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09 Real Deal College Football Discussion/No Homers - Lets geh geh GET IT!
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[h1]Exclusive: Charlie Weis Opens Up About His Notre Dame Experience[/h1]
Posted Nov 23, 2009 11:52AM By John Walters (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Notre Dame, Coaching, FanHouse Exclusive
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Hours after losing to Connecticut on Notre Dame's Senior Day, Fighting Irish coach Charlie Weis sat down at length with John Walters and talked to the FanHouse writer one-on-one about his experience coaching at his alma mater. The following is what transpired between coach and reporter very early Sunday morning.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The November darkness is unseasonably warm. Charlie Weis steps out of his black Yukon SUV toting two bagels and two coffees. Clad in gray Notre Dame football sweats and shower sandals, America's most renowned embattled football coach, if not employee, has brought breakfast for his first visitor of the day.
The time is 4:28 AM.
"I bet you thought I wasn't going to show up," Weis says with a rueful smile Sunday morning.
"I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd hit the 'snooze' button," the reporter says.
How could you? Only 10 hours earlier the fifth-year coach had trudged off the field at Notre Dame Stadium, perhaps for the last time as the leader of this program, following a 33-30 double-overtime defeat to Connecticut. The intervening hours have been anything but restful.http://
"I spent about three hours last night answering text messages from players and coaches saying they're sorry," Weis says. "I'm texting them back telling them it wasn't their fault."
Earlier in the evening, Sergio Brown stood bawling in Weis's second-floor office in the Guglielmino Athletic Complex (a.k.a., the Gug). Brown, the senior safety whose late-hit penalty in the second quarter provided the game's first tidal shift in the Huskies' favor, feels particularly responsible. Weis was having none of it
"The bottom line is, we're 6-5 and somebody is responsible," says Weis. "That somebody is me. And I have to accept responsibility."
Sometimes you just cannot outwork a problem. Notre Dame is flirting with its second .500 regular season in the past two years. And while the past three weeks have seen a litany of inexplicable player errors, from a pass being thrown into Michael Floyd's back at the goal line to Brown's late hit (the pass was already out of bounds when he launched himself into the receiver), ultimately the buck stops at the man who makes the most of them. This Saturday at Stanford, Weis will likely be coaching his alma mater for the final time.
'Irreparable Damage'
The eighth commandment ("Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy") is largely ignored during football season, but the coach of God's football team arrives at this ungodly hour every morning. This is the beginning of the daily routine. Standing at the bottom of the long stairwell, Weis grabs the left bannister. He gazes upward in the same way a teenager gazes at calculus homework.
"The damage to Maura and Charlie Jr. is irreparable ... I'll never forgive the people who character-assassinated me without even knowing me. Those people did irreparable damage to my wife and son, and I'll never forgive them."
- Charlie Weis "Sunday is the most excruciating day," Weis says, referring to the pain that he feels in both legs, "because I've been standing up at least four hours the day before. It'll start feeling better by Monday night."
The ravaged knees are the result of an accidental blindside hit Weis took during last season's Michigan game (although he has nerve damage in his lower extremities dates back to 2002, the result of a botched gastric bypass surgery). For a guy who only played high school football and who readily admits that "I wasn't very good," Weis can be as tough as any Big Ten linebacker.
On the play, a punt in the first half, Irish defensive end John Ryan was blocked into the legs of Weis, who was walking down the sideline and never saw Ryan. The blow was catastrophic, causing a tear of the ACL, MCL and PCL in Weis's left knee.
"And that isn't the knee I had to have replaced," Weis says. "One-eighth of my right knee broke off. And I didn't even miss the second half."
Of course, too many people were cracking fat jokes to care.
Weis's catastrophically impaired limbs are just one unforeseen trauma of his encore return to South Bend. During his first go-round, as a student from 1974-78, he was anonymous and single. Now the most visible and highly compensated person on campus, he has a family: his wife, Maura, son Charlie Jr., and daughter Hannah.
"The damage to Maura and Charlie Jr. is irreparable," says Weis, referring to the personal nature of the attacks he has been subject to for years now. "It's watching me get hammered. I'll never forgive the people who character-assassinated me without even knowing me. Those people did irreparable damage to my wife and son, and I'll never forgive them."
