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TNYC: Random Thoughts From Week 14

Slick Rick, what were you thinking?  Here are my thoughts on Week 14:

• The hot post-game talk has been about Jeremy Bates/Pete Carroll's decision to drop a bomb on the Bruins after Slick Rick called a useless time-out late in the game.  All I gotta say is, if you take a jab, especially when it's in a RIVALRY game on the opponent's HOME turf, you better expect to get mollywhopped in return. Can't believe I'm quoting Bill Plaschke, but he puts it best:

The conclusion here was that Neuheisel's pettiness in the face of Carroll's professionalism was wrong.

In the end, while his players deserved better, Neuheisel got exactly what he deserved.

I'm laughing at these people getting all butt-hurt over the play ending in a TD.  I'm guessing a 15-yard throw would have been more classy?  At the end of the day, there is no excuse for letting a hobbled Damian Williams straight moss your secondary on a basic post-route.

• Moving onto recruiting, the big news from the game was Tony Jefferson sporting SC gear and jawing at UCLA players during the pseudo-brawl.  No surprise that Tony decided to decommit today.  He provided some interesting quotes with the news:

Recruiting: Breaking Down the Official Visit List for USC-UCLA

Kyle Prater

The official visit list:

• Kyle Prater, WR (Hillside, IL)
  Ranking:  5-Star, #2 Overall, #1 WR
  Status:  Committed
  - SC will try to seal the deal on Kyle who is expected to be a December graduate and early enrollee. The recruiting battle has come down to SC and ND.  This is the perfect opportunity to lock-in Kyle's commitment with all the turmoil in South Bend.

• Jackson Jeffcoat, DE (Plano, TX)
  Ranking:  5-Star, #6 Overall, #1 DE
  Status:  Texas, USC, Houston
  - Looks like Texas leads this battle with Houston as the dark-horse pick due to Jackson's dad being on the coaching staff.  SC still has a real shot at landing Jackson.  The coaches can sell the early playing time here at the strong-side spot with Armond Armstead flipping between SDE and DT (true position). 

• Dillon Baxter, WR/RB (San Diego, CA)
  Ranking:  4-Star, #26 Overall, #1 All-Purpose RB
  Status:  Committed
  - Dillon has stayed solid through his commitment but recently took an official visit to Michigan where he was guaranteed early playing time.  Still looks like Dillon is firmly committed.  SC has the wildcat formation ready to go for next year.

Recruiting: D.J. Morgan Suffers Torn ACL Injury in Playoff Game

 

From LATimes.com:

Morgan was injured Thursday night during Taft's City Section Division I first-round playoff victory over Garfield. He had an MRI exam Friday night, but it wasn't until today that he received a definitive answer about the ACL injury. Kerstetter did not know if Morgan would be able to return for track season in the spring.

Morgan is the No. 1 hurdler in the world for his age group at 110 meters. This summer in Italy, he won the 110 hurdles at the World Youth Championships. This spring, he won the state championship in the same event. He also has rushed for nearly 4,800 yards in his four-year football career at Taft.

Tough break for D.J.

Recruiting: Tony Jefferson Back in Talks With USC

From ESPN.com:

"I'm going to visit USC this weekend," Jefferson said. "It's an official visit and I'm interested to see what they have to offer. They started calling me again and I just want to see what the coaches have to say.

"Back in the spring, they told me I was the only safety they were going to take and then at the Rising Stars Camp, I find out they're recruiting a bunch of other safeties, so that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like they should have been more up front about it.

"So we'll see what happens the rest of the way. Like I said, the coaches started talking to me again and USC is still a good school so I'm going to visit and see how it goes. UCLA will then be my last visit and since I'm graduating early, I'll be ready to announce in early January."

To recap, Tony was a silent commit back in Spring but got the cold shoulder during the Rising Stars Camp as the coaches focused more on Dion Bailey and Dietrich Riley.  Tony immediately cut talks with SC and committed to UCLA a month later.

Fast forward to present day, SC has a verbal commitment from Dion and Dietrich Riley is being recruited hard to Florida by recent Gator commit, Joshua Shaw; Tennessee has also been in the mix.  It still looks like SC is in prime position to land Dietrich, but it's not going to get any easier from here on out with Florida holding an official visit and Joshua talking in his ear all day.  No surprise that Coach Morton has started to re-recruit Tony.  If SC strikes out on Dietrich and Sean Parker and Tony remains at UCLA, we are left very thin at the safety spots. Next year we'll have Drew McAllister, who's been injured most of the season, and T.J. McDonald, a player that can easily out-grow his position, at the SS spots.

Putting all this context talk aside, Tony has stayed one of my favorite recruits of the 2010 class.  Kid can flat out ball and I'd bag him up on his versatility alone. How can you not take a player who is one of the best pure tacklers in this year's class and can legitimately play 3 positions (S, OLB, and RB)?  Even worse, how can you let this kid go to your rival school?  Even if scholarships were an issue, Tony is slated to graduate in December so SC could have him enroll early and count it against '09 - no problem.  As far as I'm concerned, the coaches have completely dropped the ball on this recruitment. Hopefully they can make amends and bring Tony back in.

TNYC: Random Thoughts From Week 10

Been real busy as of late so I haven't been able to blog much, but I wanted to sound off a few things:

• Someone needs to get these SEC refs some new prescription glasses real quick.  How the hell did they miss Patrick Peterson's INT in the Bama/LSU game on Sat?  Of course LSUFreek, sums it up in his genius fashion.  

• Continuing on Peterson, kid is a beast.  Been saying he's the best corner in the land since Week 1, but now I'm thinking he's simply one of CFB's best overall.

• Another kid I've been calling out since week 1 as the best RB in the country is Mark Ingram.  Kid is such a smart runner and the way he picks his angles, hops, and cuts into holes is just amazing to watch.  Not since Knowshon his RS-Freshman year and Adrian Peterson his frosh year have I enjoyed watching a RB just dominate and do his thing.

• Enough with the SEC, what about SC?  ASU game was just atrocious and I haven't gone back to watch the game in detail.  I'm still a big believer in Matty B. even though he couldn't hit a car driving across the field.  His raw ability has never wowed me this season rather it's always been his leadership and poise.  Kid just has the "IT" factor that so many "elite" quarterbacks simply lack.

• Message to Michael Morgan: gotta take better angles in the open field. Absolutely frustrating to watch a kid with so much athletic ability take atrocious angles towards the ball carrier.  He's getting left grasping for air against players that are far less athletic.  Chris Galippo also took really bad angles against ASU as well.

• Allen Bradford needs the majority of the carries until he averages less than 4 yards per carry.  In the games where he's had 10+ carries, he's averaged 6.5 YPC.  Not to mention he punishes linebackers trying to blitz.  AB just plays with so much heart and swagger, the guy needs to get more carries.

• Talk about awful scheduling this year, in the 9 games played so far, we've played 6 on the road and 5 of the 6 road games were in extremely hostile territories: @ Ohio State, @ UW, @ Cal, @ ND, @ Oregon.  On the bright side, next year's schedule is looking like a cakewalk with the only tough road games being @ Stanford (which is almost like a home game for SC), @ Oregon State (tough), and @ Arizona.

• Really wish SC would have allowed Nike to create a Pro Combat jersey.  I know most SC fans will scream "tradition!" and "we're not Oregon!" but it's one frickin game and those custom gloves are too nasty.  SC is going to have to get with the times at some point.

• Finally to conclude, although it was unfortunate to see Christian Ponder go down with a season ending injury, he had some balls to go up shoulder to shoulder with DeAndre McDaniel.

Good to be back in the Coliseum!