Playing some catch-up before I head out of town tomorrow.
One of the bigger mysteries this season has been the amount of dropped passes we have seen this season. A lot of them have been drive stoppers and while it is easy to point to the receivers Stanley Havili has dropped some critical passes as well.
Havili was still beating himself up for not catching a fourth-quarter pass from quarterback John David Booty that looked as if it would result in a touchdown and help the Trojans' offense avert a second-half shutout.
Havili also said it was tough to forget his fumble two weeks ago against Oregon, which led to a touchdown that broke a 10-10 and sent the Ducks on their way to victory.
"Players have a lot of pride," Havili said. "In high school, you never do anything wrong. When you get here the stakes are higher. Literally, the whole world is watching."
Havili is one of the most talented players we have so it's truly disappointing to see him making these types of mistakes. Last season we struggled without a solid Fullback. This season now that we have the guy that we need he is hurting us with some real dumb mistakes. We need Havili to consistent in his production in order to take the pressure off of Booty or Sanchez and the other receivers so that we can move the ball down the field.
As for the receivers there was some moderate improvement against Oregon State though there were some drooped passes as well. This offense just seems anemic, it is easy to point to some of the sloppy play at the QB position but in the end if the receivers hung to some of those catchable passes or if they fought a little harder for the ball production would be better. Those dropped passes could be the difference between 7-1 instead of 6-2. I'm no sure we would have beat Oregon even if we didn't have any dropped passes but it would have helped. The play has to improve on the offense if we expect to get to a BCS bowl game.
On the defense we need to just keep it up. For the most part SC has played on defense. It hasn't been perfect and there have been some lapses in coverage and some stupid penalties, some of the penalties called have been out right bad calls, but like I said for the most part they have done a great job. They are the key to our success so we need them to keep the pressure on.
I caught this in the DN this morning in regards to Alfred Rowe.
It's comes at an opportune time, because there is speculation Rowe might transfer to Oregon after the season, where his brother Kenny is a defensive end.
But Rowe said Monday night he will not leave USC.
"We've been playing together forever," Rowe said.
"Now we have a chance to do our own thing."
That's news to me, I wasn't aware that he was even considering transferring. We have heard the rumors about Bradford and we lost Holland and Moody so this sort of thing happens.
Looks like Broderick Green is back on the mend as Wolf reports that he is back in a protective boot on the same foot that had the stress fracture earlier in the season. I looks like it was good thing that he red shirt this season.
With the game against Cal coming up this weekend it's obvious that this game doesn't mean as much nationally as it did earlier in the season. To SC it is very important because winning out the remainder of the season puts us in the position of having a shot at either Rose Bowl or the Fiesta Bowl. Cal has some issues, which we will look at with the guys over at The Band is Out on the Field later this week. They have their own issues in regards to their expectations of their season just like we do. We will have a Q&A with them later this week.
There is still no word on Vincent Joseph's return to the line-up due to some academic issues that kept him out the Oregon St. game. He should know better so lets hope he gets things back on track.