On Saturday, Maura Weis, for the first time since her husband was hired, opted not to attend a Notre Dame home game.
"They have the right to criticize the coach for being 6-5," says Weis. "They have that right. It's all the other stuff. You think I don't know that I'm fat? Duh!"
Asked if he should be gone, where would Charlie Jr. would go to college, the coach reponded: "I know where he won't be going to college."
This weekend "The Blind Side," a film based on a true story peripherally concerned with college football, opened. In the movie coaches such as Nick Saban, Lou Holtz and Tommy Tuberville portray themselves on recruiting visits. They are all of them cocktail-hour all-stars, suave, well-coifed and silver-tongued.
Charlie Weis is not that guy. He pays for his haircut with a $20 and has enough left over for the tip. He lives in sweats and his language away from the media spotlight is redolent of another Jersey guy, comedian Artie Lange. To ask whether he has outside interests is funny because if it were not for his interest in football, he isn't the type of guy you'd expect to find outside.
"My wife has four horses, three dogs and a cat at our home," Weis says.
Are you into animals?
"No, I'm into paying the bills."
And about that salary of his, which has been reported to be as much as $4.2 million per annum. "I don't know where they get that number," Weis says. "I can promise you I don't earn $3.2 million a year."
It's still a lot of scratch, and his record the past three seasons is still underwhelming. It's just one more item he'd like to get straight before, or in case, he should be leaving.
The Working Life
Inside Weis' office, photos of his family outnumber football photos by at least a five-to-one margin. A mural of a legendary football coach adorns one wall, but it is neither Rockne, Leahy nor Parseghian; it is Vince Lombardi.
Behind his desk, the large flat-screen TV is already teed up to the opening kickoff of Saturday's UConn game. The only thing worse than getting three hours of sleep is waking up to a nightmare.
"I know where he won't be going to college."
- Charlie Weis, when asked where his son will go to college "I'll watch the replay of the game," Weis says, running through his morning calendar, "and then I'll meet with my assistants and grade the offense. Beginning at 9:30 AM, we've got two recruits (five-star studs J.R. Ferguson, a defensive tackle, and Kyle Prater, a wide receiver) in on official visits and I'll meet with them.
"Then, it's another staff meeting. At 11:45, I'll meet with Brian (Hardin, the sports information director) and Kevin (Green, his personal assistant; Green's wife, Sharon, is the director of Weis's "Hannah & Friends" foundation for the developmentally disabled) to get ready for the afternoon press conference ..."
On and on it goes. All top-tier coaches are workaholics, but Weis, having no football hero pedigree upon which to fall, has always punched in a little earlier and punched out a little later. That is how he learned his vocation, as an assistant coach at Morristown (N.J.) High School, and how he later came to impress the Bills, Parcells and Belichick.
At Morristown High, the twenty-something English teacher would arrive between 5 AM and 6 AM, toting the coffee and bagels, and pepper head coach John Chironna with questions. "John Chironna taught me the game of football," Weis says. "Parcells and Belichick taught me how to navigate at this level, but Chironna, he taught me the game."
And so Weis works and works ... and works. He arrives at least two hours before the sun does. The light in his second-floor office on the south end of the Gug rarely goes out before 10 PM. He flies nine hours to Hawaii for a recruiting visit and returns the same day.
Are there other ingredients to success besides man-hours? Of course. Otherwise he would not be in the situation he is in.
The Line of Fire
Weis' future first-round receiving trio of Floyd, Golden Tate and tight end Kyle Rudolph have only started and finished one game together this season. That was the opener versus Nevada, a 35-0 victory. Fate has a sense of humor, as Charlie Jr. broke his finger catching a pass outside the Gug on Friday.
"He's going to have surgery tomorrow," Weis says, providing his first injury update of the season of a football injury that occurred on campus not involving a scholarship athlete.
