After fuming the whole weekend, I finally decided to put my thoughts together. I posted few comments on WeAreSC.com forum, but I want to present a comprehensive look into UW debacle and the negative vibe around the program. A healthy critique never hurts, especially coming from a big time fan.

I won't get into how much I love what Pete has done for the program and accomplishments. Yes, 118 other programs would die to have this kind of success. But this loss really hurts. I got over Texas loss fairly quickly. I even somewhat got over losses to Oregon and 2 losses to Oregon State. But a loss to UW, UCLA and Stanford really hurt. It really hurts to lose to a program that has no business of being within 21 points if the talent on SC's roster is properly developed and utlized. I can understand losing to Ohio State, Cal or even Notre Dame (EDIT: to clarify, I am talking about 2009 Cal, OSU or ND, not 2001 or 2003 Cal). But not UW nor 2006 UCLA nor 2007 Stanford.

Let's not forget, Bobby Bowden also had tremendous success in 1990s. But FSU's inability to maintain discipline and develop players (despite playing in weak ACC and Florida being mediocre in early 2000s) eventually led to a freefall.

My main "fuming" points are as follows:

1. PC's stubborn decision to ignore special teams recruiting. Year after year, the special teams remains a problem. True, PC hired a special teams coach. But Schneider can't make a weak punters leg stronger. SC lucked out with Buehler, but aside from Buehler, we didn't have an impact kicker or punter forever. Danelo (RIP) wasn't a game changer, none of the current kickers are, and O'Malley is simply atrocious. You can check the punting average across the nation here. Well, what's the solution? You don't have to go far - look across the town. UCLA recruited their current kicker (Forbath) when another excellent kicker (Medlock) was approaching the end of his outstanding college career. Their current punter (Locke) was recruited as another solid punter (Perez, who was impactful during the 13-9 upset) was an upperclassman. There is no reason Pete can't plan out succession plans for kicking, long snapping and punting positions. It's very simple - recruit an elite specialist once in 4 years and if it means 1 less all-american RB, so be it. Matt Darr is coming next year, but it won't help our miserable punting average this year.

If anyone can name more atrocious punting in the Pac-10, please point me to that program.

2. Failure to clean up the penalties. Year after year, SC remains one of the most undisciplined teams in the country. What hurts the most, the penalties come at the worst time possible. With all the talent we have on the roster, it would not hurt one bit to bench anyone for a stupid, undisciplined play. Mindless penalties are becoming an important factor with struggling offense

3. Program's founding stones are becoming empty slogans. How many times we've heard about "it's all about the ball", "Competition Tuesday", "Turnover Wednesday"? Unfortunately, this is becoming nothing but a empty slogan. Prove me Pete, that it's all about the ball. Bench McKnight, Bench Stafor like you benched CJ Gable. If it's all about the competition, where are the practice and spring football all-americans during the gameday?

Paragon summed it up nicely:

I Love PC but I am tired of hearing how great guys do in practice only to see them languish on the bench.

If they are so damn good then get them into the game!

Pete had no problem saying that Flournoy (sic?) needed to learn the playbook or that Mustain is behind the others QB's in his development so why not tell us why the other guys are not cutting it?

Of course that opens up a whole other Pandora's Box...if they aren't that good they why did we recruit them...

Just my .02

4. Offensive talent development. I have no problem with what we're getting out of the guys on the defensive side. If you need a proof, check the NFL box scores from last weekend and see how dominant our x-defensive players are as 1st and 2nd year rookies (LoJack, Cushing, Maualuga, Rivers, TT). However, besides the OL, the talent development for WR, TE, and QB position leaves a lot of room for improvement. The RB position is hard to judge because none of the RBs gets sufficient amounty of carries.

But lets focus on WR position. Looking at the WR position I see a fair amount of highly recruited WR's on our roster (I am not even mentioning VH who left for Cincy). However, none of them became impact players ala DeSean Jackson, Percy Harvin, Julio Jones, A. Benn, Michael Floyd or AJ Green. Moreover, the guys who got away (Adams to Arkansas, Charles to UGa, Jeffrey to SCar) are becoming impact players as true or RS freshmen. What's the matter?

Here is an interesting take from GarryP at WeAreSC:

Q: Garry, since you mentioned that plenty of receivers were recruited ahead of guys like James Johnson [UW WR who led the team in receptions last weekend - anh_sc79] and also considering the fact that guys who got away like Orson Charles, Adams (Ark), Julio Jones, DeSean Jackson, AJ GReen, Percy Harvin, A. Benn become instant difference makes, is it fair to say that talent development (or proper utilization) at WR position hasn't been great since Steve Smith / Jarrett era?

