“Enfield has to rework his offense. Too much dribbling. Too many isolation plays. Not nearly enough ball movement,” he said. “One thing I thought Isaiah Collier would bring to the table was an ability to draw defenders on drives and then throw lob passes to the big men for dunks and layups. We have seen very little of that. Enfield has this roaring Ferrari at point guard but can’t figure out how to start the ignition and get the car out of the garage. It’s beyond depressing.”

That’s exactly the kind of offense Oregon is looking to hurt opponents with, but the Ducks haven’t had point guard Jackson Shelstad and Dante on the floor at the same time yet. Oregon can only hope the Trojans don’t figure it out until after the game on Thursday. If they don’t gain some chemistry this season or if it’s too late, Zemek says Enfield is skating on thin ice.

“The coach just hasn’t been up to the job, and unless USC can scramble and make the NCAA Tournament — it will need to have a monster Pac-12 season (maybe three or four losses maximum) — Enfield should be fired,” he said. “This was his huge chance to establish long-term job security and lift USC to a higher level. Instead, he is face-planting. There have to be consequences for that. This was a prove-it season. Enfield is proving he can’t hack it.”

College basketball is a game of adjustments and most of the time, last-minute, down-to-the-wire adjustments. Most Duck fans would take Dana Altman any day and it sounds like Trojan fans would take Altman too in this case.

Oregon baseball hopes to continue USC’s struggles with Northwest teams

Oregon baseball goes down to Los Angeles to take on USC, so we asked Trojans Wire’s @MattZemek for a scouting report.

The Pac-12 season is heading down the homestretch with just three weekend series remaining. Oregon is battling to host a regional in the NCAA tournament and the Ducks’ upcoming opponent, USC, is squarely on that bubble.

This weekend’s matchup in Los Angeles is important for different reasons for both teams. The Trojans seem to be two teams, a good one at home (20-5) and a bad one on the road (4-13-1). With the Ducks going to Dedeaux Field to play the good USC team, we just had to go to TrojansWire’s Matt Zemek to see what’s the deal with this Trojan team with that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde mentality. Here is his brief scouting report.

It’s an unproven team under a first-year head coach Andy Stankiewicz. USC has not tasted success in baseball for a long time. The glory days are part of the distant past. Stankiewicz has done a great job with this team, but growing pains were always going to be part of the equation in Year 1 of his tenure. It’s a lot like basketball role players and reserves playing well at home and not on the road. This team feeds off confidence from the enthusiastic crowds it has seen (and heard) at Dedeaux Field. Going on the road is a different beast. It’s a lot like football: The Pacific Northwest is often this team’s graveyard, and we’ve seen it in the recent series against Oregon State and Washington.

Both the Huskies and Beavers swept the Trojans on their home fields, a luxury the Ducks don’t have here. Oregon is coming off a two-game losing streak, but a Pac-12 regular season title is still in the cards.

The Ducks (30-14, 13-8) are in third place, but just two games back of first-place Stanford.

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TrojansWire editor Matt Zemek gives his thoughts on Michigan State basketball vs. USC

TrojansWire editor Matt Zemek gives his thoughts on Michigan State vs. USC

Michigan State basketball will face off against USC on Friday and before the match-up, we spoke to TrojansWire editor Matt Zemek to get his thoughts on MSU, this year’s USC team, and more.

For more information on when and where to watch the game, go here.

You can see what he had to say below:

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Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan state news, notes, and opinion. You can also follow Andrew Brewster on Twitter @IAmBrewster.

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USC is struggling in fight for viewers in LA, and their Cotton Bowl opponent doesn’t help

USC has had to fight hard for eyeballs in a crowded LA sports market this year. Their bowl game opponent doesn’t help the interest level.

Besides New York, the busiest city in America is Los Angeles and that goes for the sports scene. There is a lot of competition in terms of getting attention in L.A. and to USC’s credit, it’s doing its best in order to get eyeballs on the program.

But the Trojans still have some work to do.

With the Dodgers (MLB) and the two NFL teams, the Chargers and Rams, there is a lot on the plate for an L.A. fan. The Lakers are swimming in mediocrity right now, so there’s some room on that plate for the Trojans.

However, USC did itself a big disservice by losing out on the Pac-12 title and ultimately the College Football Playoff. To find out more about how the Trojans are handling everything, we went to Trojans Wire editor Matt Zemek.

USC was on the verge of playing the likes of Michigan or Ohio State, but now the Trojans play Tulane. The Green Wave are a very good team, but let’s face it, they’re not the Wolverines or Buckeyes, Here’s Zemek’s take:

The fact that Tulane is the opponent is the key. If USC was in the Rose Bowl playing Penn State, people would be excited. If USC was playing Tennessee in the Orange Bowl, people would be excited … but it’s Tulane. A lot of USC fans reasonably and understandably view this game as something with little upward value if USC wins, but a lot of negative impact if USC loses. Caleb Williams might not play, too, so that would devalue the game even more.

