Latest / Reign of Troy Radio on USC Football / USC Offensive Preview 2025

Transcript

USC Offensive Preview 2025 · Reign of Troy Radio on USC Football

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Rain a short hot line.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least you know Michael what's going on.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: We know you have takes.
• 0:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have takes.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm back to surprise that you're a rant line, rave line, whatever his is completely full.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: What can't we just win a game?
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can I blame Michael Caspio for this?
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can I blame Bob Connelly for this?
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Could I put on a zebra shirt and just go out there?
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Scratch claw.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Up against the wall.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: Can't explain it while I'm feeling right now, guys.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe it.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's open up that raised ball.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: or can't believe, U.S.C.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: is undefeated in the SEC.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wait, we're in the big tent, what the record, oh no!
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody welcome back to rate of tour radio episode.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Six hundred and ten coming to on Monday August.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Eighteenth we're gonna preview USC's offense the Trojans going into the twenty twenty five season Jade Mayov at quarterback McIdleman to Kobe Lane
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Talented, exciting, running back room, questionable things going on on the offensive line.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Talk about all of that here in this episode.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: As always, you can follow us on social media, rate of Troy, email us.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to have Troy offense at a cometer, phone number, eight, when eight, six, four, three, seven, two, two, seven, second, what's for our show?
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host, Michael Castillo, my car host, here on the rate of Troy studio, I lost the Angelus.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least a derrittal.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hello everybody.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hello.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are back.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the official beginning of two episodes per week.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Two main line episodes per week and more where that came from.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And more where that came from when you include Carcast starting next week because next week a week from today will be game week.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can talk about wild.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, oh, there's a game this week, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: The way we're going on the pot, if you haven't kept up with our schedule so far, this August.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today, offensive preview tomorrow.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, not tomorrow.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wednesday, defensive preview.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: next Monday, the season predictions episode.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's the one where we have like a twenty play page rundown.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's the one where everybody asks us all off season.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: How many wins is this weekend?
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, we're going to put down our predictions on Monday.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll go game by game saying win or loss.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you can hold this to the fire and laugh at us all season long when we're wrong.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: uh... because naturally that's what all projections predictions are wrong so uh... looking to that monday uh... and the next Wednesday uh... the twenty seventh episode six hundred and thirteen the first preview of the year u.s.c.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: and Missouri states uh... locked in horns on august thirty of uh... the day in which we will have a car cast uh... talking about that game afterwards
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least, let's get into it.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of stuff to go discuss about the offense.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think we have to start in the place you always start when you start talking about the offense.
• 3:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: How is that not the quarterbacks?
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's talk about the quarterbacks.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jade Mayava at quarterback.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: The sort of the incumbent starter.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: He started three games last year for the Trojans.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, three games of the regular season.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Four games when he include the SLS distribution Las Vegas ball.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, which is the Trojans.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: One valiantly.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: the Spite, a struggle bus before that.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jayme, I have a last year, twelve hundred yards, eleven touchdowns, six interceptions.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: The interceptions were costly once, and I think those are the things that people remember.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot, three of them against Texas A&M, two of them against Notre Dame, both of those, returned for touchdowns and was a pick six against Nebraska.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: in which Sierra, for our Trojan, took him to the house there at the Colosseum.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jane Maev, all off season, people talked about his ability on the feet, on with his feet, what he can do is big arm coming in from from UNLV.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: During the season, every time Miller Moss, you know, didn't blink right.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody wanted Jade Mayava to go in.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: People were talking about it after the Michigan game, after the Wisconsin, like literally every game.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: People wanted to see Jade Mayava.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: He goes in.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Last year, after the Washington game in which Miller Moster is three interceptions, USC loses on the road in Seattle, Jade Mayava co-s in on homecoming Saturday against Nebraska after a by week.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And SC wins that one, wins the UCLA game the following week, and then loses the number two Notre Dame before winning the SRS distribution Las Vegas, but at least he had
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jane might have a projected starter.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: You got backups in, it's on long street, and Sam here who transfers in.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are your thoughts about the quarterback room?
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Perfect timing because Kenny's, Kenny in the chat just sent a message to that said, I'm scared.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's where I'm at with the quarterbacks.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I go back and forth.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I talk all the time in the offseason about how
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It just depends on what hour it is depending on if I'm feeling optimistic or pessimistic these days.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's, that's the case for things on offense, things on defense.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's been the case now for the quarterback.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just, I go back and forth and back and forth.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the gym might have a, has proven that he can win football games.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We know he has a lot of talent.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we know that Lincoln Riley has developed quarterbacks and put quarterbacks in position to succeed and gotten the most out of quarterbacks for the majority of his, of his coaching career.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the sort of positive hopeful side of me is thinking, well, he will do that, which I'd mind as well.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's just part of the progression and that the sort of shaky stuff that we saw last season will go away.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: The other part of me is the devil on my shoulder that reminds myself that just because this is not a video game and just because you get older doesn't mean you get better.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You aren't banking experience points that you get to level up.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't necessarily always level up.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes gunsling or suturo and receptions are just gunsling or suturo and receptions.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: and that USC might be going into the season, depending on a quarterback who is a roller coaster of a player and that roller coaster will have high highs and potentially low lows.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this room is really interesting because it just feels like it's full of risk.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, like my Ava is a risky starter because we don't know if he can level out his play.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hassan Longstreet is a risky second option because he's a true freshman also very talented, but a true freshman who should be given time to develop who I don't want to see thrown into the fire just yet.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so the, you know, it feels like USC is sort of walking on a tight rope here.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there is a universe where they make it clear to the end and keep their balance and everything is fine.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: But there's also a pretty big chance there's a misstep and falling off into hopefully the net below.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was looking to drain my office sort of stats from last season and tried to make sense of it.
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And PFF had him, you know, funnily enough.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: PFF is highest grade of the season was a ninety two point four against Notre Dame, a game in which he threw two pick sixes, which I think like says everything, right?
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is capable of that ninety two.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: He is capable of he had six big time throws in that game.
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: There were three drops that that tanked his numbers a little bit more like he can be up in that elite level at the same time.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: He threw two pick sixes in a game that USC lost.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: in large part because of those two big fixes, you know?
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I just, I go back and forth and I'm gonna be talking a lot today about like best case and worst case scenarios.
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, the best case scenario is here, here is, repeat of what he did against Notre Dame in a very good Notre Dame defense, by the way.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Notre Dame without the pick six minutes.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Notre Dame without the pick sixes.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the worst case scenario is Texas A&M.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: without the late heroics.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's a very, very, very wide spectrum of possibility here.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think when you look at it in a very basic sense, I think the quarterback room that SC has makes me the least excited.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to say optimistic, least optimistic.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: least excited I think is the perfect way to put this.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: This least excited I've been about a quarterback room at USC.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Since.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ninety nine after Carson Palmer got her.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you go back to ninety seven.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: like and you know I you could say two thousand one but I will push back on that because at the time Keaton Slovis coming off for twenty twenty was not great but like you could look at it and say twenty twenty was the weird year and he was coming off of an injury and like you know maybe he rebounds back to where he was in twenty nineteen right in twenty eighteen as he didn't have an exciting quarterback room
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I mean, they didn't have a productive one at the end of the day, but they did have an exciting one because there was JT Daniels as a true freshman.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: There were a lot of positive vibes going into it.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Twenty thirteen.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think you could you could make a shout when
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Peshler and Whittaker are competing.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but that was like a full-on quarterback battle.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was fascinating at least, right?
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think here it's like USC has to unlike the twenty-eighteen battle where it was like, okay, if Jay to Daniel's the guy, you know, he's, you're gonna go through the growing pains, but he sort of already ready to go.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where here it's like,
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: No matter who you put in there, it feels like growing pains are coming.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and, you know, the bright side of it is you do have Lincoln Riley, and this is an offense that is designed to be as efficient as possible.
• 11:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that one of the things that I, you know, just looking at some just basic numbers here, Jade might have a last year.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: His quarterback writing was a buck thirty three point eight.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, that is not good in this day of college football, right?
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, Miller mouse was one thirty five point one.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like I'm not this is not saying that Miller mouse was was was was better per se.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but more so like you need better quarterback play from no matter who your quarterback is.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're going to win more games.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: The interesting thing is, Jade Myavo is one thirty three point eight, right?
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: In twenty twenty one, SIA's team was one thirty two point four, both Slovis and Dart were both at one thirty two.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's not a great in the year.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this is the, the funny part in twenty eighteen, uh, SC as a team at, in quarterback, one thirty two point nine five.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that was JT Daniel's true freshman JT Daniel's at one twenty eight point five.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I don't think it's a coincidence that those are the worst seasons.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are the three seasons in which SC did not have a record over five hundred in the regular season.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: You need more productivity there.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: The irony here is like last year s c because of the running game and because of the defense holding teams, keeping s c in ball games defensively, s c or six and six, but you know, they led in the fourth quarter and eleven, those twelve, right?
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's, there's their worlds in which, you know, a couple plays switch and SC is nine and three, ten and two and you're looking at them as like a chalk pen state team last year or whatever.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously didn't happen and I think this is the sign that like a little bit better quarterback play can make a world of difference, a little bit better defensive play and SC goes to being six and six and ten and two.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, they don't need to get that much better.