The injuries to Floyd and Rudolph are hardly the reason the Irish are 6-5, indeed, with all three players in the lineup for the first half against Navy, the Irish were held scoreless. Sure, Notre Dame has yet to lose a game by more than seven points, but it has also lost five games. Weis understands that such a record may be a mandate for change.
"Lou (Holtz) texted me last week, 'You guys are so close'," Weis recalls. Then came the loss to Pitt, a defeat that might have been averted (granted, it would have set up a fourth-and-16) had a replay official not overturned a called incompletion. Weis has heard that an official may get fired over that game and he shoots his visitor a sarcastic glance as if to say, "Yeah, him and me both."
Weis met with athletic director Jack Swarbrick last Tuesday. Nothing is finalized. You can make the argument that if Weis is fired, then surely quarterback Jimmy Clausen, whom Weis believes may be the greatest player in Notre Dame history ("and, remember, I was a student when Joe Montana was here"), will turn pro. And if Clausen goes, Golden Tate likely does, also.
On the other hand, Clausen, who posed for a photo with his family on the field just moments after Connecticut's Andre Dixon scored the game-winning touchdown -- untouched Saturday, by the way -- from four yards out, may be gone, anyway. And while there is short-term comfort in imagining an offense that includes Clausen, Tate, Floyd, Rudolph and Armando Allen in 2010, with Weis pulling the strings, that still does not address the team's principal shortcoming: defense.
One way or the other, Weis will probably know his fate within two or three days after next Saturday's Stanford game. If it ends in Palo Alto, Weis' agent, Bob Lamont, will probably field a half-dozen offers within the first week from the NFL for vacant offensive coordinator positions.
"I'm more respected there," Weis says. "I'm more well-liked there."
Weis can be crude and unrefined, but he is honest. Blunt. And a good sport. Immediately after the UConn loss he approached Huskies quarterback Zach Frazer, the same player he had placed fourth on the depth chart at the end of spring practice in 2007.
"Zach and I weren't exactly boys when he was here," Weis says, "but I wanted to congratulate him. Especially after all UConn has been through this season."
No one will likely be congratulating Weis if his tenure comes to an end in the next ten days. A thank you would be warranted, though. He has graduated 96 percent of his players, tied for tops in the FBS, and returned Notre Dame to the front lines of the five-star recruiting battles. He has produced great quarterbacks, such as Brady Quinn and Clausen, as well as players of great character, such as current seniors Kyle McCarthy and Eric Olsen. Almost all of whom, it seems, have his back.
Charlie Weis is 35-26 at Notre Dame. He may not have gotten the job done, but no one could have put in more hours on that job.
And somewhere next season he will be coaching. "I need to work," he says. "For me."
Posted Nov 23, 2009 11:52AM By John Walters (RSS feed)
Filed Under: Notre Dame, Coaching, FanHouse Exclusive
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Hours after losing to Connecticut on Notre Dame's Senior Day, Fighting Irish coach Charlie Weis sat down at length with John Walters and talked to the FanHouse writer one-on-one about his experience coaching at his alma mater. The following is what transpired between coach and reporter very early Sunday morning.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The November darkness is unseasonably warm. Charlie Weis steps out of his black Yukon SUV toting two bagels and two coffees. Clad in gray Notre Dame football sweats and shower sandals, America's most renowned embattled football coach, if not employee, has brought breakfast for his first visitor of the day.
The time is 4:28 AM.
"I bet you thought I wasn't going to show up," Weis says with a rueful smile Sunday morning.
"I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd hit the 'snooze' button," the reporter says.
How could you? Only 10 hours earlier the fifth-year coach had trudged off the field at Notre Dame Stadium, perhaps for the last time as the leader of this program, following a 33-30 double-overtime defeat to Connecticut. The intervening hours have been anything but restful.http://
"I spent about three hours last night answering text messages from players and coaches saying they're sorry," Weis says. "I'm texting them back telling them it wasn't their fault."
Earlier in the evening, Sergio Brown stood bawling in Weis's second-floor office in the Guglielmino Athletic Complex (a.k.a., the Gug). Brown, the senior safety whose late-hit penalty in the second quarter provided the game's first tidal shift in the Huskies' favor, feels particularly responsible. Weis was having none of it
"The bottom line is, we're 6-5 and somebody is responsible," says Weis. "That somebody is me. And I have to accept responsibility."