More proof that USC is still fighting on for space in the LA sports scene is the all-important television market and the ratings. Although the Trojans were playing for a title and a playoff spot, people weren’t tuning in as much as one would hope. The Pac-12 Championship Game received just a 6.0 in the LA market. Zemek did some research and offered an explanation.

It takes time for L.A. fans to warm up to USC football after a period of irrelevance. Crowds this season were steadily in the low 60,000s, well below full capacity of 78,500,” he said. “That’s just the reality. Also note that unlike in the Pete Carroll era, the Rams and Chargers are both in town. No NFL teams were in town during the Carroll years. The Rams returned to Los Angeles in 2016. The Chargers returned to L.A. in 2017. Fans don’t have unlimited dollars. They get spread around more. People relocating to Los Angeles might not be USC fans, either.

It’ll be interesting to hear how The Big Ten, USC’s new home in 2024, react to those numbers.

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‘It stings;’ How should USC fans feel about Cotton Bowl after CFP hopes?

We talked to TrojansWire’s own @MattZemek about the mood of the USC program after the Trojans failed to win the Pac-12 title.

It was right there for the taking.

All USC had to do was avenge its only loss and defeat Utah in the Pac-12 title game to represent the conference in the College Football Playoff.

The Trojans were well on their way after the first quarter as they held an early 14-3 lead. But then the wheels came off. Quarterback Caleb Williams hurt his hamstring, the Trojan defense forgot how to tackle, and the Utes came away with a 47-24 victory.

Losing to Utah twice in a season is undoubtedly a pain every Duck fan can relate to. But Oregon didn’t have a playoff spot on the line as the Trojans did.

At 11-2, USC will have to settle for the Cotton Bowl where it faces No. 16 Tulane. While the situation is enviable for most, this wasn’t what the Men of Troy had in mind when they hired Lincoln Riley away from Oklahoma and got the Sooners quarterback to come to Los Angeles with him.

In order to get the mood of the Trojans program, we went to our buddy Matt Zemek, editor of TrojansWire. This is what he had to say about how USC is moving on from the disappointment in Las Vegas.

It’s certainly a feeling of being deflated. Making the playoff would have been an extraordinary moment for the program in its return to national relevance,” Zemek said. “Not getting revenge on Utah also stings. Not being able to increase the lead from 17-3 to 20-3 or 24-3 was a real disappointment during the game, and Utah made USC pay for that. Yet, ultimately, there’s a sense of helplessness among the fan base because Caleb Williams got hurt and Andrew Vorhees was out. There’s an awareness that USC didn’t have full strength or health for this big game, which creates a “what can you do?” feeling.

Oregon also had to play with a quarterback that wasn’t 100 percent, but unlike USC, the Ducks could prepare accordingly. The Trojans had to adjust on the fly and it wasn’t in the cards and Utah was able to take advantage.

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Notre Dame-Stanford preview: Pac-12 expert talks Cardinal

Should Notre Dame be on upset alert this week and would Stanford really fire David Shaw? Our Pac 12 expert shares his knowledge.

You don’t have to flip the pages of your scrapbook back all that far to find a time that Notre Dame’s annual clash with Stanford was significant in the major college football landscape.

The Cardinal went to a bowl game each year from 2009, which was Jim Harbaugh’s third year on campus, to 2018, which was David Shaw’s eighth as head coach.  Since then things haven’t gone as desired for the Cardinal as they’re just 1-4 overall this year and just 13-25 since the start of the 2019 season.

So what has gone wrong with Stanford, is there any hope in Palo Alto that they’ll be turning things around anytime soon, and would they really force Shaw, a coach who NFL teams were said to be kicking the tires on a few years back, out after what he’s accomplished?

Matt Zemek is the managing editor of our sister-site Trojans Wire where they cover all things USC.  He also follows the Pac 12 incredibly closely and has insights to the rest of the league, not just USC.

Zemek was kind enough to take a few minutes away from his currently unbeaten football team to discuss how Stanford has fallen like they have and what to expect this Saturday.

A look down south at USC during Oregon’s bye week with Trojans Wire

With the Ducks not playing this week, we took the opportunity to check in with @TrojansWire to see how things are going down south with USC.

With the Oregon Ducks having a well-timed bye week and USC preparing for a huge game at Utah that will have conference title implications, we thought it would be a good idea to check in with our friends over at Trojans Wire.

USC is undefeated at 6-0, but it’s been a bumpier ride than most expected. The offense has been good, but early on, the defense has been a bit suspect. We asked TrojansWire editor Matt Zemek what changed with the Trojans defensive unit.

“The defense has improved, but it hasn’t changed as much as some people might think. The run defense is still a problem,” he said. “Depth is still a concern. What this defense did well from the start of the season was that it collected takeaways when opponents put the ball in jeopardy. You don’t see this team drop interceptions. Guys are catching interceptions and making timely plays in the red zone. USC also doesn’t give up huge plays, especially in the passing game. You’re not seeing opponents hit long balls over the top. Utah will need to hit a few on Saturday night in Salt Lake City.”