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the problem is when you look at efficiency last year, Jade and my Ava, in those last three games, completed fifty-four, fifty-five, and fifty-six percent of his passes.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you look at the season last year, the top one hundred passers in college football that qualified for being on the national season rankings,
• 13:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Number one hundred was Brett Gabbard, Miami of Ohio.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fifty seven point three.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so like, though, at least the hundred guys were completing passes for their full season, at least better than my Ava was in those last three games, right?
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so S C's got to improve there.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: My Ava's got to take a step forward.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: The flip side of this is,
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You, you look at J and my office numbers in the entire season, fifty nine point eight percent completion percentage.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then you go back to that ranking of the top one hundred passers.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what I said was fifty nine point eight.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Fifty nine point eight would put him just ahead of Diego Pavia, just behind DJ lagway.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Two guys who have a lot of hype going in to twenty twenty five.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are two guys, that's one some big games last year.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are two guys who I think that are very similar, Jane might have in the sense of like gunslinger types, high upside, low downside, like, you know, very volatile.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think if you're going to be a volatile quarterback,
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: You got to hit on your big place.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: You saw that with Sam Garnell.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what made him go.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: You saw that with Caleb Williams.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what made him go.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Caleb Williams was actually very effective at
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: taking a million risks and barely getting ding for any of those risks.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sam Darnell got dinged up for a lot of those risks, but just overcame them with his productivity, right?
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like, Jane, my avid just has to be better.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't feel overly optimistic, so I think the best case scenario for SC is that Jane, my avid's, fifteen percent better than the last year and stays exactly
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: for the most part, and you don't have the negative aspects, and yeah, you talked about the first fifty-five minutes of the Notre Dame game.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's sort of the sweet spot there.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I do think that there's going to be good moments, and there's going to be bad moments.
• 15:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the worst case scenario, Kenny and the chat through in a question you see a world in which Lincoln Riley makes a change mid-season again.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't think how you I don't think you can you can ignore that possibility until as she goes into a season knowing one hundred percent not only is this the guy who's going to start week one, which we have all assumed that that's going to be the case with Jay and my ava, but this is the one where like nobody is doubting it either and Jay and my ava even if he is
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: The starter, the odds on favorite to start week one, is he the one that gives everybody the most confidence in him?
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the issue here is that USC is coming off a season where they made a midseves and change with a quarterback who sort of just reached the end of his rope.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, he wasn't Miller Moss wasn't playing poorly necessarily until that Washington game went through too many receptions.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: If, you know, as Ramma Merdy and the chat says, my avenues focus on limiting the turnovers, if my office out there turning the ball over, then a change will have to come.
• 17:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the difference here is that, I mean, maybe not the difference.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: The similar situation here is that the change to my Ava was part of the reason people wanted it was because of the stylistic element of my Ava, can at least move the ball with his legs and bring some mobility.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, behind my Ava, it's not like you're choosing, it's not like your decision is my Ava or Sam here.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: your decision is a five-star quarterback who has all of the tools and maybe just isn't ready to go yet, but if your quarterback's going to be throwing interceptions, you'd rather have the true freshman throwing the interceptions than
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the red shirt junior who has limited sort of investment left in terms of his future, if he's going to not be taking a significant progression forward.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that's a very interesting thing of like, if you're going to have a mid quarterback,
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd rather have the two freshmen be mid.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that was the two, I mean, the two thousand eighteen thing about, yeah, about JT Daniels was that like, yeah, it was a mid quarterback season, but it was a true freshman quarterback season, and that was fine.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was the same thing in two thousand, uh, two thousand nine with with, with Matt Parkley.
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a mid quarterback season.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: He had some really high highs, but it was generally mid.
• 18:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And again, it was okay because it was a true freshman and, and if you take care of business elsewhere,
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not about this year.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about, you know, setting up for the future.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: They did not do that in twenty eight.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, no.
• 18:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I don't know.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, my hope when it comes to the quarterback, honestly, is that
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Lincoln Riley can be realistic about what he has and what how much trust he can he can bestow upon whatever quarterback is out there.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if ever there was a time knowing what a gunslinger my ava is knowing that, you know, maybe he shouldn't be given as much of a control of the offense as like killer Williams was given or even like Sam Bradford or one of those guys.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: My hope would be that there is a
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: shift philosophically from Lincoln Riley to say, you know what I don't have a husband like if he doesn't have a husband level quarterback now that it's entirely possible you see comes out in my office that guy and it's just you know all all good but if it becomes clear that's not the case my hope would be okay your quarterback is not your best player so don't act like your quarterback has to be your best player your best player might be a running back
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it might be your questionable offensive line to do anything that offensive line meant to prefer to do and tend to be more capable of doing, which is to say, just run the damn ball.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like be more conservative offensively, be more a rushing team.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: take fewer risks offensively in that sense.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't know if that's, I don't know if that is reasonable for me to think as possible from a Lincoln Riley perspective.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think that, you know, at a certain point, like, it's hard because, you know, if people were coming out of camp and talking about my other looking amazing.
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would feel a lot better about all of this but like that's not the reviews that we're hearing from camp and so
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: my mind is starting to go sort of to mitigation limited advantage because practices in open to to media are pretty much anybody so you know that the the reviews that that we're hearing are again it's only a fraction of the picture and sometimes you know sometimes players get there sort of work the king's out in practice and then
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: when the games come around they sort of lock in and they're ready to go so i mean i'm not ruling that out but i do think that there's a there's definitely a part of me that is sitting here thinking like i would like Riley
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: to make the question of how important is the quarterback for USC to succeed?
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there is a universe where this team is something that Lincoln Riley has not ever had to have in terms of what his teams are like, which is to say a team that is built on defense and a run game.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, here's the thing though, because funny I am seeing puts in the chat that would link and increase the run game.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think there should be more emphasis on the things that like doing the little things.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you are going to be somewhat limited at quarterback, either by talent level, which I don't think it's a talent level thing, would you add my Ava?
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's an efficiency thing, right?
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're going to be limited by your efficiency, try to be efficient in other ways.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: If that means more screens, if that means more run game, whatever.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, what have you and my talk about?
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But hold on here.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: at some point you still have to be you, right?
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Air Force.
• 22:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Air Force has a quarterback who can't make a pitch.
• 22:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: they're not suddenly gonna throw the ball forty seven times just be just to avoid the pitch that this guy has right like you still have to run your offense you cannot take a big step forward by changing everything either so like you also can't run a triple option if you'd the guy who's running the triple option can't make a pitch like
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So at a certain point, you have to either change your offense or change your personnel.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's really the question that we have for USC, but like you and I play college for both twenty six and what were you when I just talking about that like when things start start going wrong for you on offense that what you have gotten into the mentality of doing is okay, let's
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: The simple file is just run RPO's one read past situations and and and keep it simple and and don't ask too much of yourself as the person who's running the quarterback.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my my I still need to see what a Lincoln Riley offense looks like where he recognizes.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: If he doesn't have the quarterback.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: How does he adjust to that?
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think those are things you're going to have to figure out.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: One question for you.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hypothetical, not going to what this obviously doesn't happen.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, Zarystake, second quarter.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jade and my Ava, um, uh, tweaks his roles as ankle.
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: is a thing that he's going to get over in ten minutes, but he rolls his ankle and you got to go out there with a different quarterback for that drive.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is it long straight?
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or is it heward?
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the reason I'd bring this up is this is a thing that we had talked about in twenty eighteen, right?
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, uh, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, do we talk about this?
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's a world where like,
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: QB-II is conditional, right?
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, in the sense of like, is it a long-term QB-II situation?
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: The long-street clearly is the guy, right?
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like, if you need a random drive somewhere, do you just throw in Sam here?
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because the dude's better-round in college football for a little bit, and like, he can theoretically handle the drive?
• 24:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or does that matter in this day and age in twenty twenty five when red shirts carry sort of less weight, especially with transfer portal stuff being so prevalent.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that I think we've talked about this in the past and I think I've been firmly on the side of like, you know, don't burn the red shirt and the more I think about it the more I think burn the red shirt the red shirt doesn't matter.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: because there was a time where you had a succession plan, right?
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so you wanted to maintain a red shirt for a young quarterback because you wanted the additional years for him to have that opportunity.
• 25:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: But realistically, if Hassan Longstreet is your quarterback going forward, then you should not be expecting him to be your quarterback for longer than four years.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even Long Street's timeline is probably closer to three years, uh, his personal timeline, right?
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if that gets delayed, you're still only talking, you don't need a fifth year for his long shirt if it's on Long Street is playing a fifth year.
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is very likely not at USC.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think they will escape of cultural points.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, USC's incentive to preserve a fifth year for any player at this point that is in a defensive or offensive lineman is very low.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So no, I do, I do, I have changed my mind on that.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do think you just roll with us on long straight and just see what you have, especially because like it would be different if
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, Lincoln Riley declared, Jane, my avid the starter straight up from day one, and that there was not even like it was just, I mean, we assume that it is uncontested, but that's not the sort of the way that USC is talking about it, like they haven't declared a starter or whatever.