Sometimes you just cannot outwork a problem. Notre Dame is flirting with its second .500 regular season in the past two years. And while the past three weeks have seen a litany of inexplicable player errors, from a pass being thrown into Michael Floyd's back at the goal line to Brown's late hit (the pass was already out of bounds when he launched himself into the receiver), ultimately the buck stops at the man who makes the most of them. This Saturday at Stanford, Weis will likely be coaching his alma mater for the final time.
'Irreparable Damage'
The eighth commandment ("Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy") is largely ignored during football season, but the coach of God's football team arrives at this ungodly hour every morning. This is the beginning of the daily routine. Standing at the bottom of the long stairwell, Weis grabs the left bannister. He gazes upward in the same way a teenager gazes at calculus homework.
"The damage to Maura and Charlie Jr. is irreparable ... I'll never forgive the people who character-assassinated me without even knowing me. Those people did irreparable damage to my wife and son, and I'll never forgive them."
- Charlie Weis "Sunday is the most excruciating day," Weis says, referring to the pain that he feels in both legs, "because I've been standing up at least four hours the day before. It'll start feeling better by Monday night."
The ravaged knees are the result of an accidental blindside hit Weis took during last season's Michigan game (although he has nerve damage in his lower extremities dates back to 2002, the result of a botched gastric bypass surgery). For a guy who only played high school football and who readily admits that "I wasn't very good," Weis can be as tough as any Big Ten linebacker.
On the play, a punt in the first half, Irish defensive end John Ryan was blocked into the legs of Weis, who was walking down the sideline and never saw Ryan. The blow was catastrophic, causing a tear of the ACL, MCL and PCL in Weis's left knee.
"And that isn't the knee I had to have replaced," Weis says. "One-eighth of my right knee broke off. And I didn't even miss the second half."
Of course, too many people were cracking fat jokes to care.
Weis's catastrophically impaired limbs are just one unforeseen trauma of his encore return to South Bend. During his first go-round, as a student from 1974-78, he was anonymous and single. Now the most visible and highly compensated person on campus, he has a family: his wife, Maura, son Charlie Jr., and daughter Hannah.
"The damage to Maura and Charlie Jr. is irreparable," says Weis, referring to the personal nature of the attacks he has been subject to for years now. "It's watching me get hammered. I'll never forgive the people who character-assassinated me without even knowing me. Those people did irreparable damage to my wife and son, and I'll never forgive them."
On Saturday, Maura Weis, for the first time since her husband was hired, opted not to attend a Notre Dame home game.
"They have the right to criticize the coach for being 6-5," says Weis. "They have that right. It's all the other stuff. You think I don't know that I'm fat? Duh!"
Asked if he should be gone, where would Charlie Jr. would go to college, the coach reponded: "I know where he won't be going to college."
This weekend "The Blind Side," a film based on a true story peripherally concerned with college football, opened. In the movie coaches such as Nick Saban, Lou Holtz and Tommy Tuberville portray themselves on recruiting visits. They are all of them cocktail-hour all-stars, suave, well-coifed and silver-tongued.
Charlie Weis is not that guy. He pays for his haircut with a $20 and has enough left over for the tip. He lives in sweats and his language away from the media spotlight is redolent of another Jersey guy, comedian Artie Lange. To ask whether he has outside interests is funny because if it were not for his interest in football, he isn't the type of guy you'd expect to find outside.
"My wife has four horses, three dogs and a cat at our home," Weis says.
Are you into animals?
"No, I'm into paying the bills."
And about that salary of his, which has been reported to be as much as $4.2 million per annum. "I don't know where they get that number," Weis says. "I can promise you I don't earn $3.2 million a year."
It's still a lot of scratch, and his record the past three seasons is still underwhelming. It's just one more item he'd like to get straight before, or in case, he should be leaving.
The Working Life
Inside Weis' office, photos of his family outnumber football photos by at least a five-to-one margin. A mural of a legendary football coach adorns one wall, but it is neither Rockne, Leahy nor Parseghian; it is Vince Lombardi.
