We will begin with absolutely the best start the Buffs have had in a game this year! It was actually a beautiful afternoon and evening and never really got that cold. As the black clad fans slowly filed into the stadium the tension built as it always does before a big game. As the Ralphie intro video neared its close, the team hadn’t even come out of the tunnel yet, and as the music finished the handlers paused for a moment before the entirely black clad team (shoes, pants, shirts and helmets!) came charging down the ramp and followed a roused Ralphie into the stadium as she dropped most of her handlers on the turn. I have been asking for black alternate helmets for awhile and the crowd was fired up and excited for the new look! USC won the toss and stole Embree’s play of deferring to the second half, leaving the Buffs with the ball to start the game. They immediately picked up a couple of first downs before Tyler hit Tony Clemons on a crossing route he took the house! The stadium was filling up by then and exploded in celebration!
§ Although they kept it close into the second quarter, that drive was truly the highlight as the defense could not really slow down Matt Barkley and the offense, although definitely re-energized with the return of Speedy and P-Rich, could not keep pace. After SC quickly marched down the field and tied it up, then took a 14-7 lead shortly thereafter, the crowd really fell out of it. A deflated team gave up two touchdowns in the second quarter and CU’s offense could not take advantage of two red zone opportunities, including one set up by a Jason Espinoza pick right before the half.
§ There were some positives for sure (but the subsequent negatives, questions and concerns will take up a lot more space), starting with the return of Rodney Stewart, who looked great coming back a little early from the knee injury. He was hitting holes, making cuts, breaking a few tackles and catching some balls out of the backfield. He hardly took an offensive snap off, even late in the game. Thankfully the coaching staff didn’t ask him to return kicks also. He also became the CU’s all-time leading all-purpose yards, passing EB.
§ The next is the guy who should probably be vice-MVP to Speedy in punter Darragh O’Neill, who hit some booming punts to help his coverage team get down and tackle Robert Woods before he could make any big gains. With a lesser punter this game could have been even scarier. It is amazing that he has had so little experience and coaching and he is already this good. He may end up leading the nation in punt attempts, but the experience will only help him continue to be a bright spot for this team for the next few years. Maybe it will start a trend of recruiting Irish kickers (there have been some Aussie Rules Football players-a similar game to Darragh’s native Irish Gaelic and rugby-that have played, including Alabama’s current stud punter, and a few have even made it to the NFL).
§ Tony Clemons, taking advantage of Trojan defense’s attention to P-Rich, caught balls early and often, including two TDs and many first downs. Many would probably say he was the MVP of the game, however, on a late drive, when Ryan Deehan finally got a catch, Clemons jogged in front of him and passed up a block of a defender who then tackled the TE. He is still not fully reaching his potential and it’s a shame.
§ P-Rich was definitely rusty, but looked decent running and should get a little better each week. I think the defense was very aware of him and this was a big reason Clemons was able to have a big day-he just didn’t/couldn’t do it with Richardson out. Whoever lines up next year opposite P-Rich needs to take advantage and keep opposing defenses honest.
§ I couldn’t come up with any real positives for the defense. There were a few nice tackles here and there (I do have to give credit to Derrick Webb for his contributions), but they were too few and far between, surrounded by big gains, that they didn’t really matter. The LBs didn’t do much outside of a few plays by Webb and Mahnke, and I rarely heard Jon Major’s name called. USC’s RBs and TEs picked up a lot of yardage over the middle.
§ Maybe Jon Major’s less than spectacular year can be attributed to more than some nagging injuries. He might need to amp us his musical choices as he listed James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” as his favorite song-great song but I want my LBs listening to Metallica, up tempo hip-hop and generally harder faster music to get pumped for practice and games, not mellowing out to JT and Lilith Fair artists.
§ TFr LB Brady Daigh injured his wrist and is “day-to-day” (CU’s training staff’s favorite status term) as is WR Logan Gray with an ankle sprain. No mention of Ray Polk-not a recurrence of concussion symptoms or another injury, any other problems, or even his absence from the lineup anywhere.
§ Speed, speed, speed. USC has it all over the field. Our “Speedy” rarely could get to the edge, and outside of Clemons, no receivers were able to get open; our defense was chasing Trojans all over the field all night long. I was surprised SC didn’t get any real big special teams gains.
§ Both of CU’s lines got pushed around. If we get killed in the trenches, we will never compete in this offensive driven league. The O-line didn’t give Tyler much time, Speedy had to do a lot of work and of course they had some stupid false starts. However, they are not doing much holding, or at least not getting caught (trying to find positives!).
§ The D-line was just pushed backwards, got very little pressure on Matt Barkley and the SC running backs were all able to get some reps and gain some yards. Barkley had as much time as he needed to dissect the defense and read the field, especially early. I think this group is actually a bigger concern moving forward to next year than even the secondary. At least we know the DBs have had to deal with multiple injuries and issues and will get some more bodies to work with next year. The D-line has very little depth beyond who played this year, including many seniors, and very frosh recruits lined up for the next class.
