Reaction to the Trojans Defensive Performance vs. Hawaii

FRIDAY
The Trojan D gave up 588 yards of offense to the Rainbows. That is what you are going to get playing so many young and inexperienced players AND not going full speed/full contact all summer.

SC Coach Lane Kiffin:
"Defensively, we didn't play very well, obviously," Kiffin said. "I'm really disappointed with everything in general."

"We've got a lot of work to do, which is obvious. We didn't tackle well. There's no way to tell (why) that is. Their offense matched up well with us. They played much more disciplined than us. They had never run the pistol (offense) before. We didn't do things in the style we wanted. We wanted to be tough and disciplined. We were tough but we were not disciplined.''

Hawaii coach Greg McMackin
"We planned on playing a lot of guys because as you saw 'SC was gassed. When we started running those running backs at them, we were running them because we knew they couldn't tackle them because they were gassed.''

SC Insider Scott Wolf:
You could argue it was a first game. In Hawaii. And the Warriors ran a spread-out offense. A less charitable view would be that USC's defense showed some disturbing tendencies that were peculiar to last season, especially in the Stanford and Oregon games. The secondary is inexperienced, which is one excuse. The defensive line is experienced, however, and there were some near-invisible performances there. That was an unexpected aspect to be sure. The defense was supposed to be USC's strength. But the Virginia game just got a lot more interesting to see if it actually will be this season.

ESPN Pac-10 Columnist Ted Miller:
USC's 49-36 win at Hawaii probably wasn't terribly comforting for USC fans. The offense looked great. The defense? Spineless.
Lane Kiffin and his offense get an "A." Monte Kiffin and Ed Orgeron and their defense get an "F."
Some -- who, me? -- thought USC would come out and stomp the Warriors. You know: Send a message. The foundation of that predicted stomping -- and it feels absurd now -- was expected to be the Trojans defense, particularly the defensive line. But the defensive line was terrible. They, however, looked good compared to the secondary, which couldn't cover or tackle worth a lick. There are some positives to take away for USC, but they are entirely on offense. Other Pac-10 offensive coordinators who stayed up late to watch this one -- it ended around 3 a.m. EST -- are probably grinning.