Behind his desk, the large flat-screen TV is already teed up to the opening kickoff of Saturday's UConn game. The only thing worse than getting three hours of sleep is waking up to a nightmare.
"I know where he won't be going to college."
- Charlie Weis, when asked where his son will go to college "I'll watch the replay of the game," Weis says, running through his morning calendar, "and then I'll meet with my assistants and grade the offense. Beginning at 9:30 AM, we've got two recruits (five-star studs J.R. Ferguson, a defensive tackle, and Kyle Prater, a wide receiver) in on official visits and I'll meet with them.
"Then, it's another staff meeting. At 11:45, I'll meet with Brian (Hardin, the sports information director) and Kevin (Green, his personal assistant; Green's wife, Sharon, is the director of Weis's "Hannah & Friends" foundation for the developmentally disabled) to get ready for the afternoon press conference ..."
On and on it goes. All top-tier coaches are workaholics, but Weis, having no football hero pedigree upon which to fall, has always punched in a little earlier and punched out a little later. That is how he learned his vocation, as an assistant coach at Morristown (N.J.) High School, and how he later came to impress the Bills, Parcells and Belichick.
At Morristown High, the twenty-something English teacher would arrive between 5 AM and 6 AM, toting the coffee and bagels, and pepper head coach John Chironna with questions. "John Chironna taught me the game of football," Weis says. "Parcells and Belichick taught me how to navigate at this level, but Chironna, he taught me the game."
And so Weis works and works ... and works. He arrives at least two hours before the sun does. The light in his second-floor office on the south end of the Gug rarely goes out before 10 PM. He flies nine hours to Hawaii for a recruiting visit and returns the same day.
Are there other ingredients to success besides man-hours? Of course. Otherwise he would not be in the situation he is in.
The Line of Fire
Weis' future first-round receiving trio of Floyd, Golden Tate and tight end Kyle Rudolph have only started and finished one game together this season. That was the opener versus Nevada, a 35-0 victory. Fate has a sense of humor, as Charlie Jr. broke his finger catching a pass outside the Gug on Friday.
"He's going to have surgery tomorrow," Weis says, providing his first injury update of the season of a football injury that occurred on campus not involving a scholarship athlete.
The injuries to Floyd and Rudolph are hardly the reason the Irish are 6-5, indeed, with all three players in the lineup for the first half against Navy, the Irish were held scoreless. Sure, Notre Dame has yet to lose a game by more than seven points, but it has also lost five games. Weis understands that such a record may be a mandate for change.
"Lou (Holtz) texted me last week, 'You guys are so close'," Weis recalls. Then came the loss to Pitt, a defeat that might have been averted (granted, it would have set up a fourth-and-16) had a replay official not overturned a called incompletion. Weis has heard that an official may get fired over that game and he shoots his visitor a sarcastic glance as if to say, "Yeah, him and me both."
Weis met with athletic director Jack Swarbrick last Tuesday. Nothing is finalized. You can make the argument that if Weis is fired, then surely quarterback Jimmy Clausen, whom Weis believes may be the greatest player in Notre Dame history ("and, remember, I was a student when Joe Montana was here"), will turn pro. And if Clausen goes, Golden Tate likely does, also.
On the other hand, Clausen, who posed for a photo with his family on the field just moments after Connecticut's Andre Dixon scored the game-winning touchdown -- untouched Saturday, by the way -- from four yards out, may be gone, anyway. And while there is short-term comfort in imagining an offense that includes Clausen, Tate, Floyd, Rudolph and Armando Allen in 2010, with Weis pulling the strings, that still does not address the team's principal shortcoming: defense.
"I'm more respected there," Weis says. "I'm more well-liked there."
Weis can be crude and unrefined, but he is honest. Blunt. And a good sport. Immediately after the UConn loss he approached Huskies quarterback Zach Frazer, the same player he had placed fourth on the depth chart at the end of spring practice in 2007.
"Zach and I weren't exactly boys when he was here," Weis says, "but I wanted to congratulate him. Especially after all UConn has been through this season."
