Musings from Arledge: A good start for USC, those defensive breakdowns, and Alabummer

It’s hard to know how good a hunter is when he’s shooting birds at the duck enclosure at the local zoo. But you can certainly know he’s a bad hunter if he walks home without any.

USC did not walk home without any. And while Missouri State is a bad football team, it’s hard to score 73 points against anybody. That’s why USC hasn’t done it in almost 100 years. And it’s especially hard to score 73 when you’re mixing in inexperienced guys on defense from the beginning and playing only backups on offense after halftime. 

USC came home with plenty of ducks. And you don’t have to look that hard to find teams, including a lot of future opponents, who looked like garbage against bad competition. Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Indiana, and Iowa all looked inept offensively. Iowa finally has a fancy quarterback transfer and hope for a real offense for the first time in a long time … and the guy went 8 of 15 for 44 yards against an FCS school that was 4-8 last year. 

So, yes, Missouri State is bad, and, no, we shouldn’t plan a trip to the national title game just because the Trojans waxed the Bears. But they did wax the Bears. That’s important. 

And we can learn a few valuable things from the way they did it. 

We knew that USC’s offense couldn’t prove it was ready for the big time against Missouri State, but we also knew that they could possibly prove they weren’t ready. So first test passed. Yesterday they did whatever they wanted. Makai Lemon can still play—I think we saw that coming—Lake McRee is now an early favorite for the 100m in Los Angeles in 2028—I didn’t see that coming—and the USC offensive line can beat up on a bad small school. 

And, oh yeah, that running back room. A lot of USC fans were excited to see Bryan Jackson as the lead back. And I get that; the kid is a good player and would have been good in that role. But now we see why USC went into the transfer portal and why BJack is third on the depth chart. Waymond Jordan is special. His quickness and elusiveness are obvious even against a bad opponent. And Eli Sanders can GO. As can the King. (I can’t hear his name without thinking about the barbershop conversation in Coming to America. “You ain’t never met Dr. Martin Luther the King!”) USC’s coaches have been talking up this running back room, and it’s clear why. That’s a really good group, and those guys will really matter against the elite opponents on this schedule. 

USC’s defense had a few breakdowns (more on that below), which is probably to be expected in a first game when you’re playing young guys and backups throughout. But the defense hit the quarterback a lot, had a pick six (and should have had two—I still don’t know how Garrett Pomeranz managed to get tackled on his interception; that took real effort), finished with 5 sacks, 13 tackles for loss, a bunch of quarterback hits, and gave up less than four yards per play. Doing that against Missouri State doesn’t mean USC can do it against the better teams on the schedule, but it was still important to do that against Missouri State. And—ssshhh, don’t tell anybody—but there are some bad offensive teams on USC’s schedule. This is not the Michael Penix, Bo Nix, Cam Rising, Sam Hartman, Shedeur Sanders, Noah Fifita gauntlet that USC had to run in 2023 while carrying that heavy sack of Alex Grinch ineptitude on their backs. 

USC has a very good group of safeties. Bishop was excellent, Ramsey is a stud, and I liked what we saw from Christian Pierce. That’s a solid group.

Overall, USC was aggressive defensively, tackled well, and overwhelmed an opponent that was bad, yes, but which also has a pretty good and experienced quarterback (Seven years! Does he almost have his law degree by now?!) and some quality returning starters around him. I’ll take it. 

As Lincoln Riley said, that was a good start. It wasn’t more than that, but it wasn’t less than that. I liked this football team before watching the opener, and I still do. Two more tune-ups to get ready for what could be a run at a playoff berth.

About those defensive breakdowns, let me talk about the two early ones. I’m not going to analyze the whole film—What!? You think I don’t have other things to do or something?—but I think there’s some value in a brief glimpse so we can avoid any false conclusions about what this defense will be going forward. 

The first play is the long run on 3^rd and 3 on Missouri State’s first possession. Missouri State ran wide—a smart choice being that USC controlled the inside of their offensive line all day—and broke a long run down the sideline. You can see the play at the beginning of the video here:

Missouri State has its tight end split out wide to the left in a double twins set in the pistol. USC is in man coverage. The tight end goes in motion towards the center of the field, bringing Eric Gentry with him. At the snap, the tight end blocks Anthony Lucas, who has contain on the right-hand side. Gentry who recognizes run right away, gets aggressively upfield—too aggressively, in fact, because it makes it very easy for the left tackle to just push him wide and take him out of the play. Lucas apparently doesn’t expect the tight end (who, remember, had been split out wide) to block him, and he catches the tight end and is on his heels. As a result, he is not in a position to control the blocker and is sliding around without the ability to maintain a hard edge. 

Lucas probably should have anticipated that block, and it’s possible that Gentry should have communicated with him better. A tight end who splits out wide and motions back to the center of the field is highly likely to block the edge. Both guys should have anticipated that. The wide out also comes down to crack block. These days you can’t destroy an unwary defender like you could in my day (back when men were men!), but he manages to get in the way of Desman Stephens so he can’t get outside to make the play. 

