Gridiron Goddess

We had a decade for our heads to swell. We had a decade of winning, of excellence, of conference championships and BCS bowls and a couple National Championships and Heisman Trophies.

It’s hard to come back down from that.

It’s hard to be realistic about a team that doesn’t look like we expect  it to.

But it is time to get real.

It is time to stop moaning and groaning about sanctions, about the losses, about Monte or Lane or Coach O or Joe Houston.

It is time to get real.

It is time to stand up and be a Trojan.

This team, OUR TEAM, is two plays away from being 6-0 right now. This team, this coaching staff, is far and away better than last year’s team and coaching staff. Carroll had already checked out, my fellow Trojans. Jeremy Bates as Offensive Coordinator was a disaster of epically boring proportions.  Matt Barkley was a freshman. Aaron Corp was not the QB we thought he’d be. And we have to face it, Carroll’s recruiting the last few years (Barkley, Woods, etc exempted of course) was not as strong as it had been in the past.

Those amazing classes of 2003 and 2004 and 2005? Who recruited them? Coach O and Lane.

Um, who do we have back on the sidelines for USC? Coach O and Lane.

Of course we are going to have growing pains. We are going to have a transition period. We are going to watch a team struggle to find its identity in the wake of NCAA sanctions these players had nothing to do with.

Last year, the Trojans got blown out by Stanford. This year, we failed at clock management/Andrew Luck excelled at it and we lost by 2 points. It came down to a case of whomever had the ball last would win.

We will lose more games.  But stop listening to the pundits that proclaim USC’s dynasty over.  Stop letting that get you down. Stop making comparisons to the teams of the Paul Hackett era. Stop expecting Lane Kiffin to fix the mess that Reggie Bush and Pete Carroll and company left him with so quickly. Our recruiting has been off for a few years. That coupled with early NFL exits and transfers due to the sanctions have left us depleted.

Our losses and at times sloppy playing, our faltering defense are not due simply to Coach Kiffin choosing not to tackle in practices. For whatever reason this 2010 defense is having issues adapting to the Tampa-2. They will hit their stride. It is inevitable. This is USC. Our bench players, even in a down year, would be starters at most other programs.

USC’s dynasty is not over. It is just dormant. And it has been dormant since before the 2009 season started. And what we know, that the haters don’t, is that USC will be back.

And it won’t take a decade.

Win or Lose, I am proud to be a Trojan.  Faithful, Scholarly, Skillful, Courageous and Ambitious.

“Here are provided seats of meditative joy, where shall rise again the destined reign of Troy.” -Virgil

-Your Gridiron Goddess

Recap 9-7

Football Fiends,

I am not sure if, in the entire history of Gridiron Goddess, I’ve ever actually said that USC will lose and then actively picked the other team to win. Usually I would just avoid picking that game. Not this week. Coach Kiffin said it himself: “This is not the same SC.”  I am slowly coming to terms with that. It doesn’t mean I love my Trojans any less. I am and always will be proud to be a Trojan.

The Official Gridiron Goddess CFB Picks – Week 5

Stanford over USC

Wisconsin over Minnesota

Penn State over Illinois

Michigan over Michigan State

Georgia over Tennessee

Bama over South Carolina

LSU over Florida

ASU over Washington

Cal over UCLA

Miami over FSU (the real question for this game is: How many missed FGs and PATs?)

Oregon over Washington State

Arizona over Oregon State

Auburn over Kentucky

Fresno State over Hawaii

Arkansas over Texas A&M

Pitt over Notre Dame

-Your Gridiron Goddess

Football Fiends,

It was the worst sort of Saturday. USC lost and both the hated bRuins of fUCLA and the damned Irish of Notre Lame won. And we face Jim Harbaugh, Andrew Luck and the rest of the Stanford Cardinal next week. <headdesk>

It really couldn’t be much worse. I turned to my friend and fellow season ticket holder Oakley sometime in the early 3rd quarter and said “Fuck us, its going to come down to the kicking game and we will lose.”

I wish, for once, that I had been wrong.