A: This year will tell a lot about WR development, no doubt about that. Last year we got away with a trio of Damian, RoJo and PT as Patrick may not have been the All-American some predicted he would be but he did have a solid SC career. RoJo has developed into a nice threat but the shoulder injury has really been a blow to the team so far. I think Damian is our most polished, all-around receiver since Steve Smith.

That leaves a lot of guys who have been on the roster for a while and should be ready to go. Ausberry, Patterson, Butler, Carswell, Cameron. So far the results from this group have been minimal and you can point to play calling, inexperienced QB, game situations, etc as reasons for that so far this season. At some point, however, you need to look at players who have been in the system and expect them to perform. If they don't, then it is time for some questioning as to why that isn't happening.

What about Blake Ayles as a #1 TE?

Now lets touch the most contentious issue - the QB position. Behind Matt Barkley we have 2 5 star recruits (Aaron Corp, Mitch Mustain) and a solid HS QB in Garrett Green. If Aaron Corp's performance last week is any indication of his development, I must ask the coaching staff: "What the hell have you guys been doing all this time with the super recruits"? I don't buy the inexperience factor. Jevan Sneed, Ryan Mallett, Tate Forcier, Tim Tebow, Tony Pike, Taylor Potts - the list goes on and on - are perfect examples of what talented QB mentors do with solid talent within short period of time. The lack of QB development totally falls on coaching staff. I always been an advocate of inserting backups early in blow outs. Yet our 1st string QB always remains in until the end of the 3rd quarter. The backups never get meaningful time to test themselves in the real game situation. Some may say, that Aaron Corp doesn't fit our system or he simply sucks. To first group, tell me why Aaron was recruited if he never fit? To the second group, I am going to point to GarryP's article on WeAreSC:

Quarterback Matt Barkley, fresh off leading a dramatic last minute drive last week, was also sidelined with a shoulder that simply wasn't ready to go.  In his place, we entered the game with Aaron Corp.  Not to worry, I thought, as up until a few weeks ago Corp was scheduled to be our starter and he would surely take advantage of his opportunity to show what he is made of.  That didn't turn out to be the case. I've had a chance to cover Aaron Corp a lot over the years, primarily during his career at Orange Lutheran, and the player we saw yesterday did not resemble the guy I've seen in the past.  Aaron Corp is a good quarterback folks.  It's just a shame this might be the game people remember him by because it was clearly not his best effort.  He seemed timid, unsure of himself and he made some poor decisions.  That is not the player who was named California State Player of the Year.  Again, I don't know what went wrong but it certainly did go wrong for Aaron on this day.  In fact, his 110 passing yards were the lowest performance by a quarterback in the Pete Carroll era.

 Which brings me to the next point

5. Playcalling needs to improve. I know some of you don't agree with me here. Paragon wrote that "playcalling is overrated", but I respectfully disagree. I firmly believe that playcalling must adjust to certain players strengths and weaknesses. It's hard to run a system that doesn't take advantage of what the player is capable of doing.

Aaron Corp will never have Matt Barkley's arm, but MB7 will never have AC15's mobility. I didn't see a single naked bootlet, no zone read options to take advantage of Aaron mobility. Not once did Bates called a deep throw downfield (put max protection if you are worried about a sack). The play calling is unimaginative with zero creativity.

You can only go so far with talent and poor playcalling. Several pundits and posters mentioned that a common denominator behind conservative playcalling by various OC's was Pete Carroll. I believe there is some merit to that. Play calling must be creative, not dumb. No one asks for a trick play on 4th and inches when you have a tall, strong QB behind All American OL, just sneak it. But once in a while, use an end around, reverse, flea flicker... Keep defenses honest.

Pete needs to let an experience college OC run his offense. Note I said college OC, not any OC. NFL offensive strategy is built on assumption that the other team is equally talented (more or less - at least the difference between the Steelers and the Lions is not as big as the difference between Florida and Florida International). That's not the case in college. Look what experienced OC such as Gus Malzahn did to Auburn's pathetic offense.

UW's defense is no 1984 Chicago Bears. Nate Enderle of Idaho passed for a lot of yards just a week ago. I watched the game and you can go vertical (or deep) on them. Especially when you have a 6"4 WR on a 5"9 true freshman. Play to win, not  to prevent a loss.

This loss hurts. For the first time in the last 5-6 years the Trojans didn't serve crow to a trash talker. Every pundit on earth put the Trojans on the upset alert and yet we blew it. It pains me to say, but we lost a race with a full garage of Ferrari's to a 1970 VW bug.

Some things must change to avoid this crap again in future.