Air Corp grounded, Locker drives Huskies to upset

QB Jake Locker drove the Huskies on a 10 play, 63 yard drive over the final four minutes of the game, leading to a Erik Folk 22 yard field goal with three seconds remaining as Washington upset #3 USC, 16-13. Not much went right for the Trojans, as QB Aaron Corp, in his first career start, went 13-22 for 110 yards and an interception, though he was lucky not to throw more as Corp consistently locked on to his first option, and RB Joe McKnight had 11 rushes for 100 yards and USC's lone touchdown, but also fumbled twice. USC committed 8 penalties for 75 yards and fumbled the ball four times, with FB Stanley Havili and RB Stafon Johnson losing one each. The 110 yards passing by Corp was the lowest total in the Pete Carroll era.

I guess I'll look at the good before diving into the ugly. The defense, save for the final drive, did well without its leader, S Taylor Mays, holding the Huskies to 56 yards rushing. DE Nick Perry was the player of the game, with four tackles and two sacks. MLB Chris Gallippo continues his steady play, as he had 8 tackles and one pass breakup. And the other bright spot? K Jordan Congdon, who hit a 42-yarder to put USC up 10-0 early in the game and tied the game late with a 25 yard field goal. He also had the range on the field goal after time expired in the first half. But other than that? Ugh.

So what went wrong? Let's start with the QB, Air Corp. 13-22 for 110 yards is unacceptable for a USC QB. Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, John David Booty, and Mark Sanchez were rolling in their graves. Probably didn't help that he had to step into freshman Matt Barkley's shoes after his game winning drive at Ohio State with a sprained shoulder. But no more second guessing on my part. Carroll was right on in naming Barkley the starter to start the season, as Barkley showed that he could lead a team, while Corp puttered around against a Washington team that gave up 349 yards passing to Idaho. IDAHO! But the guy named starter out of spring camp could only muster 110 yards against the same defense. Unreal. Can't really put much on the receivers, as Corp would force the ball to his first option, even if the receiver was covered well, but Damian Williams has to step up and be a leader on offense, because Steve Smith, Mike Williams, Dwayne Jarrett, and Fred Davis aren't walking through those doors.

But all can't fall on Corp's shoulders. At least he wasn't a heralded group of running backs who combined for four fumbles. Fumble McGee McKnight had two fumbles, at least one of them he was stripped on, including on the Trojans' final drive, but USC recovered both. But the usually reliable Johnson fumbled on a 4th-and-1 run that he converted, which was a scoring drive, and Havili tried to make a play which he fumbled on as well. The most damaging thing about these turnovers, including Corp's turnover, was that they were all committed inside the UW 35 yard line, meaning those are points we fumbled away. I guess that would lead to the team scoring only 13 points against a Husky defense that was giving up 27 per game.

Penalties were killer as well, committing 8 for 75 yards. Remember last week when after the Ohio State win that I was happy with the fact that USC did not have too many penalties and only one turnover? Well BANG BANG, those things really came back to bite us in this game, and some of that has to go on the coaches, especially the minus-3 turnover ratio. What happened to the ball hawking defense? It seems we've gone vanilla on defense, the bend but don't break mentality leads to no big plays (only one play of more than 20 yards by Washington on offense), but no turnovers, and giving up a 3rd and 15 which would have given USC the ball back with a chance to win the game (or at least go to overtime). USC is minus-3 on the season in turnovers, a number which has to improve. But why the lack of takeaways? Is it the coaching? Is it the lack of ballhawking players on defense? Even the great Taylor Mays doesn't do much in the turnover game. Was it Nick Holt who took his strip play on defense with him to Washington? How could we not force one fumble, or turnover in this game?

But I guess in the long run, this game goes on the coaching. Carroll for not naming Corp the starter during the week. Brian Schneider for not improving the special teams, as it seemed on every single return, we would get a blocking in the back penalty, and our punter, Billy O'Malley, fails to punt the damn ball longer than 40 yards, I guess because it would hurt our punt coverage, which is terrible anyway. Not to mention our non-existant punt return game, outside of Williams' Reggie Bush-like return in the fourth quarter to set up Congdon's game tying field goal. Hey Pete Carroll, can I get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to coach special teams? Or even just a $100,000, as I have only one thing to coach the special teams units on: If you can see the opposing player's name on his jersey, DO NOT TOUCH HIM, DO NOT BLOCK HIM, JUST RUN AWAY. You already fucked up by letting him get past you on the return game. Good lord, these players may have talent, but not much for knowledge of the game. And having Jake Harfman just focus on kickoffs, when he hasn't had one touchback this season? Oh yeah, Schneider now has a chance to fuck up Mitch Mustain's future by having him punt as well. Fuck you guys.

