Late reaction to USC game

The Buffs have certainly improved upon their overall record, effort and product from the past few seasons and kept fighting until the very end against USC.  Their lineup is littered with freshmen and sophomores with very few seniors in contributing roles and the lineup should be experienced and should be able continue to show improvement next year. However, there is still a huge talent gap and they still lost by 18 points at home, only getting the backdoor cover late against a tired defense that knew they had the win in hand. The Buffs made entirely too many mistakes to compete in a conference game against a good team.

If Paul Richardson indeed makes the jump to the NFL, will this team be able to compete and improve upon what they have accomplished this year?  The offense was almost non-existent in the first half, garnering only a couple of first downs and only once making it past midfield.  Once again the team made a string of mistakes in the closing minutes of the first half to turn a close game into a blowout.  The lines on both sides of the ball were getting pushed backwards all night (these two groups really worry me for next season).  Running plays rarely had any space and Sefo was running for his life most of the night.  The true frosh did not have his best game by any means, missing badly on a few passes and giving the ball away twice, but he was harassed all evening and his receivers dropped way too many balls when he was on target (7 or 8 at least, with 4 or 5 on early drives). Although the defense held USC in check at times, they gave up the big play at the most inopportune times as usual.  The defensive line got very little push and did not tackle particularly well.  Although Parker Orms played his Buffalo heart out for his whole career and again last night with limited snaps (and if you didn’t catch that, he also won the fans’ “Buffalo Heart Award”), and although Jered Bell had another big play with a fumble scoop and score to ignite the team to start the second half, they are slow and weak in the secondary.  The safeties are can’t keep up with opposing players and the cornerbacks, even though they can stay with receivers fairly well, don’t turn back for the ball and get beat on 50/50 balls way more often than not.  And they didn’t even have to face Marquise Lee yesterday, as he stayed back in LA to rest, although he would have played if they thought the outcome of the game would be in question.

And special teams…what can I say but that Toby Neinas is the most overpaid person on the staff and I have no idea what anyone makes outside of MacInyre’s $2M+.  He is a full time coach of the 3^rd unit that was once again terrible (even without giving up a huge return), with the glaring mistakes attributed directly to coaching.  First, I won’t even go into Ryan Severson being a slow choice to return kicks as he is not that quick or explosive and continues to be hesitant before he runs after catching the ball (oops, I just did); but besides making the decision to have Severson be the deep man, even with the now mentioned deficiencies, he is also instructed to, or at least given the green light to take the kickoff out of the endzone, even though he rarely (and when was the last time?) gets it out past the 20 let alone the 25 where they would get the ball after a touchback.  I don’t care if he averages 23 or 24 per return, because if you are taking it from 4 or 5 yards deep in the endzone, you are only getting the ball at the 18 or so, risking injury and fumble and giving up at least five to ten yards of field position each time! Second, teams usually choose to use the “rubgy” style punt because it is supposedly “safer”, but the Buffs still managed to let one get blocked (and luckily only for a safety and not a TD).  Darragh’s strength is his strength and ability to boom the ball (as witnessed as he was the choice for the free post-safety kick) but since Neinas can’t coach the team how to cover a punt and tackle, they have to do the rugby style and still suck at it.  Lastly, cover the damn ball when it is live and players are all around it!  This happened both on a punt that bounced off a Trojan but rolled out of bounds with three players looking at it, and again later on the onsides kick where it appeared three different Buffs got a hand on the ball, but USC recovered.

Best highlight? Actually it was during a timeout when limber cheerleader Ozell “O” Williams  did 57 consecutive back handsprings across the field to set a world record!  We’ll miss you O!

One last note: One thing that became clear was that the Buffs are definitely only the third worst team in the conference (could jump to only 4^th worst if they can beat Utah), as they are certainly ahead of Cal, but even Cal is light years above the worst group in the league, the infamous Pac12 officiating crew, which continues to stumble through games, missing calls, making strange calls, reversing calls, conferring forever on calls and never seeming to get anything right nor keep the game moving.  They started with numerous clock confusions early and continued on their way, letting DBs maul receivers throughout the evening (at least this seemed to be “consistent”), and kept everyone standing around while they were trying to figure things out over and over on a freezing night.  The best one was when they assessed a 15-yard penalty on CU after what would have been a big gain, moved the ball back but told USC that they could instead take the ball at the previous spot with loss of down (which is utterly ridicuolous?!), then figured out their stupidity only when the crowd and Buff sideline went ballistic, then moved the ball back again.  Additionally, on two separate punts, the incompetent refs made some very curious calls: 1) On one Darragh O’Neill punt, the Trojan returner appeared to meekly wave for a fair catch but then tried to run, which I believe, as a screaming Mike MacIntyre did, that this is a penalty, but the refs instead just blew the play dead and gave the Trojans the ball at the spot of the catch; 2) later, the USC return guy signaled for a fair catch but missed the ball, which bounced off the ground and straight up back into his hands, which should have made it a live situation and open to tackling, but the refs instead blew the whistle and stepped in to protect the inept returner and deny the Buffs the chance to make a play.  Often it just seems that they don’t know the rules and are scrambling to keep up with the action.  Most officiating crews throw the flag and signal or quickly tell the head ref what their call is, while this group throws the flag and then runs over to a huddle to confer what the call is or maybe what everyone thinks it should be, who really knows what they discuss, like a pitching mound conference in baseball.