USC 50 - UCLA 0 ... Taking out their frustrations

I wanted to put this up as a separate post and not in the game recap...

There were some out there who were not pleased with USC's efforts on Saturday night.

Some saw it as running up the score.

Others saw it as padding stats.

I can see the logic...

But, even if both observations are correct the reason we saw the performance we saw on Saturday comes down to one word....

RESPECT.

"The common theme (of the season) is it makes no sense," Kiffin said. "What was the purpose of taking bowl games from these 18- to 20-year-old kids?"

The other target was Neuheisel's "gap (between the schools) has closed" comment as Kiffin acknowledged some USC players declined to shake hands with UCLA players after the game.

"They were really insulted by that," Kiffin said. "They even brought it up at halftime. They took it very personal. It was almost as if they were playing against him."

These kids have endured A LOT!

Neuheisel's crass comments was a slap in the face to them.

Yes, Neuheisel's comments may have been directed at the program as a whole (it's not like he hasn't done that before), but its the kids that have taken brunt of the punishment over the past two seasons, not the adults.

So, when some loud mouth coach implies that they aren't all that, these kids got all fired up.

Kiffin recognized it, used it as motivation and then he let his team go out and take their frustrations out on the face of the most recent insult.

The flood gates opened, they would not be denied and Kiffin wasn't going to stand in their way.

This wasn't Pete Carroll lighting Slick Rick up with a long bomb...you could tell that Pete had enough of Neuheisel's schtick, so Pete sent a message.

This was the kids taking matters into their own hands they way they have been trained to do...on the field.

They didn't go crazy on Twitter. They didn't unload on their Facebook pages. And they didn't proclaim any wild statements on YouTube.

Their playing did the talking.

These kids could care less about the karma of running it up, padding stats or breaking records.

They heard enough from the loudmouth across town and they acted on it.

Good for them!!

FIGHT ON!