• 26:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, like in that sense, then yeah, at certain point, if there is any doubt about my avid, you have to at least see what you get from his on in that situation, right?
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, I'm with you.
• 26:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that if this was a question, ten years ago, I think the answer would be different.
• 27:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, very, very different.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ten years ago, it's twenty-fifteen.
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think your, and castler's the starter.
• 27:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But ten years, you're gonna go, well, I guess Max Brown was always the, you know what I mean?
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ten years ago, Malachi Nelson is your backup quarterback right now, so.
• 27:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, you know.
• 27:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's go to the running-backed room.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: SC loses Woody Marx.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Woody Marx goes, of course, to the NFL.
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's now with the Houston Texans.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Grit and Jordaner was really good last year, especially on a per-play basis.
• 27:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was well into November that he had not recorded a negative rush.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even like, I don't even know if he recorded a no gain rush.
• 27:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was really, really good.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And everyone thought that he was going to be the guy going into twenty twenty five.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: But alas, that did not happen because he took the NL and I held money over it.
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Texas Tech who is just throwing oil money left and right like they throw their tortillas apparently.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he is gone.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, S.C.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lee.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as a side note, he has gone, and now we will not see him play in twenty twenty five unfortunately.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did he get hurt?
• 28:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: He tours ACL.
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no.
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: That sucks.
• 28:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: That really sucks for a guy who was looking for his opportunity to be the guy.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was going to get that.
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: It takes this tech.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not good.
• 28:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That absolutely sucks.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hate to see that.
• 28:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Peterson, Marion Peterson, is transferred away.
• 28:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a completely new look.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Running back room with the exception of Brian Jackson, who was back, he'll be probably like your running back three, a role which he's kind of saw last year, rock in the number twenty one.
• 29:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: We saw him in the SRS distribution Las Vegas Bowl.
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We saw him then but number one and two sort of like a two man backfield maybe maybe it's a one A one B maybe it's a solid one and two.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know we're gonna see where we're putting on our screen projected starters both of these guys Eli Sanders and Wayman Jordan Wayman Jordan comes in from Juco where he was like
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Jukego Heisman went it practically.
• 29:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Eli Sanders transfers in from New Mexico.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was at Iowa State before that moves over to New Mexico.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Has some good moments in ABQ last year for the Lobos and then ultimately slides over.
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: He feels sort of like the Austin Jones to me.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where like.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Could be really good.
• 29:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Could be really good in the right moments unheralded.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: reliable veteran kind of guy, right?
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Women Jordan feels like he could be the Martian Lloyd, Kianta Ingram, like, super potential superstar running back if things like in a perfect scenario, right?
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: just because there's a lot of hype.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think this is a really fun running back room, even though it's completely different than what you would've expected, nine months from that, nine months ago?
• 30:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 30:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is it not an sort of exciting running back room?
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love this running back room.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am super excited for Waymen Jordan.
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think Eli think they Austin Jones comparison for Eli Sanders is a good one in terms of he's a veteran guy who I think USC will be able to rely on and it'll be interesting to see what the split of carries ends up being between those two.
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I like the set up here.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Waymen Jordan is one A Eli Sanders potentially one B if not two.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Brian Jackson as sort of option number three short yardage back is sort of the way that that they've been talking at fall camps so love that for him yeah little bowling ball and then and then maybe we'll see some some action for Harry Dalton that the freshman would love to see Riley warmly but up he I guess he's been injured for most of the time I'm not sure what his
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: like what the timeline or anything like that for that for his injury is but at the very least we'll see we'll see those guys and I think it's a solid room I think it's a solid room in a an offense that we know can get the most out of running backs the the question for the run it there are two questions I have for the running backs and it has nothing to do with their ability to be to be really good if not great a really good if not great running back room
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Number one is can they stay healthy, which knock on wood is always my question about running backs.
• 31:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I always assume that running backs that the running back room you need extra depth because it's just a position that just gets beat up.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just gets the beat the hell up and it's very it's been very rare for USC to have a like a number one running back who makes it all the way through the season without getting a little dinged up in the process.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's question number one and number two is
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: is Lincoln Riley willing to run the ball if that is the strength of his offense.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I choose not to run.
• 32:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a real question.
• 32:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've said it all offseason.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: SC was the number one team and the big ten last year and yards per care.
• 32:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: on a per play basis and we said the caveat over and over again they probably don't hold that title if they run the ball more to space on math and it was frustrating because you know it's not just the running backs that the run game is a is a a question for it's that last year was very clear that U.S.
• 32:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: he's offensive line was more comfortable in run blocking than in pass protection
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's been the case for a while.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the case for a while.
• 33:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So again, you know, let the offensive line do what they do.
• 33:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: If that's what they do run run blocking my very dumb X is a nose brain says that run blocking is easier.
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll run blocking is easier because you were on the attack as a run blocker.
• 33:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: You are going for you identified who your response was block and you just go it's sort of like one thought go.
• 33:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: where pass blocking is you're on defense you're on the back foot you're backing up you're reacting to things that the defense is throwing at you and the defense is trying to confuse you in a way that in run blocking like the defense isn't trying to confuse you about who's getting trying to tackle the tackle the running back like yeah or who are you gonna block where when you're pass blocking like the whole point is for them for you may sometimes for you not to know who's coming and from where
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so we're talking about making things easier on the offense.
• 34:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're not going to feel great about the efficiency, then make it easier for the offensive line by running more.
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Make it easier for the running backs by making them happy and fill their values with with carries by running more.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: and make it easier on your quarterback by running more, which ultimately makes it easier for his neighbors, right?
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So things can sort of trickle down and suddenly in a Lincoln Riley offense, right?
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like the runnybacks aren't sort of the underdog on how the productions are going to come together, which of course, I think is the perfect time to pivot and talk about
• 34:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Tug Fantasy.
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if fantasy America's favorites daily fantasy app is really cooking right now because football season is back and so is making picks on underdog my favorite daily fantasy app where I can play with it's little is a buck and went up to five thousand times my money.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's all about using your ball knowledge
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: deciding whether a player will go higher or lower than their stat projection.
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mixed match, different players, different teams, even different sports, not just football, but baseball.
• 35:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hockey's coming up soon, basketball's coming up soon.
• 35:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, later on the fall, you get the point, a lot of stuff going on.
• 35:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: But for weak zero, college football is back this week.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go with Iowa State's Rocco back to quarterback to go higher than is one and a half passing touchdowns projection.
• 35:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going higher on forty-two and a half Russian yards for Kansas State's Avery Johnson.
• 35:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not as optimistic about the Stanford Cardinal, so Ben Goldbranson's two hundred and twenty-three and a half passing yard projection going lower on that.
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can join me and make your picks
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: over at Underdog this weekend.
• 36:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Download the app today and sign up with the promo code, Rain of Troy, the score of fifty dollars in bonus funds.
• 36:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: When you play your first five dollars, that's promo code, Rain of Troy, all one word, millions of fans.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: If already one billions, making picks underdogs will you be next underdog.
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Make picks win money.
• 36:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It must be a team plus nineteen plus an Alabama Nebraska nineteen plus and Colorado for some games one of our plus and Arizona Massachusetts of Virginia and present in a state where underdog fantasy operates.
• 36:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Terms apply C assets dot underdog fantasy dot com floor forward slash web forward slash play and get terms underscore DFS underscore dot HTML.
• 36:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: for details.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Offer not valid in Maryland.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Michigan Ohio and Pennsylvania are concerned with your play.
• 36:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Call a one hundred gambler if it's an NCP gambling.org and New York.
• 36:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Call the twenty four seven hope line at eight seven seven eights hope and why or text.
• 36:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hope and why which is five six seven three six nine.
• 37:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least I think we have to go to a super chat that we got from finding on MC.
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: That says, fight on, I'm so excited for the season to begin.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to be in.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited for answers to all of my questions.
• 37:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am excited for football.
• 37:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 37:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 37:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So many, so many questions.
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am filled with excitement and dread.
• 37:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is where I'm at.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: that goes without saying absolutely thank you by the mc we always appreciate you and live having you in the chat so thank you let's go and talk about the wide receivers wide receiver room that's speaking of excitement for wide receiver rooms is it the most exciting wide receiver rooms as he's ever had
• 38:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, and that's in part because SC's had a lot of exciting receiving rooms, right?
• 38:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 38:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But, uh, like I lemon, you got to feel good about to Kobe Lane, you got to feel good about.
• 38:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there's a question mark on A, how good can Jacobi Lane B?
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: He scored twelve touchdowns last year.
• 38:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can he take the set forward?
• 38:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think the other question is, who's going to step up and B sort of like that third option?
• 38:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And who's going to be the toss Washington of this receiving corps in terms of like the guy that you couldn't rely on that isn't the name brand, per se.
• 38:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least I know you've got a lot of opinions there.
• 38:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wish I had more opinions to be honest.
• 38:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wish I had more solid opinions.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that with this group, it's obvious that Jacobi Lane and Macaylemon are at the guys.