No one will likely be congratulating Weis if his tenure comes to an end in the next ten days. A thank you would be warranted, though. He has graduated 96 percent of his players, tied for tops in the FBS, and returned Notre Dame to the front lines of the five-star recruiting battles. He has produced great quarterbacks, such as Brady Quinn and Clausen, as well as players of great character, such as current seniors Kyle McCarthy and Eric Olsen. Almost all of whom, it seems, have his back.
Charlie Weis is 35-26 at Notre Dame. He may not have gotten the job done, but no one could have put in more hours on that job.
And somewhere next season he will be coaching. "I need to work," he says. "For me."
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[h2]Sources: WR Williams to enter draft[/h2]
Comment Email Print By Len Pasquarelli
ESPN.com
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Junior wide receiver Mike Williams, who left the Syracuse program three weeks ago, has informed school officials that he will not return next season, and will enter the NFL draft in April 2010 as an underclassman, sources told ESPN.com.
[h4]Big East blog[/h4]
ESPN.com's Brian Bennett writes about all things Big East in his conference blog.
• Blog network:
College Football Nation
One of the first underclass prospects this season to bypass his remaining eligibility and declare his intention to turn pro, Williams is expected to be one of the top wide receivers in the talent pool. Although there remains considerable work to be done in evaluating draft candidates over the next several months, two NFL college scouts told ESPN.com on Sunday morning that Williams is a highly regarded prospect.
Williams quit the Syracuse football team earlier this month. Williams was on the verge of another suspension when he quit the team, a person close to the program told ESPN's Joe Schad.
According to a report in the Syracuse Post-Standard, Williams was in a vehicle with teammates Torrey Ball, Antwon Bailey and Andrew Tiller when it was rear-ended by a tractor trailer.
Syracuse coach Doug Marrone told Williams that he could be suspended again and the receiver said he'd rather quit, the source said.
Williams, 22, played in seven games this season and registered 49 catches for 746 yards and six touchdowns.
Blessed with prototype size (6-feet-2, 210 pounds) and speed (estimated 4.4-second 40-yard dash), Williams is well-suited, the scouts said, for the NFL game. Citing the league's confidentiality guidelines, and the fact Williams has yet to formally apply for the 2010 draft, the scouts declined to speak for attribution.
In 31 career games, Williams had 133 receptions for 2,044 yards and 20 touchdowns. In 2007, he established a school record by posting touchdown receptions in nine straight games. He had career bests that season in receptions (60), yards (837), and touchdown catches (10).
Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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dacomeup
Supporter
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Originally Posted by IYE2
Carlos Hyde got them grades in order and is gonna enroll Jan 2.
Run game should be serious.
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from Oregon State QB Lyle Moevao:
@MOEVAO3: This is what I've been waitin for. Payback is a !*$#@!
@MOEVAO3: This is what I've been waitin for. Payback is a !*$#@!
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I couldnt find nothin on his visit out west.
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wait... myles threw jordan jefferson under the bus???
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yup,
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i heard an audio clip from the post game where he was saying he has no idea where the quarterback got the idea that he should spike the ball from and that itdidn't come from him and he didn't hear that go through the headset and that it was mismanaged.
but there's video of myles running down the sideline signaling for jefferson to clock the ball. and even if that WASN'T wha he was trying to tell himto do, is he really going to blame jefferson for not having the fg team ready (even though they probably wouldnt have made it in time) or at least a secondpass play drawn up in case they DIDN'T make it to the endzone?
what the hell were they doing during that time out then???
but there's video of myles running down the sideline signaling for jefferson to clock the ball. and even if that WASN'T wha he was trying to tell himto do, is he really going to blame jefferson for not having the fg team ready (even though they probably wouldnt have made it in time) or at least a secondpass play drawn up in case they DIDN'T make it to the endzone?
what the hell were they doing during that time out then???
3
39478
Guest
coming from a guy who isn't even playing?
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[h3]http://espn.go.com/blog/pac10/post/_/id/5370/usc-needs-to-adjust-to-improved-pac-10[/h3]
[h3]USC needs to adjust to improved Pac-10[/h3]After watching the film of his team's 55-21 defeat to Stanford, USC coach Pete Carroll came to a fairly simple conclusion.