Oh, but I haven't got to Jeremy Bates yet. I think I could have got more than 110 yards passing out of Air Corp. After three games, I've got Bates' offensive strategy down pat. Game one, find something that works, go with it, then dump it for the rest of the season (boot slide with a full back or tight end as the QB's safety valve). Game two, go with a QB sneak on every single 3rd- or 4th-and-1, then go with a HB dive with your FB on 3rd-and-1 with time running out in the first half with no timeouts left. WHERE THE FUCK WAS THE QB SNEAK THERE!?! Or even better, Pete, why not kick the field goal on third down? We lost yards anyway, and Congdon nailed the field goal that didn't count as time expired. On a play that was so successful against a more stout Ohio State defense, why not do it once? On a play that is deemed safe for our young QBs, why not call the boot slide more often? The boot slide is so safe because you have the FB or TE short, and if he gets open, the WR deep. But I think we've called that play twice in the past two games. For game 4, I don't know what Bates can neglect, as nothing went right on offense. Even the run game, which did net 250 yards, most of it in the first quarter, was nullified by the crafty Holt putting eight in the box, daring the shaky Corp to throw deep on them.

But even with all my complaining, I can't take away from the coaching performance put on by Coach Steve Sarkisian. He did a tremendous job getting his guys ready, and has transformed Jake Locker into a perfect dual threat QB. They deserved this win, and too bad he had to get his first marquee win over us. I will "Bark for Sark" the rest of the season. Though I will be thoroughly pissed if they shit the bed at Stanford next weekend. Just saying.

Oh well, here's the top 10:

1. Florida (3-0) - Tennessee did all it could to not get blown out by the Gators, always dangerous
   
2. Texas (3-0) - a win is a win in revenge games, even over an average Tech team
   
3. Alabama (3-0) - Arkansas showed spunk against Georgia, but won't be able to hang with Bama
   
4. California (3-0) - finally took care of those road woes, though they have to travel to Eugene next, always a tough place to play, just ask Utah
5. Penn State (3-0) - revenge game part deux! Lions should roll to a 21-3 win...
6. Mississippi (2-0) - good test at South Carolina in a short week
7. Louisiana State (3-0) - creeping up the polls, scrappy Bulldog team next
8. Boise State (3-0) - lone BCS buster team remaining, fun shootout against Fresno
9. Miami (Florida) (2-0) - astronomic rise up the polls, top 5 material if they beat Va Tech and:
10. Oklahoma (2-1) - next week, should be the game of the week (enough of College Gameday going to revenge games, unless they go to Oregon State/USC later)

And the Pac-10 rankings (yeah, no continunity, whatever):

1. California (3-0) - don't mess this up Bear fans, this is your year to make the Rose Bowl, especially with USC limping up to Berkeley next weekend
2. UCLA (3-0) - the defense is super scary, and I see more special teams touchdowns in their future
3. Oregon (2-1) - recovered from the Boise game, can make some waves with win over Cal
4. USC (2-1) - offense has shown nothing: "USC made Jay Leno's monologue last night when he said it stands for Unable to Score Consistently." Ugh
5. Washington (2-1) - please don't have a USC hangover and lose to Stanford
   
6. Oregon State (2-1) - P.S. to unranked Pac-10 teams who knock off USC, please do SOMETHING in OOC play, like beat Cincinnati at home. 
7. Arizona State (2-0) - Georgia rolls here
8. Arizona (2-1) - Fun fact: QB Willie Tuitama is now a waiter at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Tuscon
9. Stanford (2-1) - can they catch the Huskies snoozing? I think Sark is too good of a coach
   
10. Washington State (1-2) - nice comeback against SMU, and my lock of the week: they will cover the 44 spread at USC this week.

One final note, other than the loss to the Huskies, had a wonderful time in Seattle. People are so nice there, as we were wearing our USC gear and received nothing but well wishes for the game. Even walking back from the stadium to where we parked our car, we didn't get much hecklers or any fans trying to instigate anything. And the day we arrived was a beautiful day, sun shining and temperature in the 80s. Of course it had to rain on gameday, but that was expected. Good experience, hopefully I'll be able to go back and spend more time there, without the stress of a football game attached to it. And also got to strike a few things off my MLB list: see the Yankees, see Mariano Rivera pitch, and see a walkoff home run (Ichiro!). But I think the loss will make the Cal trip a little better, as we don't have to stress about losing anymore, since a national championship is no longer in reach, and Cal is the better team this year. And it's always nice travelling to the Bay Area.