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have major questions about both of them in terms of
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: how far they can fulfill their high ceilings.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of it has to do with how high I think their ceilings are, which is astronomically high.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that just means that there's a lot of room there for sort of, you know, where is their cut off?
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think Mackay Lehmann has the chance to be great, but can he be almond rossing brown?
• 39:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Great.
• 39:31
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 39:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: or have we sort of seen what McCylamin have we already seen McCylamin at his best in terms of like is he just going to repeat what he did in twenty twenty four which was solid but you know still with some limitations in terms of availability in terms of just a total impact like from start to finish right you know you know is
• 39:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: is he the next coming of Michael Pittman or dare I say any of the other great big body, you know, physical presence, why, why receivers that USC has had in the past because I think he could absolutely be another Michael Pittman.
• 40:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's it's entirely possible that USC comes into this into this season with a, you know, twenty nineteen, Michael Pittman, twenty nineteen, I'm on the Rossing Brown.
• 40:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: sort of receiving duo, uh, which would be absolutely fantastic.
• 40:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, like, you know, Jacoby Lane has proven to be inconsistent.
• 40:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's every chance that Jacoby Lane sort of falls into more of a Brendan Rice category of like,
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when he's good, he's really good.
• 40:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like when he gets the match of that he likes, he will absolutely have a monster game, but will he be an impact player consistently and reliably?
• 40:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: That still remains to be seen.
• 40:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So even USC's two most exciting pieces on offense, I think far and away the most exciting pieces on offense.
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's still a lot of potential as opposed to certainty, you know, with those two guys.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then we got to talk about why you're three.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: who, you know, I really like what I've seen from the Kerry's Williams from his like Utah days.
• 41:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think his talent, I mean, like his skill set is so exciting to me.
• 41:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I really, really want to see him blossom at USC, but he's new to the, new to the system, new to the offense and from the best that we can tell and I've done a lot of digging to try and figure this out.
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that the extent of the digging I've had to do to figure out who is widers even over three actually answers the question.
• 41:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: which is to say nobody knows who wide receiver number three is.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is it print strong?
• 41:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was wide receiver number three of boysy so we know he can be that guy, but can he be that guy at USC?
• 42:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is is if you're Jordan, the the young guy that that is sort of waiting for his opportunity, you know, how how involved is Jay Fair going to be?
• 42:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are we going to see that the true freshman like Corey Sims or Ramirez and
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: or to no kind step in and be that third option for USC.
• 42:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 42:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can't find anybody else who knows with any certainty.
• 42:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And obviously we have limited eyes on practice or the way that things are progressing.
• 42:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's, there's, you know, I want to hook on to the wider seabers is like, well, if nothing else, USC's wider seabing core will be, will be solid, but I don't even know if I can do that at this point because there are still so many question marks with this unit.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: This unit, I think, has the highest ceiling on the team?
• 42:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 42:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, ceilings are still theoretical.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I would like there to be a clearer picture about who, why'd receive her number three is.
• 43:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Going into the season, and I don't have that clearer picture in that mixed me nervous.
• 43:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: because I guess the question is, is there no wide receiver number three because everybody is good and everybody will be competing?
• 43:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or is there no wide receiver number three because no one has stood out?
• 43:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Grant in the chat, tell you one of the highs with Jay Fair and Jay Fair in CFP- twenty six is wonderful.
• 43:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's my safety blanket.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jay Fair and and Lake McCree just dudes are are my safety blankets in that game.
• 43:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel bad for how rarely I throw the balls to Jacoby Lane and McCy Lemon because I'm just constantly throwing it to Jay Fair.
• 43:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 43:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Andrew in the chat says that we're from campus.
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's no number true number three emerging.
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And why does the room banged up?
• 44:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is flying under the radar.
• 44:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: The Jacobi lane has been injured for much of camp.
• 44:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So is there a world in which this is a two thousand five USC or twenty eleven USC receiving or where it's top heavy?
• 44:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: where we're late and lemon tiktok combined get seventy percent of the the target to find that to be honest I think that would be like I said if they can answer the bell yeah if you give me right now twenty nineteen michael pitman and all-in-all-same brown recreated and nobody else in this receiving court does jack jack whatever
• 44:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll take that.
• 44:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 44:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, please.
• 44:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: The only problem with sort of relying on that is you have a Jkobi Lane who's been injured for most of the offseason and you have a McCuy Lemon who was injured for parts of last season.
• 44:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you're sort of again pinning a lot of hopes on what
• 45:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: like pinning your hopes on two players to lead your passing attack.
• 45:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 45:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can sometimes backfire because wide receiver is another position where I'm just very used to there being availability issues.
• 45:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I just think think about if not availability, then like banged up issues.
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I think about Robert Woods and how great he was until he got banged up.
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Marquis Lee, how great he was until he got banged up.
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Judgment Schuster, who we were literally he was zombie due to for most of the season because he should have been worse.
• 45:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 45:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: given how many injuries he was doing right on those guys.
• 45:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so, you know, some of these, um, I trust me, I would take those guys being on that level, um, but even if you have guys on that level, you still need number three and number four to be sort of reliable and and capable and, um,
• 45:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, my, my guess is I'm, I'm not trying to be pessimistic, at least you hear guys.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to throw in my optimistic take on the wider receivers.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: My guess is, like with the running backs, my guess is that somebody will step up.
• 46:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that whether it's the carries Williams or Prince Tron or they're Jordan or Corey Sims, or Jane Richardson or J. Fair, or Ramirez, or to no kind or whoever.
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think somebody will be that guy.
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if it's not somebody being that guy, then it will be a series of somebody who become that guy.
• 46:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, sometimes it's just like for one game and one game and one game and I'm like, I think that USC will have coverage as far as the library secrets go this year.
• 46:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Again, it just comes down to how easy do they make life for the quarterback and how capable, how well is the rest of the offense functioning?
• 46:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: when it comes to being able to get the most out of the wide receivers, because the downside of wide receivers is that you could have great wide receivers, but if you're off and so line is a mess in your quarterback is unreliable.
• 47:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the one position on offense where your superstar player can become kind of moot, because the other pieces of the cog are not functioning.
• 47:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not to be Johnny Ringclab, but like last year, I think we all went into
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: the season, absolutely juiced about the receiving course.
• 47:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 47:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you saw what that receiving core was.
• 47:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the receiving core was one that everyone grumbled about for the entire season, right?
• 47:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it was one that had clear talent, but was inconsistent and not good enough at getting, getting open.
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And all the things that you need to make life easier for the rest of the offense.
• 47:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this group still needs to
• 47:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it needs to prove that they can sort of elevate from there.
• 47:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, really quick.
• 47:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Before you move on, I sort of pulled seventy percent out of my ass about, uh, twenty twelve and two thousand five.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Twenty twelve.
• 48:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, S.C.
• 48:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: is receiving court.
• 48:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Number, the top, the last catcher is Mark Eastley wins a bullet in the cup of the hundred and eighteen catches.
• 48:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Robert Woods had seventy six.
• 48:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you guess the third receiver?
• 48:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And how many he had?
• 48:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: In twenty twelve.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 48:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: One eighteen seventy six.
• 48:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Who is number three in how many?
• 48:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Was it was Nelson Aglor already there?
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is Nelson Aglor.
• 48:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 48:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was the freshman.
• 48:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is exactly why I'm sort of like looking.
• 48:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I really want Zikaris Williams or or Princeton or somebody but like I'm also sort of eyeing those freshmen is like.
• 48:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of those guys could just be your, you see it's had a long string of top two guys and then the next guy freshman when he's not, you know, we saw this with Drake, with Drake London.
• 48:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We saw this with all my dressing brown and we saw this with Tyler Vans and like they're the third option as a freshman, not super productive, but you see the little signs.
• 49:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah.
• 49:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sixty nine point seven percent of catches were by Lee and what's that here?
• 49:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which again?
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ninth point seven that's crazy sign me up two thousand five I looked it up very similar numbers from receivers it it is a little bit different because two thousand five had this guy in the backfield and I've never heard of him and He liked to catch balls out of the backfield and
• 49:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 49:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's actually a fullback that like to catch balls out of the back field too.
• 49:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so in two thousand five, Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith combined for a hundred and fifty one catches, they had forty eight point three percent of the team's catches, which is still a lot.
• 49:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Reggie Bush had thirty seven.
• 50:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Downing bird, it tied it had twenty nine.
• 50:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: David Kurtman, look, full back had twenty two.
• 50:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was the next leading receiver.
• 50:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew who this was exactly.
• 50:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's Chris McFoy.
• 50:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, okay.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just solidly the third receiver.
• 50:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 50:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Seventeen catches.
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Very similar, it's one in each wealth.
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're at a lower head.
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's pick it up again.
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, move it on.
• 50:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's talk about your favorite position, the tight ends.
• 50:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like McCree, sort of the guy coming back, you talked about how much you love him in college for both twenty six.
• 50:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love me some leg McCree.
• 50:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Solid tight end.
• 50:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: is he going to blow your socks off?
• 50:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Probably not.
• 50:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is he going to be a reliable guy when he's healthy?
• 50:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, right?
• 50:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Walker Lions, young dude going into your two.
• 50:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it'll be interesting to see what happens with him how much he can play a role in the rotation there.
• 51:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Carson Tabarachi, Nellotupo, is there Walter Matthews?
• 51:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is he there?
• 51:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, he is currently practicing with the offensive line.
• 51:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: He has been short shifted over two offensive tackle, which could be a very, very bad sign or could
• 51:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: portent some sort of, you know, creative creative formations potentially could be a yes to be five could be they say I mean could I mean it literally legitimately could be they're looking at his frame and seeing how much we're putting on and saying you know what his future is actually
• 51:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: actually on the offensive line he could be a really good offensive line men have given time which I'm perfectly I mean he's a he's a true sophomore I expect it if he does make the full-time move to offensive line just right off the season as a red shirt and then we'll see what he does so like it's I don't think it's
• 52:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's one hundred percent like this is bad because it really could just be about what they see in him.
• 52:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: But having said that, USC's offensive line situation is such that it scares the crap out of me.
• 52:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so hearing that a young tight end is moved over to offensive line does get my
• 52:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 52:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: It tackles up a little bit.
• 52:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Catch those in the chest.
• 52:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I started you missing someone.
• 52:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 52:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Joey Olson, also another true freshman.
• 52:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Look, look at the size is a guy, a retro freshman for Olson.
• 52:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Look at the sizes, guys.
• 52:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Olson, six, five, two, fifty.
• 52:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Tabarachi, six one, two, twenty five, but Walter Matthews, six six, two, eighty five.
• 52:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And first of all, how is someone named Walter Matthews?
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: How is he not like the gold glove winning left fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates in nineteen sixty two?
• 53:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, classic day, classic name.
• 53:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think this is the the sort of room that and I don't know that we need to go into that much depth.
• 53:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a three in lions and and if the other guys chip in great.
• 53:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I will say it now.
• 53:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is McCree and lions and the other guys chip in then great.
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is
• 53:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can McCree stay healthy?
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can Lion stay healthy?
• 53:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not even going to bother with the annual question of, is USC gonna use the tight ends more?
• 53:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not even gonna bother.
• 53:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll say, we will see.
• 53:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think there will be quite a few of those tight end flat RPS.
• 53:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 53:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, they did in that Michigan game like three times in the matter of like two drives.
• 53:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, is first half of the Michigan game.
• 54:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not inherently.
• 54:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 54:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not an inherently bad play.
• 54:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it is a play that I think could be more efficient from a U.S.y perspective if they rethought that play a little bit.
• 54:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a place cracked in the video game.
• 54:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: yes but in real life it almost always results in no gain or one yard which you know what is better than losing yards so yeah funny on the USC in the the chats us do we have a wing field update let's use that as the way to pivot to the offensive line at least here
• 54:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have on the screen here, sort of the projected starters that you've put together.
• 54:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Left tackle, leisure page, left guard, microphone, well, setter.
• 54:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Big, big read.
• 54:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: What do we, what do we say?
• 54:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Big general read.
• 54:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Big general read.
• 54:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: There we go.
• 55:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 55:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's, there's question marks, by the way.
• 55:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: The reason we say this is because everybody has been saying genre read.
• 55:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: in the media guide, it says, j-honry j-honry, I still don't under, even he doesn't say j-honry.
• 55:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: The media guide is gospel.
• 55:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what it is.
• 55:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also, in interviews, he's like unbig general reap.
• 55:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is his big general reap?
• 55:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: What if the origin of his name is John Henry, but like the French, it's like John Henry.
• 55:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Jailery.
• 55:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sounds French, right?
• 55:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, right guard, a lot of you know, a right tackle to buy his Raymond.
• 55:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so the DJ Wingfield is not in there.
• 55:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: At least you wanted to treat these sort of projected starters as there was a game to be played tomorrow.
• 55:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are what your best guess would be, right?
• 55:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And with Wingfield today was the hearing.
• 55:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's what's the update?
• 56:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is per Ryan Carci.
• 56:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: DJ Wingfield's hearing for a preliminary injunction was this afternoon.
• 56:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Appears to be a long shot that the judge grabs him in junctive relief.
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: The judge denied the injunction in a tentative order because he didn't find the incidentalized five-year rule was commercial in nature.
• 56:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do I blame Larry Scott for this?
• 56:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Of note in the judge's tentative order, he wrote that the five month delay in Wingfield requesting a temporary restraining order after being ruled in eligible in March, weakened the urgency of Wingfield's claim of irreparable harm.
• 56:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: The judge should offer his final ruling shortly.
• 56:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: If he denies the preliminary injunction as expected, Wingfield will not be able to play or practice with USC this fall, which is to say the update on on DJ Wingfield is bad.
• 56:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, bad bad bad and our my instinct to say Michael Benwell has needs to be up there at left guard starting instead of danger wingfield was correct because DJ wingfield is not on U.S.
• 57:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: esteem and it does not look like the DJ wingfield will be on the roster for this season.
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: leaving USC a man down on the offensive line.
• 57:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And with another big question mark on the offensive line full of question marks.
• 57:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 57:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: As you see on the screen, notable projected backups.
• 57:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: As Justin Tau knew, uh, Killian O'Connor and Killan Miller and Killian O'Connor, of course, walk on, at least that's how they began at USC.
• 57:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Could they end up playing a role here?
• 57:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I think we've talked about it before.
• 57:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about killing Miller last week or the week before whenever it was that we did that.
• 57:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you feel about the offensive line?
• 57:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you feel about there?
• 57:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, then potentially being, uh, guys to lean on on this offensive line.
• 57:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Except.
• 57:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 57:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 57:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's here's why I'm out with the offensive line, which I talked about.
• 58:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've talked about and we've had the walk on conversation.
• 58:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I have made it clear.
• 58:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: My misgivings about the potential for USC to have not won, but to walk on starting let alone in there's
• 58:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Tudype on the offensive line.
• 58:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll do respect to Killian O'Connor and Kailon Merrton Miller.
• 58:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: My God, please let them be the next great walk on ZUSC.
• 58:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would be very, very happy about that.
• 58:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: The likelihood of that remains low.
• 58:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's where I'm at with the offensive line.
• 58:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: we went into the season knowing that USC would have limited options on the offensive line that there would be the depth would not be great.
• 58:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if nothing else, USC would have a starting five that we could reasonably guess from the from the jump, right?
• 58:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So early on, it looked like we could just pencil in starting five.
• 59:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Elijah Page, DJ Wingfield.
• 59:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Big General Reed, Alani Noah Tobias Raymond.
• 59:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 59:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then the only really question there was, was it, would it be Tobias Raymond or would it be, uh, Jonah, uh, town knew?
• 59:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 59:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 59:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: How I knew.
• 59:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Town knew.
• 59:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so it was supposed to be like a solid five, maybe six.
• 59:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: and that they could lock that in and that the advantage of that despite not having good depth at the very least there would be a locked in five that could spend the whole off season building chemistry
• 59:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, sort of building understanding familiarity, all of that kind of stuff with that five and that the bigger question for USC going in would be like, you know, can you make it through the season without losing one of those starting five to injure your whatever.
• 59:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:00:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, USC's already lost one of them not to injury, but to eligibility.
• 1:00:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So DJ Wingfield and in goes Mike binwellos theoretically.
• 1:00:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but it's, it's, it's messier than that because it's not even a solid like, well, at least USC knows their five.
• 1:00:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: USC is, we are a week away from game week.
• 1:00:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are less than two weeks from USC kicking off the season opener.
• 1:00:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the only starter that I can definitively say is a locked in starter is Elijah Page.
• 1:00:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:00:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: which to be very if you can pick one left hack was the one if you're gonna if you had to tell tell me which which which position on the offensive line do you want your far away best offensive lineman to be yes i would slot them in the left tag also you know Elijah page there you go um but like
• 1:00:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: The understanding at this point is that Mike Abenwellos is still a question mark at left guard.
• 1:01:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: John, big general read who we had penciled in is like a locked-in plug-in play starter is in a competition with Killing O'Connor, a real competition, a Lonnie Noah who we had penciled in as a locked-in starter at right guard is in a real competition with Killing Miller.
• 1:01:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: uh... and to buy his reyman and jonna jonna tennu tennu have not resolved their right tackle competition yet which isn't the end of the world i sort of expected that to keep going but there is a universe where u.s.e.
• 1:01:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: goes into the season still uncertain
• 1:01:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: about four of the five starting positions on the offensive line and there is another universe where USC plays a game if not two or if not three where they are still
• 1:01:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: mixing and matching and shuffling and deciding is Tobias Raymond gonna be a tackle is he gonna be a guard as Michael Benwell is ready to go at guard is a Lonnie no ready to go at guard who's gonna be there who's gonna be there like who's gonna be center can if if genre read doesn't win the starting center job then could he get kicked out to guard like all of these questions are still exist and I fear might still be an existence
• 1:02:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, three weeks from now when USC is getting ready to think about playing Illinois.
• 1:02:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am not having a good time thinking about the offensive line to be quite honest.
• 1:02:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I still maintain again, like I don't want people to think that I'm full blown pessimistically because I think there is a universe where
• 1:02:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: In the end, USC is able to come out of this and say, USC's offensive line is for the better because they've had all of these competitions.