Stanford imposed its will upon the Trojans.
"We allowed Stanford to run the plays they wanted to run and we didn't knock them out of those," he said. "Normally, we try to keep people out of doing their favorite stuff. That didn't get done. We had to adjust more than we thought we would. We underestimated them. We thought we could get it done and it didn't happen."
Gary A. Vasquez/US PresswireUSC coach Pete Carroll is seeing the divide between the Trojans and the rest of the Pac-10 close.
Basically: The Trojans thought their guys could win one-on-one battles, so they didn't overcompensate to meet Stanford's power running game. They were wrong.
Carroll's take fit in with a theme during the Pac-10 teleconference. Each of the other nine coaches were asked if the perceived talent gap between USC and the rest of the conference had closed and, to a man, each said, "Yes."
"I think people have had to rise up," Oregon State coach Mike Riley said before concluding. "But I think it's real."
It is. USC ranks in the middle of the Pac-10 in most statistical categories.
In four of its last five games, its once dominant defense has surrendered 27, 36, 47 and 55 points. The offense ranks seventh in the conference in passing and has been out of sync the past three games, when it's averaged just 17.7 points per game.
And, by the way, special teams haven't been terribly special, either.
Injuries have been a big issue. Thirteen starters have missed at least one game, and that doesn't include the season-ending injury to Stafon Johnson.
Still, at this point it's fair to say USC has moved back and the conference pack has moved up.
The question now is how do the Trojans react to the unexplored territory of not ranking among the Pac-10's nor the nation's elite?
"National championship? Rose Bowl? No? OK. What's next for us to fight for?" safety Taylor Mays said. "If we don't fight back from this, and we keep going downhill, that's when you really get upset."
If USC wins its next two games -- UCLA and Arizona, both at home -- it still could end up in the Holiday Bowl. Even if the Trojans ended up tied with Stanford, the odds are the Holiday Bowl would pick them to boost television ratings.
And if the Trojans prevailed, a 10-3 finish would ease some of the sting of a disappointing season. It might even be enough to push them back into the top-10.
A strong finish and some offseason momentum also would increase the odds they'd again be the preseason conference favorite in 2010.
And yet.
Based on what's transpired since the fourth quarter of the game at Notre Dame, it certainly seems reasonable to doubt whether the Trojans will win their final three games and generate that positive momentum.
"The first thing is you have to get to the truth of what happened and everybody is clear about that," Carroll said.
That starts with coaching. Perhaps Oregon and Stanford have comparable talent to USC, but does anyone really believe they are a combined 102-41 better than the Trojans?
Quarterback Matt Barkley was a better quarterback five weeks ago. The linebacker play also has regressed. A talented secondary has just six interceptions. The offensive line may produce a heap of NFL draft choices, but it's hardly been dominant. The offense can't convert on third down. The defense doesn't force turnovers. The Trojans commit a lot of penalties.
More than a few USC insiders acted like the departures of offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian and defensive coordinator Nick Holt for Washington might offer a chance for a schematic upgrade. Who'd assert that now? Seem to recall the same being said -- nudge, nudge -- when Norm Chow "chose" to leave.
Carroll may need to take a serious and objective look at his staff. Is everyone getting the most out of his players? And Carroll may need to do some self-evaluation.
Or: Maybe this is just a blip. Maybe what's extraordinary is that it's taken this long for USC to be ordinary.
Would you be shocked if, a year from now, this space is filled with calibrations of various scenarios for USC to play for the national title? Of course you wouldn't.
"We'll bounce back in a positive direction," Carroll said.
We'll see.
But this column from SEC country recalls an interesting parallel that also occurred to me: In 2001, when Florida State's run of 14 consecutive 10-win seasons ended with an 8-4 finish, no one -- no one -- thought the Seminoles would disappear from the national title discussion.
They did.
So there's really one position to have here, Trojans fans.
There no reason to overreact to the sudden downturn. But it's also foolish to act like nothing is amiss.
and the other article they referenced
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Could someone with ESPN Insider access post this for me?
