Trouble in Paradise: USC's Stumble in the Coliseum

Well, that was underwhelming.
 
Probably not the sexiest way to describe USC’s meltdown against Stanford, but it's much classier than “f*ck Tavita Pritchard,” so I’m going with it.

And as a USC student and fan in the Pete Carroll era, feeling underwhelmed is most definitely a new experience.
 
I’m used to seeing Matt Leinart to Dwayne Jarrett on 4th-and-9 at Notre Dame, or Reggie Bush exploding for 500+ yards against Fresno St., or LenDale White knocking over men twice his size in virtually every game of his college career.

But what happens when those heroes leave the Coliseum, consigned to the memories of yesterday? What happens when the team that’s known for stepping up at all the right times, for the famed Carroll second-half adjustments, plays down to a team far below its level with an attitude that can best be described as complacent?
 
24-23 Stanford, is what happens.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not burying my Trojans. Far, far from it.
 
Lost amidst the nation-wide suicide dive off the ‘SC bandwagon are the facts. 

A good third of the roster was sitting on IR: three O-Linemen who have been starters, the team’s best running back, one-third of the best linebacking trio in the country, and three starting caliber cornerbacks, including the guy who Pete Carroll once called the best defensive player on the team (Josh Pinkard).

Not that the national media noticed.

No, the main stories were, to paraphrase John Q Public, “Good Lord, John David Booty is awful,” and “USC is the next Florida St. or Miami—great dynasties of the past, and that’s it.”  

We’ll start with Booty. Simply put, he wasn’t very good on Saturday. Certainly a broken finger in his throwing hand only exacerbated his problems, but the Stanford game was the culmination of the problems that have plagued JDB throughout his USC career; specifically, locking on to primary receivers and crippling bouts of inaccuracy.

While most Trojan fans knew about these issues and some had even openly pined for Mark Sanchez, Booty’s talented if untested understudy, the team’s success served as a protective bubble around John David, one that burst as the clock hit 00:00.
 
You see, Trojan fans have come to expect greatness from the quarterback spot as of late - having your last two starters leave Troy with the Heisman Trophy tucked under their arms will do that. "With great power comes great responsibility" (thank you Spiderman). Booty is supposed to uphold the legacy and win one too.
 
So when USC and Booty lost a game that Carson Palmer or Matt Leinart presumably never would have squandered and the final nail was driven into JDB’s Heisman coffin, the blame fell squarely atop the Cajun’s shoulders and those stray laments for Sanchez avalanched into a social movement.
 
Take it from someone who goes to school here: the average USC student probably cares much more passionately about The Great QB Debate than the Darfur genocide, and most everyone is backing Sanchez as the panacea to our maladies.
 
This, of course, is completely unfair to Booty. Carson Palmer set the bar pretty high when he became USC’s first Heisman winning QB. Leinart pushed it further into the stratosphere with arguably the greatest collegiate career ever for a signal caller.

So barring a career for the ages, Booty was doomed from the outset to fall short of his predecessors. Moreover, after a season-plus of starting experience it became very clear not only was Booty not at their level but it would be insane to cling to those misguided expectations.
 
Simply put, John David Booty is a game manager.
 
If you give the man time to throw and some weapons to throw it to, he’ll rip you apart. If not? Well, that’s when things get a little dicey. So when the 2007 college football season rolled around and people expected the USC offense to roll, despite a young, untested group of wideouts and no defined running back, they did so presumably because John David Booty, Heisman hopeful, would put the team on his back and carry them.
 
Hell, I was one of those people, and hell, I was wrong.

JDB is a good quarterback. In fact, better than good; sure, it was probably misguided to name him a Heisman candidate, but of all the BCS title contenders (and yes, USC still is one of them), he’s probably the best quarterback among them.
 
However, he just cannot grab his team by the scruff of the neck and pull them to victory. Of course, working behind a patchwork line with no run game to speak of and watching his passes clank off his receivers’ hands would derail even the most talented of quarterbacks.
 
The reason there was no run game, though, was because Stanford loaded up the box and dared Booty to make them pay through the air; he could not. Just like the Trojans’ 2006 defeats to Oregon St and UCLA, Booty was in position late in the 4th quarter to rally his team behind him and pull out a comeback win; he fell short.
 
Maybe that’s the difference between this year’s team and the ones before it: no offensive player has flashed the ability to be a go-to, game breaker late in the 4th quarter. Now that Booty has shown that it won’t be him, let’s take that pressure off his shoulders. The question becomes, then, who is?
 
Fred Davis has the heart, but as a tight end lacks the speed to stretch the defense on 3rd and long, while Stafon Johnson might become that guy but hasn’t been tested in such a situation (he missed Saturday’s game with a foot injury).
 
Until such a player steps up, the Trojans better hope they blow out everyone left on the schedule because it won’t win any close games without a go-to man.

So does all of this signal the fall of the Trojan Empire? Absolutely not.
 
In fact, USC isn’t even out of the national title picture.
 
If, and this is by no means a certainty, USC can run the table, they will go to the big dance; playing three of the nation’s top 14 teams on the road will do that for you. Can they win those games? I say yes.
 
Remember, for as many questions as there are on offense, there are even more statements by the defense that this is one of the country’s elite units, and with the impending returns of star linebacker Brian Cushing and rising star cornerback Shareece Wright, the team will be as healthy as it's been since the start of the season.
 
Cal, Oregon, and Arizona St. all have dynamic offenses, and running backs in particular, but USC has destroyed the ground game all season long and has also been successful in the past in stopping DeSean Jackson and Dennis Dixon, perhaps the conference’s top two offensive weapons.
 
Moreover, nobody will confuse any of those three programs with defensive strongholds, so should the offense right the proverbial ship, they will have plenty of matchups to exploit. Naturally, the question is can it?
 
All eyes will be on Sanchez as he makes his first career start this weekend in place of the injured Booty, but if this article has taught you anything, it’s the Trojans should not rise and fall with the signal caller.
 
Rather, more emphasis should be placed on the return of offensive linemen Kris O’Dowd and Chilo Rachl. Along with Johnson; those three should ensure the Trojans return to their early-season ways of mauling opponents on the ground, while opening up the passing lanes for whoever the quarterback is.
 
By the October 20th date with Notre Dame, we’ll have an idea of what kind of team USC is. The injured contributors should have returned by then, and the Trojans should be close to 100 percent heading into their brutal five game stretch to close end of the season.
 
If history has taught us anything, it will be enough for Pete Carroll to work his November magic and bring the Trojans back to the BCS national title game. Of course, it remains to be seen if a player from this current cast of Trojans can join the ranks of the former greats such as Leinart, Bush, White, and Jarrett to become the next dynamic USC gamebreaker?

This Trojan fan hopes so, but only time will tell.