And your rivals closer.
This week Sunday Morning QB published his Absurdly Premature Assessment of: Southern Cal. And his work in both blogging and mainstream media terms is exhaustive. It always is with SMQ. This guy can’t possibly be married.
Anyway, it’s an excellent read, and you should read up on it in between shots of Tiger at Augusta. No way some guy named “Snedeker” wins the Masters anyway. Despite Southern Cal being Notre Dame’s only true rival, I don’t spend nearly as much attention to them as I should. I’m going to try and change that starting today, and SMQ’s work proves an excellent primer. Here are a few chunks of his work that really caught my eye…
Five-Year Recruiting Rankings*
2004-08: 1 • 1 • 1 • 2 • 8
That’s right, the 5th years, seniors, and Juniors of Southern Cal are all part of #1 ranked recruiting classes this season. Not sure, of course, that it’s all that different from the last, oh, 5 years at Southern Cal, but still, that’s a senior core of talent that would make Bobby Bowden cry. For some perspective, here’s the Five-Year Recruiting Rankings of Notre Dame:
2004-2008: 32 • 40 • 8 • 8 • 2
So, um, yeah. While the senior classes (5th, Sr., Jr.), the usual “leaders” (who, it’s worth nothing, have been hitting the weight room of a D1 NCAA program for at least 3 years) of Southern Cal average a #1 recruiting class, Notre Dame’s already fairly depleted senior classes average 27. So thank God for that #8, I guess. Hey, remember when we were all giggling when we saw Southern Cal has a “bad” year of recruiting this winter, coming it as number eight? Yeah.
Anyway, more from SMQ…
The rotation last year wound up an inconsistent mix of Washington, Johnson and McKnight, and though Washington led the team in carries and yards for the second straight season, his first team status always seemed somewhat de facto. In two years, he only broke 100 yards four times and was held to a pedestrian four yards per carry or less about half the time. The younger guys have been more exciting – Moody averaged a full yard more every time he touched the ball in 2006, a margin nearly matched last year by McKnight, and Johnson finished almost two yards better than Washington’s `07 average – but not nearly as consistent. Washington had more carries than the top three youngsters combined.
With the Old Man in Dreds now out of the mix, the best guess based on the way last year played out is Johnson as pacesetter and McKnight and Gable, presumably healthy now, as versatile, situational daggers, the Reggie Bushes to Johnson’s LenDale White, even if it’s Bradford (6-0, 230) who best fits the punishing White role physically. To be clear, though, that’s not a fair comparison. No single player in this galaxy of would-be stars has shined brightly enough to deserve that kind of expectation, much less two of them.
It is remarkable, really, to look at this edition of Southern Cal and realize that you’re starting to sort of have to take a double-take at the depth chart before you recognize the names. (And even then, as far as RB is concerned, you recognize them from recruiting.) There really isn’t a Reggie Bush stepping up right after Reggie Bush. That’s not to say they don’t have a lot of talent. They surely do, but even in a 38-0 romp over ND last year, the best rushing day was had by Joe McKnight with 68 yards rushing, and that was after a 51 yard rumble in garbage-time after much of the ND defense had grown exhausted and, frankly, probably really sick of heading out onto the field after an offensive gaffe of epic proportions. Again. Oh sure, Southern Cal still had 4 players average more than 5 yards per carry against ND in 2007, but the running-back rotation seems, at best, indecisive thus far and, at worst, just out of whack. It all makes one wonder how much longer Southern Cal can recruit the “next Reggie Bush” if it looks more and more likely that they’ll end up being “the next Staffon Johnson.” In other words, why wouldn’t such a talent rather head to Cal, UCLA, or even Oklahoma, play a lot more, become a huge star by their junior season, and then get to weigh their pro options over a junior/senior collegiate season?
More from SMQ (I bolded the really “holy crap” part)…
Not to overstate the point, but USC has played 30 games against ranked teams since 2002 and it’s record (26-4) is not the most impressive point of the portfolio. That would be the average margin of victory in those games, which is just shy of 19 points. Six straight BCS bowls is one thing; five blowouts is something else. The Trojans will be the unanimous Pac Ten favorite, again, and on paper only face one serious challenge, from Ohio State on Sept. 13. That’s a home game SC will probably be favored to win, and the line may not creep below double digits again the rest of the year. This is easily one of the handful of elite mythical championship contenders.
Holy Crap.
On paper, this is one awesome team. But as SMQ points out in his “worst case” briefing, this awesome team has had a few stumbles against non-ranked and/or overwhelming underdogs (Stanford, UCLA, for example). I suppose it all comes down to the QB position and the performance of their re-built offensive line (see SMQ’s post for more info). I, for one, thought Mark Sanchez looked really nice embarrassing Zibby and Company on a few clever pass plays. And by “few clever pass plays,” I mean he went 21 of 38 for 235 yards (meh) and 4 touchdowns (oh yeah, I forgot that part after drinking so much that evening that I ran out of beer and had to resort to Kids Triaminic to try and take away the pain).
This could be a very interesting year for the Notre Dame/Southern Cal rivalry. If Weis really has figured things out, I believe Notre Dame really will be “on the upswing.” That’s a big if. But, if that happens, Notre Dame may be catching an “unstoppable force” while it’s still busy trying to translate all that stuff on paper to something tangible on the field. You can’t help but feel that between the new o-line, the rotation at running back, and the so-called “QB race,” Southern Cal is a team that is, for this spring, anyway, still quite busy trying to figure itself out.
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