WTH is going on with the Trojans? Has Monte, the pre-eminent defensive guru, lost his touch?(Yes, I realize Monte is the asst. head coach and Ed Orgeron is the defensive coordinator. Still, with Monte on staff, I look to him for fricking answers. He is, after all, a noted defensive guru.)  Has Steve Sarkisian reaveled himself to be the master play-caller of the co-offensive SarkKiff years under Pete Carroll? Are the Trojans just not hungry? Not disciplined? And how the hell did kicker Joe Houston miss that FG attempt from 40 yards out?!

And what the fuck with lining up in the Wildcat and using Matt Barkley as a receiver? WHAT THE F LANE? Really? Dillon Baxter played QB in high school, wouldn’t it have made sense to use him in the Wildcat instead of Marc Tyler & Allen Bradford? Is Kiffin a play calling buffoon or a mastermind? So far we have no clue.

There is no way Lane Fucking Kiffin is a worse play caller than that bozo Jeremy Bates was last year. And Matt Barkley had a good game, unlike Aaron Corp last year in Seattle. Allen Bradford ran for over 200 yards. As much as I would like to blame the kicker, as easy as it is to blame the kicker, the onus here is on the whole team. The offense did not put up points when they had to. Barkley overthrew David Ausberry in the endzone on the last drive that set up that failed FG. The Trojans simply should never have been in that position.

“We’ve got to do a better job.  We’ve got to finish people off when we’ve got a chance to, time and time again in that game,” USC Head Coach Lane Kiffin said after the game.

Where was the defense? The highly regarded Monte Kiffin D could not stop Locker and the Huskies all night, let alone in those last three seconds when it really mattered. Locker reignited his Heisman campaign last night in the Coliseum with 420 yards –310 in passing and 110 rushing. The Huskies racked up 536 yards on the pitiful Trojan defense.

Yes, I said pitiful. Do you know what else the Trojan defense is? SLOW. Where is the trademark speed and power and sheer indomitably that USC is known for? Has Monte Kiffin lost his touch? The USC D this year reminds me so very much of the USC offense last year under Jeremy Bates. That is a comparison that should never have to be made.

These are different days, Trojan fans. A new era. And, if you’re like me, you are worrying that we could return to a Paul Hackett like level of dismal.  I personally don’t think we will. Sanctions and lack of will and lack of depth aside this team and this coaching staff have too much talent to fall all that far for all that long.  That said, this team really needs to find its heart and find something to play for or we will end up with five or six losses.

Can you honestly say after looking at that pathetic display last night that Stanford and Cal and Arizona and Arizona State and Oregon and Oregon State and Notre Dame and UCLA don’t scare you to death? We could easily lose most of those games. I did not think we would prior to last night. Washington is not a great team by any stretch of the imagination. Sark has done wonderful things to rebuild a glorious program that fell by the wayside. That said, Washington IS the best team the Trojans have faced all season.

We didn’t lay down and hand it to them, we only lost by one point; but there is concern. And angst.

Angst football fiends, angst, and I have it.  So much angst. You realize Washington won in the exactly the same manner, by a field goal last year 16-13.

When was the last time a team beat USC two years in a row? For real? Can you remember? I can’t. Oregon won in 2009, but USC hammered Oregon in 2008. Stanford won in 2007, but USC won in 2008 and 2009. Cal beat USC  in 2003 and hasn’t since.  Oregon State beat USC in 2008, but USC beat the Beavers in 2009. Sure UCLA had their run of eight against SC in the 90s and Notre Dame had their 13 year run in the 80s-early 90s, but recently? I can’t think of any team that has beat us two times in a row. Except for former USC offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian and his Washington Huskies.

Next week the Trojans travel to Palo Alto to take on Jim Harbaugh and the 16th ranked Stanford Cardinal who fell to #4 Oregon 52-31 Saturday night.  I fully expect USC to go into that game the underdog – another rarity for a program that has enjoyed unprecedented success in the past decade.

It’s a new era Trojan fans. And I am proud to be a Trojan. This whole cardiac-kids type of team is just going to take some getting used to.

Fight On!

-Your Gridiron Goddess

Stanford Head Coach Jim Harbaugh:

and The Family Guy’s Quagmire:

-Your Gridiron Goddess