No wonder they lost...

No matter how good USC might be, no reason for UCLA to play with little emotion or creativity in such a big game. Lay the blame directly at the feet of Karl Dorrell, whoe Bruins were already exposed a few weeks ago against Arizona, in much the same way they were unmasked by the Trojans.

Early, with a 4th and 5 at SC's 35, trailing only 3-0 after the defense scored a moral victory of sorts by holding Troy to a field goal, Dorrell should have been aggressive, and should have tried for the 1st down. No hindsight here, I was yelling at the TV at the time. Instead, he orders a punt, and instead of angling for the corner, it goes right down the middle and through the endzone. So SC gets the ball on the 20. In a game that deamnded the Bruins take some chances, they blew a good one right off the bat.

And any team that has scouted SC should have a better idea that the Trojans almost ALWAYS run on 2nd and long. The Trojan offensive philosophy, as created by Norm Chow a few years ago, is rather simple. Keep the opponent off balance. Pass on run downs. Run on pass downs. I bet Leinart throws on 1st down 80% of the time. And I'd also bet that SC runs on 2nd and long 80-90% of the time. The Bruins seemed clueless to this play-calling pattern that has been obvious for the past few years. On 2nd and 10, what better time to give the ball to Reggie Bush, with the defense looking for the pass? How many times did UCLA have to get burned before figuring out what SC always does?

Give Pete Carroll credit, too, for simply removing the one chance UCLA had to turn the game in its favor--Maurice Drew's kick returns. SC never kicked to Drew, instead either popping up short kickoffs, or sending squibblers down the field. All of these cause angst for return teams, and for the life of me I don't know why teams continue to kick off deep, often giving sprinter-like kick returners a chance to break free on a long retrun. The shorter pop-ups and squibblers might give up a few yards of field posiition, but they remove the threat of the long return, and more often than on the deep kicks, the kicking team will recover a fumble in a situation like that. Drew got his hands on only one return that rolled through, and by that time he was surrounded by Trojans. Oh, yes, Carroll didn't have SC punt the ball to Drew, either, because SC never punted the entire game.

UCLA is just about the worst 9-2 team I can ever recall. This team deserves credit for some of those remarkable rallies this year, but a break here or there and UCLA is 5-6 or 4-7. No way should Washington State or Stanford lost to the Bruins (each blowing double-digit 4th Q leads), and UCLA was darned lucky to beat Washington and Cal. If the bowl matchup is what I expect (vs. Minnesota at the Sun Bowl), prepare for more bloodshed, as the physical Gophers will simply hammer at that soft UCLA defense and run for another 400+ yards.

Meanwhile, Dorrell does well enough to keep his job. The depressing thing is that his renure could last 20 years or so, without ever seriously threatening for national honors, or ever beating USC as long as Carroll is around. Another couple of lashings against SC, however, and the Bruin brass ought to say enough is enough, we need a coach who can compete with SC.

Here's a suggestion. Just look up highway 99 about 200 miles, and ask for Pat Hill's number at Fresno State. I guarantee no Hill-coached team would ever go into a game vs. SC fearing for its life, as Dorrell's bunch did yesterday...