§ Don’t get me wrong about the secondary-they were porous and slow, but Barkley usually had ample time to sit back and chuck passes all over the field to his speedy receivers. Besides the weak line play, the y were again playing without both starting safeties-Perkins we knew wouldn’t play but Polk was a surprise and nowhere to even be seen on the sidelines; Kyle Washington made a big hit toward the end of the first half and got up wobbly, leaving us with the inconsistent Terrel Smith and TFr LB KT Tu’umalo at safety, then Sandersfeld gave it a shot. Barkley even overthrew a few deep balls where his receiver had gotten behind our DBs. He might have lost a few million dollars for some of his misthrows if it weren’t for the SIX TDs he did connect on! Travis Sandersfeld is a hard-working player, but he is way too slow to cover the likes of Woods and Marquise Lee. DD Goodson was similarly overmatched. Greg Henderson actually had some nice battles with those two wideouts, as well as some more solid tackling, and I continue to be excited about his future!
§ They are horrible on third down, even more so on third and long. Once again they gave up some third and double digits by allowing Barkley enough time to find someone.
§ Fifth straight game giving up 40+ points, 500+ yards and the opposition easily covering a huge spread.
§ Spring Ball focus for the defense will need to be tackling as they wrapped up a runner numerous times only to allow him to break the tackle and make a nice gain. Fortunately, this was done by a lot of seniors and the younger players shouldn’t have such lackadaisical habits moving forward.
§ EB started out with a great offensive gameplan, calling plays and mixing it up early. As the game wore on though, USC seemed more and more ready for whatever we threw at them, and the offense stagnated. They were especially adept at picking up our bread and butter screen plays. Maybe that was because their offense runs them so well and the defense gets to practice them often.
§ The offense has been atrocious in the redzone and they squandered 3 opportunities early, including after Espinoza’s pick returned to the 8, only coming away with 3 points. This has got to be a combination of things-play-calling, QB decisions, offensive line play and receivers dropping the ball or, as was the case yesterday with Clemons and P-Rich, taking the ball away from each other- but this has to improve next year, if not next week.
§ Tyler had some yards and some great passes (the long one down the sidelines to Clemons might have been his best as a Buff and the first TD his second), and some nice scrambles, but again had way too many overthrows, behind and short throws as well, and a few where he locked in on his #1 option and the DB easily made the play. He never looked Deehan’s way until very late-not sure if that was him, EB or the defense (they were playing with backup safeties and LBs though?) Against so many talented, “NFL-caliber” underclassmen QBs, it just doesn’t feel like we have a senior QB.
§ Logan Gray had an awful game getting flagged for two terrible penalties, one where he retaliated to a little push right in front of a ref and then made a stupid block in the back (not assessed because they still didn’t pick up the first down). Later he caught a punt at about the six yard line?! And he was very ineffective on offense.
§ Wil Oliver had not one, but two field goals blocked and both really killed momentum and the crowd’s energy, especially the second one. That’s four on the year with only two actual “misses”, but Justin Castor came on for the last PAT. Oliver and Embree both said the kicks were low and out of character-something he should be able to learn from and build upon for the future-and the head coach said he is still the starting kicker.
§ Overall, it’s a little sad that we have to dig so deep for positives, are settling for the smallest of successes and are already looking so far ahead to the future. (How many of my bullet points mention something about next year?) Stuart from CUattheGame.com has this slightly gloomy but introspective take on the state of the program: http://www.cuatthegame.com/2011/i-feel-bad-that-i-dont-feel-worse/
§ One highlight of the game was the imbecile who ran on the field in the first quarter and how the referee explained it: that there was no interference (Embree argued vehemently against that) from the “Yayhoo” who ran on the field. The Pac-12 officials are a joke, have ridiculously long huddles over flags, often to only say there was no foul, or to give these long drawn-out explanations as to reasons for their ineptitude, but this one was a classic. According to one astute fan, “Yayhoo” is defined as a moron who goes streaking onto the field but is so stupid and drunk that he forgets to take off his clothes. It was actually one of the Buffs better tackles of the night when TE Deehan threw down the “Yayhoo” and Ryan RT Dannewitz made sure he stayed down until the “security” waddled out to actually carry the idiot off and arrest him.
§ I really do love the all-black and hopefully we will break them out for a big game each year. I had envisioned an all gold buffalo with black-letters and horn, but I liked the thick buffalo outline and CU. Supposedly they had worn some black helmets in 1998 against Baylor in a “throwback” game but I don’t remember nor did Larry Zimmer on the radio. I am glad they didn’t show up in some weird camouflage that Embree has mentioned.
§ One final comment on Lane Kiffin. He is just a stupid, arrogant ass! He just rubs people, fans and opposing teams and coaches the wrong way. He is still passing with a 28-7 lead with less than two minutes to go in the half (serves him right that Barkley threw the pick); he is lining up for a two-point conversion, not just early in the game like Oregon, but late with a 34-10 lead; he tried to “ice” our kicker with a huge lead; he leaves Barkley in for the entire game, even blowouts (the few snaps the backup took at the end were the first of the season that Barkley didn’t take); he continues passing late in the game, but then does decide to run it on a late fourth down-I get that some teams want to just try and run out the clock, especially since CU wasn’t calling timeouts, but I think he just wanted to score again. His cocky attitude and approach will continue to earn him haters in the Pac-12 and across the country and teams will become even more motivated to knock off the mighty Trojans.
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