Tag: USC Football Grades

USC report card from emotionally exhausting 48-41 win over Colorado

It’s the same old story, and it’s going to rob USC of glory if changes aren’t made.

One week ago, in our report card on the USC-Arizona State game, we wrote the following about Alex Grinch’s Trojan defense:

“Tackling was bad. Positioning was bad. Defensive line play was bad before the undermanned ASU offensive line finally wore down in the fourth quarter and USC feasted up front.

“USC’s defensive line was smacking around ASU’s offensive line in the fourth quarter, but that didn’t happen very much in the first three quarters. ASU running back Cam Skattebo made USC look foolish for most of the night. His touchdown which made the score 35-28 in the fourth quarter was a display of great effort, but also atrocious tackling.”

Did USC make big strides from the Arizona State game? No. The first half was decent but the second half undid a lot of the good work the Trojans performed before halftime. Playing well for 30 of 60 minutes just doesn’t fly, and it definitely won’t fly against Washington or Oregon.

Let’s go to the Colorado report card. Offensive superstars and one defensive player get top grades, but everyone else can’t get graded too highly:

USC football report card for 66-14 win over Nevada

These grades for the Nevada game reflect the improvement the defense made, but they also account for the opponent.

The USC defense looked better against Nevada than it did against San Jose State. That’s the big story for the Trojans coming out of their September 2 game versus the Wolf Pack.

However, Nevada is a worse team than San Jose State. The Trojans figured to have an easier time against the Wolf Pack than they did versus the Spartans.

A very intriguing question after this game: Was the improvement from the first game to the second game more a product of guys settling into their roles, or of the caliber of opponent decreasing? It’s probably a little of both, but we do need to keep that in mind when evaluating this roster, and more specifically the defense.

The grades we gave out against San Jose State were not good. The grades we will give out here for the Nevada game are better … but let’s not assume USC has figured it out yet on defense. It’s too early in the season to say that.

Our grades will be better, but not fawning. Realism — honesty — is always the best approach.

Here is the report card: