USC's pro day is today

Apparently Clay Mathews is kicking ass in his workouts. He was projected as an early 2nd-rounder but has impressed more than Cushing and Rey-Rey so far. That might give the Trojans three 1st-round linebackers in one draft. Good grief.

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I recall that there was mutual interest during recruitment and that the staff was somewhat on the fence about him.

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Clay was lightly recruited and walked on at USC.

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before they did it, and a lot of people piled on about the predictability of Weis' offense. Okay, there may be some merit to that, but maybe it just really did feel like they knew what was coming because, at that point in the season, they were just that good and the game had slowed down that much for them.

--
Sometimes I rhyme slow sometimes I rhyme quick.

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During the first few ND possessions, they ran stuff they hadn't run all year:

-a new look toss play
-a fake the swing pass, bomb down the sideline
-a designed swing pass to the slot WR (not a look pass)
-a smash route (run for like the 2nd time all season, the other one against SDSU in the end zone)
-a bootleg play action pass with Robinson in as an extra TE
-a wham trap play with Robinson in as an extra TE and Rudolph as the wham blocker

We certainly threw everything but the kitchen sink at them...

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They will likely have 6 first round draft picks over the last two years - from their front seven alone.

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FORMER Trojans.

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The more I think, what a wasted opportunity for Carroll last year. Heh heh heh.

Seriously, though, I don't know if it's possible, but I actually think the '08 Trojan defense is being underrated by the college football world. I think you could make a case for it being among the best defenses in football in the last 20-30 years.

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That's the best defense that I've watched at the college level. I knew we were going to get thrashed in the Coliseum as soon as I saw what they did to Ohio State. I am firmly convinced that playing them at home was the most difficult challenge in college football last season. They absolutely destroyed both Ohio State and Oregon at home and those were Top Ten teams. And I might one of the few people that was pleased that our beating wasn't much worse. I thought we were gonna get a 58-7 type situation. Thankfully our defense showed up that night. Thank goodness for small favors....

What's amazing about the loss to Oregon State was that the Trojans got pushed around on defense. Everson Griffen played like he was wearing high heels. They got abused on that wham block and it wasn't typically a TE it was Sammie Stroughter!

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It looked like the Trojan defense was confused all game long. The blocking schemes run by the Beavers were ingenious, using WRs coming off of motions to block LBs just long enough for a quick RB to find some space and get through. None of the blocking was based on overpowering the guy, just stopping him barely long enough for the play to work. Because of this, USC was on their heels the entire first half and a good bit of the 2nd.

There's no way that most other teams could do that to USC; OSU completely sold out on playing one specific style of offense. Their QB made just enough clutch plays when they needed it, and the defense played well right when they needed to. Jacquizz Rodgers also set the entire team up for success by playing so well in space and finding the necessary holes. It was a gutsy plan, but I think that coach had set up his offense from the beginning of the year with his entire goal being to beat SC. It worked out for him, too.

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the Polo Grounds

Could ND have had Mathews if we'd offered?

I think that was his brother, Casey.

When they claimed to know exactly what ND was going to do...

that was definitely a line of BS

Mathews didn't even start until after the Oregon St game...

The best part of this is that they are all...

the more I think about it

I agree, Jay.

Watching the Oregon State game..