While this loss is an absolute shock to most of us it should only be seen for what it is…just one loss.
Yes, we are going to take a hit in the polls but we have had that happen before and and we made our way back so it is way too early and there is a lot of football to be played before we bury anyone. Did anyone really think that SC was going to go undefeated this season?
I didn’t. All this talk about this team being different or the best ever (again) after only two games was a bit premature don’t you think?
SC has proven time and again that it can get up for big out of conference games but they struggle and can’t seem to put away some teams in the Pac-10. Its easy to be angry over last nights loss but people need to take a step back and stop letting their emotions get the best of them. I mentioned last night in the post-game thread that SC still has a shot at the MNC and here is why...
From PB at BON:
Even so, if USC fans understandably find themselves feeling sick to their stomachs in the wake of this letdown... they may still be on a very short list of front-runners for a national title game berth. Why? Though no longer leaders of the pack of zero-loss teams, USC shifts now to leader of the pack of one-loss teams. If they win out... and the Big 10, Big 12, and SEC fail to produce two undefeated teams... the Trojans will be sitting in the clubhouse winners of nine-straight, their only loss way back in September.
Best case scenario for USC? Ohio State runs the table in the Big 10 (or at least knocks out Penn State and Wisconsin), the top four SEC teams fail to make the case for a two-team SEC national title game, and neither Oklahoma nor Missouri emerges from the Big 12 unscathed. And there are even more plausible scenarios in which USC winds up in the top two of the final BCS standings. Don't bury 'em yet.
PB emailed me as the game ended and let me know he was writing this and it makes a lot of sense. How soon we forget that UGA was buried by Tennessee yet they were in the mix as one of the better teams to finish the season last year. SC is a national program and it has more than earned its place in the national discussion so I wouldn't count them out just yet.
Cowherd states it perfectly...
Does anyone else think that ANY team from the Big 12 or the SEC will go undefeated? I don't. The fact is conference play is tough regardless of the conference and we saw last year we had a 2 loss team in LSU make it to the title game.
Fans from other programs will take their shots at us and that is to be expected so we just need to accept it but those same fans are nuts if they think that SC is out of it this early in the season. SC has always finished strong and I see no reason as to why they won't this year. I could care less what the fans of other programs think, they have their agenda and we have ours. They want to bury us and that's fine but like I said its early yet and there is a lot of football to play so things are far from being decided.
USC got punched in the mouth last night and hopefully it got their attention so now its time to get back to work.