Time For USC Fans to Face The Ugly Truth; Trojans Just Aren't Very Good

Any confusion USC fans had regarding their beloved Trojans has just been cleared up in resounding fashion today at the coliseum.

With Stanford's 55-21 thrashing of USC, clarity has been made evident as to the quality of this years version of the men of Troy.

They just aren't very good.

Its one thing to lose road games to an improved Washington and a very good Oregon team and quite another to get thrashed by Stanford at your homecoming game.

USC suffered from a bad case of the "too's" today.

As in:

Too many turnovers.

Too little effort from the defensive front seven.

Too good of an opponent.

Couple this with a true freshman quarterback, Matt Barkley, who has played like one the last three games and it is easy to see how this game got out of hand so quickly.

Barkley, who was personally responsible for the Trojans four turnovers, played marvelously for his first five games but now has become just another young quarterback trying to find his way.

However, the fact that Barkley is interception prone should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the young quarterback's career.

Coming out of Mater Dei, the knock on Barkley was that he tried to force too many balls into coverage, which resulted in an inordinate amount of picks.

A good example of this was Barkley's attempt to force a screen pass to Joe McKnight when McKnight was covered by three Cardinal players.

Result?

Interception that led to a Stanford touchdown.

But for the Trojans, this goes far beyond a young quarterback making silly mistakes and not protecting the ball.

For the second time this year, the USC defense has given up a record amount of points.

After Oregon rolled the Trojans up for 47 points two weeks ago in Eugene, excuses were made that this was due to the Trojans playing an option team with a running quarterback and that the Trojans always have problems with those kind of teams.

All of that was true.

So what do you make of today's game?

Stanford is not a fancy, tricky option team.

They are a straight forward, hard nosed team who features a bruising 235 pound tailback, Toby Gerhart, who would just as soon run over you as run around you.

They are also led by a redshirt freshman quarterback, Andrew Luck, who is known for an accurate arm, not blazing speed.

Yet, there was Luck rushing for 61 yards, mostly on third downs, to keep Cardinal drives going.

And breaking Trojan hearts.

When it was all over, the Stanford Cardinal had scored more points on the Trojans than any other team ever in their storied history.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Now the Trojans have two weeks to get ready for their cross town rivals, UCLA, who must be licking their chops at the prospect of facing this woeful Trojan defense.

Two weeks to let this embarrassing historic defeat to simmer and percolate.

With all hopes gone for playing in an BCS bowl game, the Trojans must now hope to recapture some Trojan pride and prepare for 2010 by winning out.

This will be a tall order for a Trojan team that just isn't very good.