Notre Dame-USC: Weekly look at Irish rival
Marcus Freeman is focused on recovering from jet lag and getting his team ready for Eddie George and Tennessee State. Lincoln Riley is focused on moving to 2-0 this weekend when USC hosts Nevada.
Notre Dame isn’t thinking about USC right now and USC isn’t thinking about Notre Dame. The coaches and players aren’t, anyway.
The fans are another story.
Because the rivalry has struggled to feature two contending teams with regularity for decades, the nation overlooks how fierce and great this rivalry is.
Fighting Irish Wire and Trojans Wire do not, however.
The two don’t meet until mid-October but throughout the year we’ll be checking in with Trojans Wire editor Matt Zemek about the happenings at USC. Here is what he let us know about the Trojans following their 56-28 win over San Jose State in Week 0.
USC Panic Meter Rising?
The panic meter at USC, on a scale of 1 to 10, is probably a 6 after the San Jose State game. People know it’s only the first game, but people also know that Alex Grinch doesn’t have a proven track record of figuring things out on defense. There were a few tweets from USC fans wondering where Jim Leonhard was and if he was available, if that offers any indication of how happy USC fans are right now. USC beat writers (247Sports) were tweeting about resisting the temptation to check the USC message boards. It’s not a happy time right now, because fans saw this stuff last year and remember how everything ended. The coaches have time to fix things, but fans don’t really trust that the coaches will succeed, and it’s very hard to blame fans for thinking that way. Would a reasonable person trust Alex Grinch right now?
Will USC get defense fixed?
What specifically offers cause to think Alex Grinch won’t get this problem figured out at USC? He was blitzing on 3rd and 22 instead of putting seven or eight guys back in coverage. He is using complex schemes instead of just turning loose the front four and letting them play. Players are being shuffled all over the field in different roles. Multiple players were given different roles and responsibilities during this San Jose State game. The desire to see where players fit best on the field is completely understandable, but that came at the expense of clarity and simplicity for players.
Was San Jose State game just a preseason affair for Trojans?
If there is a case to be made for thinking the USC defense will be fine, it is this: The coaching staff reasonably treated San Jose State as a preseason game. The results were less important than testing players in various situations. This complicated first-game approach with multiple roles for various players — which runs counter to conventional wisdom (start the season with simplicity, then build more nuances in the game plans as the season moves along) — might have been used for the primary purpose of getting lots of evaluations of players on film. This serves multiple needs: Coaches can teach more players better, but they can also gather more information on where players fit best. Putting a lot of players through a trial run lent itself to confusion, failure, and inconsistency, but it could be that the coaching staff wanted this so that they could have a better roadmap for the next several weeks.
Outlook different for USC now?
We don’t want to overreact to a first game. Players should learn a few things over the next month. However, when a really good quarterback such as Sam Hartman gets a look at this defense, it’s hard — based on this San Jose State game — to feel really confident the Trojans will have answers. USC will probably give up at least 40 points in a few games this season, and that’s the scenario the Trojans need to avoid.
When a good team or athlete enters a high-stress situation, fans feel confident that the team or athlete will figure out how to survive it. When a bad team or a struggling athlete enters that same situation, fans don’t feel confident at all. If the Chicago White Sox are playing the Baltimore Orioles and the game is tied in the eighth inning, which fan base will trust the team to come through in the clutch?
Caleb Williams is Felix Bautista. Alex Grinch is the White Sox bullpen.
New Rules Not a Friend to USC?
One reason for USC fans to be extra concerned: the new rules in which the clock runs on first downs. The average number of plays in a game, based on Week Zero games, dropped from 68 to 63. That’s five fewer plays Caleb Williams will get. If the USC defense remains a sieve, the margin for error for Caleb and the offense shrinks. Anything less than perfection will mean defeat.
USC’s overall outlook didn’t worsen dramatically based on a sloppy first-game performance against a cupcake opponent … but it certainly didn’t improve, and on that point, no USC fan would disagree. No Trojan fans are saying, “Wow, we might be even better than expected!” after this game. It opened the door for pessimism. Optimism will have to wait another week or two, if not longer.
Thank you, Alex Grinch
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