• 1:02:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that the guys who win the starting jobs have won it on merit because they were pushed by somebody of merit.
• 1:03:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in the end, the fibers, rotation of six or seven,
• 1:03:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: could be extended out to a rotation to a a realistic to deep where more players are capable of being starters than we imagined.
• 1:03:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: The problem with that is that like again, it's the zero sum game of
• 1:03:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Are these battles still ongoing because the guy behind is legitimately pushing and capable and worthy of being a starting lineman at USC?
• 1:03:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or are these battles still going because neither of the options at USC are good enough to be starting a starting lineman at any of these positions?
• 1:03:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know the answer to that at four of five positions on this offensive line going into the season and I do not like being in that position.
• 1:03:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can I blame Bob Connelly for this?
• 1:04:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, so a lot of stuff in the chat, Johnny action says, great.
• 1:04:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So they lost pregnant because they wouldn't pay him now losing the guy who's going to replace him.
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Way to go, SC, going to the fourth year in the online as far from solid way to go, Riley.
• 1:04:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, and guy, we're key.
• 1:04:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's key.
• 1:04:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's guy.
• 1:04:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: It says after all the improvements on the recruitment, they really blew it this year for the offensive line.
• 1:04:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not another transfer at least?
• 1:04:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the most generous read of this whole situation for Lincoln Riley or the program, however you want to put it, is that they did.
• 1:04:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: They tried with DJ Wingfields and they just didn't get the decision to go their way.
• 1:04:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Emmanuel Pregnant said he was coming back until he didn't until he changes mine and ultimately went to Oregon.
• 1:04:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that you could say, well, they didn't have the general manager situation in the front office, you know, set up now like they did at the beginning of the off season.
• 1:05:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And does Chad Bowden let Emmanuel pregnant on walk?
• 1:05:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe not.
• 1:05:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's one way to look at the whole thing.
• 1:05:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: The other way to look at the whole thing is
• 1:05:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, then you could have got Chad Bowden potentially sooner.
• 1:05:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: You needed to even, even without Chad Bowden, you shouldn't have let it get to a situation where you had your one guy on the offensive line.
• 1:05:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: If it was strictly money motivated, you should have never let Emmanuel Pregnant ever leave when you knew that this was an offensive line that could not afford to not have him there.
• 1:05:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was already losing an NFL caliber player on the on the inside.
• 1:05:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like, yeah.
• 1:05:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
• 1:05:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: The whole I get some things are out of your control and maybe the DJ would maybe the we know the DJ winged the field thing was out of their control.
• 1:06:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the pregnant thing was out of their control.
• 1:06:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to say, but I still think there was time to go be aggressive in the transfer portal to get another offensive lineman.
• 1:06:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: This has been an offseason.
• 1:06:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: in which Lincoln Riley has spoken multiple times that one of his big regrets was going into the twenty twenty three season and relying too heavily on the transfer portal and when we've looked back at it so much of that refers to the offensive line right like they went out and they got tarquen and Kingston and uh... Ethan White right from florida who never played a down because he'd even go to camp or anything like that right like
• 1:06:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: and Kingston wasn't the the rockstone people thought he would be uh... pregnant was ultimately good obviously but like but he was good it was good in year two like he was just as shaky as Kingston and in year one he came alive and in year two which which is the thing that like i
• 1:07:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have been stressing about read and wing fields this whole time is, you know, my conversations with Hitler, I continue to sort of hold up is the idea that like it's hard for offensive linemen to transfer in and then stick in your one.
• 1:07:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: that you're probably best off recruiting young offensive lineman who you don't intend to support and play yet.
• 1:07:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think what we're seeing with genre read specifically is, you know, he's a veteran starting center that transfers into USC and is now in a battle with a former walk on.
• 1:07:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: for that center starting center job.
• 1:07:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: That is about how difficult it is to, as it opens alignment to step into a new system and pick it up immediately and, you know, just plug and play at any position on the offense line.
• 1:08:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which again just gets back to, okay?
• 1:08:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, prognone was out of your control, maybe.
• 1:08:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll give you the benefit of that out.
• 1:08:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wing field out of your control, okay?
• 1:08:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's fine.
• 1:08:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: But this is still a, this is still a coaching staff.
• 1:08:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I'll put this at the feet of of, uh, of Lincoln Riley.
• 1:08:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: USC went into the twenty twenty four season without a solution at center.
• 1:08:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:08:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Their solution at center was patchwork.
• 1:08:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: They moved their best lineman to a position that he had never played and a position that
• 1:08:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: He admirably did, but was a worse center than he was in any other position that he's played at USC.
• 1:08:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so they didn't have a solution at center in twenty twenty four.
• 1:08:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like, this stems back multiple years of like you should not have even been going into twenty twenty four without a solution at center.
• 1:08:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now you're you're back to another sort of two not now two years where center is a question.
• 1:09:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And your offensive line is is is sort of living on a prayer at this point and and also that doesn't help that the cupboard was.
• 1:09:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: The cupboard was bare in your in a position where the cupboard wasn't bare though.
• 1:09:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: The cupboard wasn't bare in the sense that.
• 1:09:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lincoln Riley inherited, Jonah Monheim, he inherited, uh, Andrew Voorhees, he inherited, Brett Nielon.
• 1:09:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are three clay-alton offensive line recruits that absolutely, he hit on, all three of those guys, right?
• 1:09:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: But, Jonah Monheim was two years, great, but it was one year for he's, it was one year of Nielon, and everything beyond that from what Halton had,
• 1:09:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, hurt and part of it was that happens offensive lines line recruits were not great, right, but like the COVID year sort of pushed it down the line for it to be more of more on the Lincoln Riley, right, because like
• 1:10:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And before he's kept having eligibility, right?
• 1:10:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Neal on kept having eligibility, right?
• 1:10:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's sort of delayed the impact of the recruiting follies.
• 1:10:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Lincoln Riley comes in.
• 1:10:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it should have set them up to be ready to
• 1:10:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: deal with those hundred percent and then it didn't I think there's too much of a results bias or however you want to put it about the whole transfer portal thing in in terms of twenty twenty three right like yeah the the transfer portal offensive line stuff they went big on the on the transfer portal offensive line twenty twenty three and it ultimately wasn't necessarily in that game right at the same time
• 1:10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am a person who I don't think that results by I think framing everything by the results absolutely can warp your perspective of so anything like
• 1:11:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: that doesn't mean that you don't, you can't continue to try something different then.
• 1:11:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or, you know, I mean, just because it didn't work once, doesn't mean that it's, that that was the wrong decision, per se.
• 1:11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, there, these things are nuanced, right?
• 1:11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
• 1:11:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Either way, it comes down to, there's, if, if the permanent thing was strictly cash related,
• 1:11:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: There is no way in hell they ever should have let him walk.
• 1:11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And if you have pregnant, you have page, if you haven't been well as that you're comfortable with putting in there, you have a killing in a corner who is better than people expected or however you want to look at that and you bring in John Ray Reed and you hope that you have DJ Wingfield.
• 1:11:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think just having pregnant on there allows you to feel so much better about the offensive line.
• 1:12:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even if it's twenty percent better, right?
• 1:12:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or you look at last year with Monheim, right?
• 1:12:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like having Monheim be the guy that you don't have to worry about, makes everything else easier to cope with.
• 1:12:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even if he's at a different position.
• 1:12:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 1:12:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can't let Pregnant go if it's just, I mean, that's just, it really does come down to you.
• 1:12:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can't let Pregnant go and you can't, you can't have
• 1:12:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm struggling because it's like, you know, USC has had a lot of offensive linemen leave by a transfer as well.
• 1:12:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm struggling to like, I can't necessarily say that any of those outside of pregnant on were disastrous to let go.
• 1:12:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'd have to do more research.
• 1:12:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like, it just feels like the chickens are coming home to roost from an offensive line perspective.
• 1:12:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they should, you should not be in year four of any regime.
• 1:12:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: and have chickens coming home to roost on offensive line if you are if you are competent regime you know like that's and it's especially it's especially annoying because you know getting Lincoln Riley there was you know the hope there was that brief moment of of hope where uh... u.s.
• 1:13:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: he might have gotten uh... bill bidon bill and uh...
• 1:13:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shouts to jacking in the court.
• 1:13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:13:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, that that didn't happen.
• 1:13:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so USC recruiting on the offensive line has simply not been not been good enough.
• 1:13:40
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:13:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Under Lincoln Riley development on the offensive line.
• 1:13:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, right now, right now the chickens are coming under roost and the only thing that can save it at this point is if development of these linemen turns out to be
• 1:13:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: good and and again I want to preface all of this with I'm not saying it's impossible for this to be like there is a universe where Raymond Noah Benwellos and Paige are a really damn good offensive lineman and there's a world where somebody like Kayla Miller who was a defensive lineman in high school who has been transitioned to offensive line that they have identified something in him that is
• 1:14:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: that is like diamond in the rough kind of stuff and that the development of Killian O'Connor over the years has been like he's very well respected on this team and so like it could just be it could be that all of these pieces come to fit together and it's okay yeah that is possible it's possible I'm not saying it's not possible I'd certainly what I'm hoping for
• 1:14:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: My problem is it's just like the percentages on that being the actual outcome.