What should have happened? Lucas and/or Gentry should have anticipated that block by the tight end—should have used some of that obnoxious communication that D’Anton Lynn talks about—and Lucas should have gotten his hands inside and controlled that smaller guy. Gentry should not have come so far upfield and taken himself out of the play. He should have taken on that tackle more directly a yard or two upfield with his outside arm free. The corner should have seen that his guy was not running a route but was blocking inside from the snap and could have then made the play himself. (Admittedly, that’s a difficult read for a corner in man coverage. You cannot guess wrong. When in doubt, stay with your man.) And if all that had happened, Stephens could have filled the gap quickly—he was unblocked other than the corner who could not have stopped him from coming upfield and filling the hole aggressively. 

But this is the kind of thing that happens in a football game, especially an opener. It will be a good learning experience. I trust Gentry and Lucas in the run game. I’m not overly worried about this play.

The next play is the Missouri State touchdown pass:

This is a 4^th and 4. Missouri State is in an 11 formation (one back and one tight end) with bunched trips to the left-hand side. USC is in man coverage. 

The thing about playing against bunched trips in man is that there is danger of pick plays. So you can’t have all three defenders tight to their men. The traditional way of playing that set is to have one defender on the middle receiver (who is virtually always the one on the line of scrimmage) playing aggressive bump-and-run coverage. That’s exactly what happens here. And as that receiver breaks in, Kamari Ramsey runs with him. The other two defenders need to wait to see how the play develops. Generally speaking, the inside defender takes whichever receiver breaks in. If both go vertical, he has to get vertical with the inside guy. If one goes vertical and the other goes out, he covers the guy who runs out. The outside defender, DJ Harvey in this case, has whichever receiver comes out or, if there is a vertical route from one or both of the number one or number three receivers (remember, Ramsey has the middle guy wherever he goes) then the outside defender has to stay over the top. That’s the traditional way of handling that set in man, and I assume that’s what USC was doing here. Certainly, Kennedy Urlacher seems to think that’s what USC is doing here, because he takes the inside receiver as he breaks out.

The problem is that DJ Harvey also takes the inside receiver as he breaks out and allows the outside receiver to run deep all by himself. That’s obviously not going to work. 

I may be missing what USC is doing here; I don’t know the call, and I’m not in practice or the film room. But I’m not sure what Harvey is doing. If they’re just playing straight man because the receivers aren’t bunched too close and they think they can avoid getting rubbed, then he should be running with that outside receiver. If they’re playing mix and match because of the bunch formation, he should still be running with the outside receiver because he goes vertical immediately. I think this is just a mental error by a very good and experienced player. You’re talking about two guys who are new to USC and new to this defense. It’s a mistake you can’t afford to make later in the year, but I don’t think Harvey and Urlacher are likely to have this situation arise again. Both are heady football players.

Some final thoughts on the national picture. 

First, I really hope this is the last time that a guy who has barely played is anointed the Heisman preseason frontrunner. Texas is going to win a lot of games this year, and I think Arch Manning will be very good. But he was named the Heisman frontrunner because his name is Manning and not Jones or Smith. That’s stupid. 

Second, Big Ten offenses are looking very questionable right now, as I noted above. But I really enjoyed Iowa’s struggles. They say Dean Smith was the only one who could keep Michael Jordan under 20 points, and I asked last week whether Kirk Ferentz is capable of holding any of his quarterbacks down no matter how good they could be. It’s only one week in, but the answers might be “yes.” Iowa got a fancy, experienced quarterback out of the portal, one who won a ton of games at the FCS level, and the guy threw for 44 more yards than I did yesterday against an opponent that is far worse than Missouri State. That’s ugly. 

Third, I love what Oregon is doing with the Duck these days. I always thought the motorcycle entrance where the Duck is holding onto the big strong man in front of him like a Hells Angel’s girlfriend is pretty lame. (I knew I wrote that line a couple of weeks ago, but give me a break; I really like it.) But this new thing where the Duck falls on his face as he enters the stadium and his head falls off is amazing. I didn’t think a mascot would be brave enough to act out Oregon’s Rose Bowl performance like that, so props to that guy for his boldness. And further props for the way he didn’t just put his head back on but instead went scurrying away like a small child does when they fall down in front of the adults and run away embarrassed to go cry privately. Really strong work.

Fourth, Roll Tide! That was fun to watch. You have to be a little bit crazy to choose to follow Nick Saban at Alabama. But if you do it, you probably can’t afford to lose five of your first 14 games. It took Nick Saban half a decade to lose five games. In their last four games, Bama was annihilated and almost shut out by a crappy Oklahoma team, lost a bowl game to a Michigan team that couldn’t complete a forward pass, and got thrashed by a Florida State team coming off a two-win season with a quarterback that was shooting his mouth off about Alabama during the offseason. That’s funny. I feel a little sorry for Kalen DeBoer. I do not feel sorry for Alabama fans. I hope things get really ugly in Tuscaloosa.

One down. Lots to go. Next up, a guy who I never again wanted to see walking the Coliseum sideline. Let’s hope we see this look a lot. 

Fight On!