MONDAYI have taken this excerpt from ESPN LA's SC Practice Report by Pedro Moura:- For much of the season, Kiffin and his coaching staff have been criticized for not tackling in practice, with the common belief that the tackle-free practices have led to poor tackling in games. The coaches -- and players, for that matter -- have unequivocally denied any connection between the two, but Kiffin seems to have gone back on that a bit in preparation for Oregon. See, the Trojans are tackling again -- not a lot, but some -- and the reason is apparently because they haven't tackled well. "Going back through the bye and looking at how poorly we tackled, it’s been game-changing," Kiffin said Monday. "If we can tackle at all in the secondary, we’re 7-0 right now. It’s something that we decided to do. We didn’t do it all practice, but we did some live tackling drills and it was good to see. We did a little bit of that last Thursday, with the DBs and Michael Morgan, but we incorporated all the linebackers today.”
- Asked about how the tackling actually looked, Kiffin didn't seem overly happy: “It’s rusty," he said. "You don’t all of the sudden tackle well when you haven’t all year, for the most part. It’s something we’ve focused on and instead of just doing drills, we did it live, basically with our second-team offensive guys, and so hopefully it will pay out.”
ESPN LA Trojan Coverage
Came across this little gem today while reading the ESPN-LA USC blog. The practice report for Wednesday was written by Pedro Moura. The fourth bullet point really caught my attention.
Common knowledge seems to indicate that the Trojans have a lot of adjusting to do with the new iterations of their defense, but -- in reality -- the defensive schemes the team is using in 2010 couldn't be much more like what the team used in previous years. "A lot of the stuff is pretty similar," Morgan said. "I don't know if guys realize that watching, but a lot of it's really similar. There are a few tweaks here and there, as far as schemes and blitzes and stuff, but overall Coach (Pete) Carroll and Monte (Kiffin) are pretty much the same type of mind. They all came from the same tree."
Well, that rules out that excuse. The common answer to the question of "what is going on with SC's defense?" has been four-tiered . . .
A. The loss of a boatload of starters, especially in the defensive backfield, replaced by the following:
1. Shareece Wright (CB) Started 1 game in '07 as a sophomore and 2 games in '08. He suffered a season-ending injury just three games into the season. Did not play in '09 due to academics.
2. Nickell Robey (CB) is a true freshman and first-year starter.
3. Jawanza Starling (S) is a sophomore and first-year starter.
4. T.J. McDonald (S) is a sophomore and first-year starter.
B. Lack of depth + Lane Kiffin's philosophy on full-speed contact in practice.
C. A new defensive coordinator and a new defensive system implemented for the season.
D. Ken Norton Jr. was one of the very best linebackers coaches in the country. Losing him was a bigger deal than anyone will admit.
I have said it before and I will say it again . . . it is all cyclical.
Teams have up years and down years. Very simply put, when you have experienced upperclassmen at key positions on both sides of the ball, you are going to experience success.
Yes, I acknowledge SC has been an exception to the rule this decade. Yet this year is different.