• 1:14:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not where I need it to be to feel confident going into the season looking at this unit.
• 1:15:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:15:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, well, what are your thoughts about the offense?
• 1:15:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Put them in the chat, hit us up with the comments on YouTube, email us, write it to our fanside.com.
• 1:15:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, hit us up with your phone calls to for voice mail and all those things.
• 1:15:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've only been getting spam voice mail.
• 1:15:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think people that people hate us.
• 1:15:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we got to remind people to uh, to get in the habit of calling in because we were going to have rantline hopefully rave line, but definitely rantline potentially.
• 1:15:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'll see.
• 1:15:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Either way, let's get to the bell bag.
• 1:15:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's start with a review that we got on Apple Podcasts.
• 1:15:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: From CJ Love, eighty-eight, it is a one-star review.
• 1:15:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: We love our one-star reviews.
• 1:15:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: The subject line is cross-town, round table.
• 1:16:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is the purpose of the F word in this episode?
• 1:16:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is the purpose of saying like like every sentence?
• 1:16:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Most of the listeners are educated and classy people.
• 1:16:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: The usage of these words on a repeated basis eliminates any credibility.
• 1:16:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Trash.
• 1:16:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
• 1:16:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: In terms of profanity?
• 1:16:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
• 1:16:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are not that any profanity there.
• 1:16:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
• 1:16:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: That fair enough.
• 1:16:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Trust me, I make an effort to curb my profanity.
• 1:16:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:16:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which is the blame Jake?
• 1:16:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we can just blame Jake.
• 1:16:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a true insult.
• 1:16:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now in terms of the like stuff, I take our quality very seriously, right?
• 1:17:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I, we put a lot of effort into everything.
• 1:17:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do think that saying that word,
• 1:17:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: is can be a crutch when you're doing live podcasting when like the round table or podcasting without a rundown for the most part where just it is just people talking you're gonna say that word because it's a filler word that's what people say and then when you were doing live podcasting mr cj love eighty eight i i encourage you
• 1:17:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: to go buy a microphone and start podcasting and see what it's like to say the word like less than you think you might.
• 1:17:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is difficult when it's live and you're recording only one take back in the days where I would like every edit out every single um yeah I would take out like
• 1:17:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: That I would take that out, right?
• 1:18:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like you're doing live recordings where humans talking the whole point of the podcast is to be conversational, all the other reviews that we have.
• 1:18:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: By the way, I am not hitting on one story review.
• 1:18:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to be critical of us, be critical of us.
• 1:18:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: We will take criticism.
• 1:18:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
• 1:18:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
• 1:18:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this stuff is annoying us because we got another one earlier this summer that was about the word like.
• 1:18:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I went to Podscribe, which does AI transcriptions of podcasts.
• 1:18:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just for reference, according to Podscribes, AI transcript of last week's cross town roundtable episode, there were two hundred and sixty-six instances of the word like in a sixty-two minute episode.
• 1:18:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: In Wednesday's regular episode, there were two hundred and nine uses of the word like in eighty minutes.
• 1:18:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mind you, this could include the word likely in dislike, or control-affin here, right?
• 1:19:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Two hundred and sixty-six and sixty-two minutes for the round table, two hundred and nine and eighty minutes for Wednesday's episode.
• 1:19:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: That sounds crazy.
• 1:19:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I looked those happen on like ding.
• 1:19:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe that's like, right?
• 1:19:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right?
• 1:19:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then I looked up other things.
• 1:19:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bill Simmons had a preseason hypersel episode last week.
• 1:19:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: A hundred and forty two minutes, four hundred and seventy six likes.
• 1:19:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ryan Rassillo, Mr. Professional in terms of, you know,
• 1:19:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Radio Guy, right?
• 1:19:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mr. Professional Radio Guy?
• 1:19:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: He did an episode last week about Caleb Williams and NFL quarterbacks, hundred and three minutes, one hundred, sorry, one hundred and three minutes, five hundred and thirty nine likes, five hundred and thirty nine.
• 1:20:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mina Times, we all love Mina Times.
• 1:20:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Best in the business.
• 1:20:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Best in the business.
• 1:20:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Three hundred and twenty nine likes in her eighty-two-minute NFC South Preview last week.
• 1:20:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: The solid verbal, they did a playoff predictions episode that just dropped yesterday, two hundred fifty two likes in seventy five minutes.
• 1:20:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Josh Pate, Josh Pate might be the number one call triple hot hasker in the world right now, right?
• 1:20:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: He did a season prediction specials, ninety minutes, two hundred and thirty four likes.
• 1:20:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Our friends over at the Parasale podcast,
• 1:20:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, they had a seven hundred and seventy eight like episode.
• 1:20:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it was an insane four hour episode of composite two star recruits, which is wild.
• 1:20:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how respect.
• 1:20:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, how they they go that long.
• 1:20:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy.
• 1:20:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this is all to say people say the work like this idea that that people don't say it.
• 1:21:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think is demeaning.
• 1:21:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it like
• 1:21:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry.
• 1:21:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to criticize us for our opinions, please do it.
• 1:21:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to criticize us for the effort we're putting in, you don't think we're putting in enough effort, please let us have it.
• 1:21:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: criticize us for the for what we're saying and how we're saying it ninety eight ninety nine percent of the time please let us know we need to get better we want to get better at least you'll listen back to every single podcast after we do it to self judge self critique I used to do that I stopped doing that but like we do this all the time please let us know we want to get better but this kind of stuff
• 1:21:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: On the surface, I know at least you think that I don't want to speak for you, but I feel like you have a sense that the word like comes with a certain viewpoint of society.
• 1:22:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to speak for you but no my my theory my theory is that um well I have a broader theory that has a lot to do with the way that people react to female sports commentators to play by play
• 1:22:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but that's a whole other conversation.
• 1:22:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: My, my theory has been, has long been that, um, rent rotor.
• 1:22:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: My theory has long been that like is a word that is associated with like.
• 1:22:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: the valley girl stereotype.
• 1:22:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're from the valley.
• 1:22:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I am from the valley.
• 1:22:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am a valley girl.
• 1:22:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that there is a certain pitpickingness about the words that people, people naturally use filler words.
• 1:23:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's not like, it will be um, if it's not um, it will be uh, if it's not uh, it'll be er, if it's not er, it'll be whatever it is in whatever culture that
• 1:23:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is a word that there is a sound that your brain has to make in order to buy time for your brain to catch up to your mouth.
• 1:23:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: or for your mouth to catch up to you.
• 1:23:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Especially when you're doing this, and this is just a take or you're recording live or whatever.
• 1:23:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is, this is just, that's just talking.
• 1:23:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: If, as somebody who has done a lot of interviews and recorded and transcribed a lot of interviews, the idea that people speak in sentences is very wrong.
• 1:23:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: People do not speak in sentences.
• 1:23:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: People do not speak with correct grammar.
• 1:23:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: People are flubbing left right in center and using a lot of different filler words.
• 1:23:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: My theory has long been that because like is associated with the Valley Girl Vapid stereotype that people
• 1:24:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: tend to be more grated by it because of the origin or the perceived origin of that word.
• 1:24:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that there is some class stuff going on.
• 1:24:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's some gender stuff going on.
• 1:24:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not necessarily all on purpose.
• 1:24:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I totally understand why people get graded by
• 1:24:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: things that people by manners of speaking, I totally get that.
• 1:24:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: But my feeling often with the term like is that once you start to fixate on it, you just will fixate on it and it will become like that, it's that you that you need to just learn how to ignore.
• 1:24:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: or it will drive you crazy no matter who you're listening to and it'll just be like if it's to the point where you feel like you have to complain that somebody who's you know doing a a live podcast is saying it too often like if it's annoying you that much yeah my feeling is that it's probably a you problem now that's not always the case sometimes there are sometimes people are saying like way too damn much
• 1:25:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: but the degree of anger that you feel.
• 1:25:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: or annoyance that you feel adhering it.
• 1:25:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's something that people can themselves control more than a person who is off the cuff talking can control how often they say like like you just right there you and I I know during this conversation have been making a concerted effort to not say like and it has still slipped out because it just happens.
• 1:25:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I I on pod scrapers looking through random podcasts and stuff.
• 1:25:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was one podcast where it had very few instances of that work.
• 1:26:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: You want to know what that podcast was?
• 1:26:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was probably a scripted podcast.
• 1:26:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: This American life, which is scripted.
• 1:26:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which is scripted.
• 1:26:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 1:26:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 1:26:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, because if it's scripted and you're writing in sentences, you're not going to include filler words.
• 1:26:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 1:26:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: The New York Times daily podcasts, fewer likes than you would think.
• 1:26:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 1:26:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: There were still quotes in there that was like, well, I was like thinking like, what is that?
• 1:26:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
• 1:26:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, that's the New York Times.
• 1:26:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, like, yeah, I don't know what to tell you.
• 1:26:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what to tell you.
• 1:26:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just as a long, just as a long, rambling thing.
• 1:26:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's just one of those things that I think is funny, especially because I know how much effort you and I have put into getting rid of filler words as much as possible.