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/feat...pn.go.com/ncf/features/take2?gameId=293300245
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/feat...pn.go.com/ncf/features/take2?gameId=293300245
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GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida Gators coach Urban Meyer says he plans to coach the Gators "as long as they'll have me."
SEC blog
ESPN.com's Chris Low writes about all things SEC in his conference blog.
• Blog network:
College Football Nation
With rumors swirling about Charlie Weis' future at Notre Dame, Meyer squashed any potential speculation about leaving Gainesville for South Bend.
Meyer's news conference Monday was his most emotional in five seasons at Florida, with the coach having to pause and compose himself several times whiletalking about quarterback Tim Tebow and other seniors' final home game Saturday against rival Florida State.
Meyer also said he believes Tebow could coach Florida down the road.
SEC blog
ESPN.com's Chris Low writes about all things SEC in his conference blog.
• Blog network:
College Football Nation
With rumors swirling about Charlie Weis' future at Notre Dame, Meyer squashed any potential speculation about leaving Gainesville for South Bend.
Meyer's news conference Monday was his most emotional in five seasons at Florida, with the coach having to pause and compose himself several times whiletalking about quarterback Tim Tebow and other seniors' final home game Saturday against rival Florida State.
Meyer also said he believes Tebow could coach Florida down the road.
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Les Miles should be fired.
he has been quoted as saying he doesnt know where JJ got the idea to spike it, and on Colege game day they show this dufus Miles running down the sidelinesignalling to spike it.
man I was right initially, he wasnt taken outta context hes a +$%*@% Liar.
what a piece of !$##
he has been quoted as saying he doesnt know where JJ got the idea to spike it, and on Colege game day they show this dufus Miles running down the sidelinesignalling to spike it.
man I was right initially, he wasnt taken outta context hes a +$%*@% Liar.
what a piece of !$##
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I was
@ that he did the spiking motion like 6 times on the sideline...
You could tell with his interview after the game that he was lying through his teeth...I didn't even know what he was talking about.
You could tell with his interview after the game that he was lying through his teeth...I didn't even know what he was talking about.
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yeah i made that post earlier because i was listening to espn radio and they played the soundbite, and i was like "Wait!! I'm almost certain i saw himrun down the sideline motioning for jefferson to spike the ball."
then i got home and turned on first take and saw that i was right. skip was going in on him for *+%%+#% up then trying to lie about it and blame it all onjordan.
it's pathetic.
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now yes he did that,
but jefferson also ran to the sidelines after that and was told something by les and the coaching staff
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ok so if the coaches called for another play, why did no one else on LSU run a play when the ball was snapped. Everyone stood there because all 11 guys wereexpecting a spike.
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proably right cause if you watch it again this happenes
-Les tells him to spike the ball
-he runs to the sideline and is told something
-when he gets under center he looks back like twice looking at the bench like "what do you really what me to spike it"
-Les tells him to spike the ball
-he runs to the sideline and is told something
-when he gets under center he looks back like twice looking at the bench like "what do you really what me to spike it"
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Scout named their first 3 5 stars for the class of 2011:
RB DeAnthony Thomas 5'11" 185 4.4 Crenshaw HS. Los Angeles, CA
TE Ben Koyack 6'5" 230 4.59 Oil City SHS, Oil City, PA
DT Tim Jernigan 6'2" 275 Columbia HS North, Lake City, FL
RB DeAnthony Thomas 5'11" 185 4.4 Crenshaw HS. Los Angeles, CA
TE Ben Koyack 6'5" 230 4.59 Oil City SHS, Oil City, PA
DT Tim Jernigan 6'2" 275 Columbia HS North, Lake City, FL
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Les is now saying it was all on him
and he was not saying to clock the ball he was saying the LSU player was down because the ole miss had come away with the football
and he spike the ball because he thought ole miss had 12 man on the field
and he was not saying to clock the ball he was saying the LSU player was down because the ole miss had come away with the football
and he spike the ball because he thought ole miss had 12 man on the field
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Ben Koyack...come on over and be a Buckeye.
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