The last time USC went on the road in Pac-12 play, it was far from easy as the needed a last-minute touchdown to defeat Oregon State. Will the Trojans’ next foray away from the Coliseum be any different and what will USC have to do to avoid the upset.?

“USC has to prove its offense can handle a hostile crowd in a night game. Caleb Williams and the rest of the offense played as though they had never encountered a road game when they stumbled through the Oregon State contest,” Zemek said. “I’m sure Lincoln Riley has a plan, but players simply can’t be rattled. The other point to make is that interior lineman Justin Dedich was not healthy against Oregon State. He played, but he was not at his best. He looked better against Washington State. That was encouraging. Still, Williams has to be good against Utah. USC is not going to win if it scores 17 points again. Cam Rising might not be great, but he’s no Chance Nolan (in other words, he is not a below-average quarterback). USC’s offense will need to score at least 35 points if not more.”

Oregon knows all too well it’s difficult to go into Utah and come out victorious. Utah is down, but not out. This won’t be an easy game to win for the Trojans to be sure.

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Notre Dame football’s small part in Vin Scully’s path to Dodgers broadcast booth

How a Notre Dame-North Carolina football game led to Vin Scully’s quick rise with the Dodgers.

The term GOAT gets thrown around way too liberally these days.  There are some all-time greats and some really goods that deserve praise but it feels as if calling someone the “Greatest of All-Time” has lost a bit of the impact it used to.

That’s not the case for Vin Scully.

And it will never not be the case.

Scully became the legendary voice of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers for whom he broadcast games for an astonishing 67 years.  His iconic calls included Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in the 1988 World Series, Hank Aaron’s record setting 715th career home run, and even “The Catch” in the 1981 NFC Championship game.

Those were all incredible and are worthy of celebration but what made Scully special was his ability to tell stories.  Sure, he had them of the greatest players the game ever saw and he saw plenty of those guys up close, but his stories of the other players who weren’t All-Star regulars or megastars are what I always enjoyed most about him.  Check out below to hear just a few of his less iconic but equally as great of calls over the years.

Earlier today our colleague Matt Zemek at Trojans Wire shared a story of how a college football game at Fenway Park actually served as Scully’s major breakthrough in terms of broadcasting.

From the piece Zemek found on Boston.com:

It was November 12, 1949, and Scully was just a 21-year-old looking to break into broadcasting after graduating from Fordham University. A special circumstance had helped him land the job of calling the game at Fenway Park between 6-0 Boston University and 5-1 Maryland.

It was legendary Detroit Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell (who was once fired by Bo Schembechler – good going there) was reassigned to call the Notre Dame-North Carolina game that day which led to the famed Red Barber reaching out to Scully and getting him to announce the Boston University vs. Maryland game at Fenway.  Notre Dame routed the Tar Heels 42-6 that day which meant Scully’s game received the majority of CBS’ attention as it was competitive.

Shortly after Scully joined the Dodgers broadcast booth and the rest is history.

I’m not silly enough to think Vin wouldn’t have made it one day if not for calling that Boston U.-Maryland game but he wouldn’t have gotten his start quite as quickly.

From a baseball fan that was blessed to be able to fall asleep to Dodgers games on MLB.tv for the better part of the last 15 years, RIP Vin.  Thank you for the incredible memories and helping spread your love for baseball with a world that will never hear from a finer broadcaster.

UCLA and USC bolting is George Kliavkoff’s nightmare come to life

Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff was caught off-guard by the USC-UCLA move to the Big 10.

Even Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff couldn’t have foreseen the conference losing its biggest media market after his first year on the job.

When UCLA and USC announced they would move to the Big 10 for the 2024 season and take the Los Angeles market with them, it marked the beginning of the nd for the Conference of Champions. This has sent school such as Oregon and Washington scrambling for a new home either in the Big 10, Big XII or the ACC.

As Kliavkoff is set to negotiate the Pac-12’s next media contract, he’s been put at a huge disadvantage as he won’t know what markets he’ll have to sell to prospective media partners. Suffice it to say, this wasn’t what Kliavkoff planned for when he took the job last year.

We went to our buddy TrojansWire.com editor Matt Zemek for some clarity on the subject. This was his take.

Kliavkoff was definitely caught off guard by this. Reporting has said this had been going on for a few months, but there’s little question that the origination point — the spark of inspiration — was the Texas-Oklahoma move to the SEC last summer. That opened the door to a new exploration for USC and UCLA. Texas and Oklahoma both moved to the SEC for a big, new infusion of cash. USC and UCLA are doing basically the same thing.

It’s obviously more of a surprise here with the Trojans and Bruins because of the geography-shattering nature of the move. Texas and OU playing in the SEC doesn’t create unique logistical headaches. USC and UCLA in the Big Ten does. We have reached a point where geography really doesn’t matter that much. Texas-OU didn’t bring us to that realization. USC and UCLA to the Big Ten is a far more transformative and consequential moment for college football (and not in a good way, if you ask me).

No matter where Oregon, Washington or the other Pac-12 schools land, there’s no question the college football landscape has been forever changed.
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