• 1:26:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: First of all, go back and listen to our original stuff twelve years ago.
• 1:26:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And compare it to now.
• 1:26:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I put a lot of effort into cutting out my as much as possible.
• 1:26:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you know that it happens.
• 1:27:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: You said you know.
• 1:27:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know again if it's not if it's not like it's you know if it's not you know it's right if it's not right it's or.
• 1:27:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, I don't mean to be thin-skinned over this because like you're saying, I revel in constructive criticism, please lay it on us.
• 1:27:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yes, we take, we take the language staff in terms of like, foul language, sure, fair enough.
• 1:27:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're annoyed at us for foul language or like or anything like that, if you leave it in a five-star review, I'm much more likely to take it, to take it, to take it on.
• 1:27:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just have opinions about one story.
• 1:27:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, we got a YouTube comment last week from JH.
• 1:27:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think coach true will make a difference with our injury concerns?
• 1:27:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: What does a top level strength and conditioning coach do for a team?
• 1:27:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is a great question.
• 1:27:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: One that you're not gonna like the answer to, which is to say that strength and conditioning coaches, I don't think impact injuries as much as people would like them to.
• 1:28:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think injuries are a part of the game.
• 1:28:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of injuries are just what happens when you have humans of that size and speed going up against each other and pushing their bodies to the absolute limit.
• 1:28:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do think that there are things that strait and conditioning coaches can do to mitigate certain injuries, but the fact is that some people are just prone to hamstring pulls and others aren't.
• 1:28:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And some people have weak knees and some people
• 1:28:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: might be prone to a shoulder thing or might happen to have their shoulder turned in the wrong way one time and then now they're prone to dislocations or things of of whatever nature like ACL tears are always freak accidents a kill these things are just freak accidents and there is no good evidence to suggest that you can do anything specific that like wouldn't be a standard
• 1:29:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: part of a of a conditioning program.
• 1:29:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
• 1:29:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: To try and mitigate those injuries.
• 1:29:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the negative impacts of a strength and listening coach would be like a grieges things.
• 1:29:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: like over training you never try you never stretch or you over train right yes you do those two things yes and and another guy comes in and does everything the just the normal proper way I think you're gonna have a big impact yes absolutely what I will say is a top level strength and conditioning coach what they do for a team my opinion on this is
• 1:29:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: the difference between a top level strengthing addition in coach and a low level or not, not effective strengthing addition in coach has less to do with the workout plans and the specific targeted areas and all that kind of stuff, which does matter, but the variance there between a good and a bad is limited.
• 1:30:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Top level strengthing addition in coaches are all about culture.
• 1:30:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: and about expectations of discipline, of commitment, of pushing yourself to your limit in a safe way, all of that kind of stuff.
• 1:30:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: To me, it's much more about, it's not necessarily being a hype man, but being like the general who
• 1:30:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, make sure that that that that everything is is done properly and seriously and earnestly and and all of that kind of stuff.
• 1:30:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that the best strength the conditioning coach is like the best teacher, which is to say one that is relatable, but also doesn't take shit and that commit that has that commands.
• 1:30:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Respect without fear, but respect that is like
• 1:31:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: When this flexible though flexible, you can't be a pushover.
• 1:31:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Flexible in the sense of being able to get your message across two different types of listeners.
• 1:31:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not flexible in the sense of you don't have consistency in all that kind of stuff.
• 1:31:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that there's just a general sense of like, are you a good teacher?
• 1:31:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you are, you will, things will be better.
• 1:31:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you are taking over for a bad, agreed-just teacher, yes, you will be better.
• 1:31:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: For the most part, I think when it comes to strength and condition stuff, all of these are intangibles that are impossible to grade, impossible to have any sort of finite data over.
• 1:31:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So much of it is just like,
• 1:31:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what's the word?
• 1:31:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's the word with anecdotal?
• 1:32:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Things are adding to like, oh, well, things were better when this happened or whatever.
• 1:32:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the other thing is the decisions of size, right?
• 1:32:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like two years ago, Benny Wiley, the criticism was that he had too many guys that were that weren't big enough.
• 1:32:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Last year, they got much bigger.
• 1:32:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: in part because he was told from like an ally or whoever to make the guy's bigger and so he made the guy's bigger.
• 1:32:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it wasn't Benny Wiley's fault per se that like he was making them too small if that was the direction that he was being you know directed to so
• 1:32:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, either way, long story short.
• 1:32:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ideally, you would help a top level guy would make would would be an uptick.
• 1:32:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Will that happen?
• 1:32:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
• 1:32:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a question mark.
• 1:32:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, YouTube comment last week from Mark and I was buy outs and real, but is there a hot seat for Lincoln Riley?
• 1:32:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: If he wins less than nine games, yes, I think so, especially with this schedule.
• 1:33:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: SC.
• 1:33:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't win nine games you're eight and four and eight and four should be the bare minimum for what's possible with this schedule and eight and four means that you didn't really improve that much from last year.
• 1:33:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Theoretically right like I
• 1:33:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I, yes, but but does a hot seat mean fired because, no, I think it just means hot seat.
• 1:33:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I think that Riley, it would have to be.
• 1:33:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, what constitutes a hot seat?
• 1:33:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: People mad on the internet because that's already there.
• 1:33:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, because what I think of a hot seat is like realistically is that if your seat is hot, you are in potential to be fired.
• 1:33:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I do think there's a universe where, you know, USC starts, you know, if USC loses to Missouri State, we're having conversations.
• 1:34:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I know Jen Cohen is having conversations, you know, if USC loses to Georgia Southern, like conversations will be had.
• 1:34:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the size of that buyout will become.
• 1:34:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can I blame Coach Helmfordess?
• 1:34:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: more, you know, more just a lesser part of the issue.
• 1:34:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's catastrophic, but if it's not catastrophic, if it's just a repeat of last year, I think this is my opinion that Riley is almost bulletproof until the investments of this offseason are seen through.
• 1:34:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: which I hate because the investments of this offseason like I don't want, this is the trouble that like Clay Hilton put USC through in the sense that like ever, USC kept on investing and then the idea was well now that we've invested now you can really judge
• 1:35:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: what health and does without investment, but the problem is you keep kicking that can down the line.
• 1:35:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: So then your investment that you made, if you invested in the program with the wrong head coach, now you've just wasted that investment and kicked it another year down the line before you can have some success.
• 1:35:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like part of me, if I was Jen Cohen and the power brokers
• 1:35:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: that be, I would look at this and say, you know, USC has invested so much in next year's roster and in the future that you might as well just do a clean.
• 1:35:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it Riley can't keep his head above water this year, you might as well do a clean break because honestly, you can't afford to keep
• 1:35:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: stagnating and losing and sort of, you know, destroying any optimism or enthusiasm from the fan base this way.
• 1:36:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: You might as well set that money on fire and go, you know,
• 1:36:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: go put yourself in a better position to win a national title and make the money back, you know, but I don't I'm not it's not my money, so I can say that.
• 1:36:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but also, but also money at that level, it's all fake.
• 1:36:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's all theoretical and magical and, you know, it's all just numbers on a spreadsheet, so I don't know who knows.
• 1:36:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: So maybe somebody will think of it that way.
• 1:36:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: The way I look at it is that's
• 1:36:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: All of this comes down to nuance and I know that that's not a satisfying answer.
• 1:36:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you go eight and three and you had a true fashion quarterback who took over for an injured guy like that is a sorry eight and four that's a way different eight and four than an eight and four that struggles the first four games that you should roll through and then gets blown out in the games that you lose you know what I mean like that's a like and if you lose to Missouri state and lose you lose the first two games if you start out into
• 1:37:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then yeah, you need just need to make a change.
• 1:37:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know what I mean?
• 1:37:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, all these things are dependent on how it happens.
• 1:37:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, either way, I think a hot seat exists if you go eight and four next year from media, certainly from the fan base, more than likely.
• 1:37:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I think so.
• 1:37:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you have less than nine wins, even at nine and three, I think there will be people who are not happy.
• 1:37:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: But nine and three at least presents a world in which
• 1:37:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you lose an overtime game to Illinois on the road and you play Notre Dame and Oregon really tough and you're like, oh, we're a Penn State Choc team.
• 1:37:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, winners.
• 1:37:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, we're going to wrap up there.
• 1:37:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think we ended up dropping connection on YouTube.
• 1:37:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, you two people.
• 1:37:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've lost them.
• 1:37:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no.
• 1:37:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I know.
• 1:38:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: We like, like, lost them.
• 1:38:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:38:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, we're gonna wrap up there.
• 1:38:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll be back Wednesday to talk about the defense.
• 1:38:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for you, are you only the listeners?
• 1:38:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: You'll get that Thursday morning, I guess.
• 1:38:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So join us then.
• 1:38:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: As always, thanks for listening.
• 1:38:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Give us your emails for any offense.
• 1:38:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have phone number eight when I, six, four, three, seven, two, seven.
• 1:38:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let us know your thoughts about the offense and let us know your thoughts about the defense coming up.
• 1:38:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So until then, we will see ya.
• 1:38:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: See ya.