I’ll have more thoughts in my Notes from the Upper Deck feature, but some quick reactions here: What a freakin’ disaster. I’ve never seen a more out-of-sync game plan for a big time opponent ever. I’m not saying that the Hoos would’ve beaten or even been competitive with USC had the coaches tried something different. But I could have told you before the game that we’d lose by almost 50 points if we played a vanilla style of offense and defense against this team.

The very minor brightside: I’m happily surprised and pleased that Groh kept Pete Lalich in most of the game. No multi-headed quarterback monster yesterday, thank goodness.

Oh, and I have to note that the USC fans were pretty classy yesterday. Kudos to their fan base. Now, the USC coaches for running up the score? That’s a different story.

More on all this and other topics in my Notes later this week.

In writing Thursday’s Kevin Ogletree feature (Read it here), I had some leftover quotes that I wanted to share here on the blog.

The first is about Vidal Hazelton, a junior receiver at Southern California. Hazelton spent a year at Hargrave Military Academy and was heavily recruited by Virginia before choosing USC. The 6’2”, 210-pound junior and Ogletree have posted similar numbers so far in their careers. Both had their best seasons as sophomores. Ogletree had 52 catches for 582 yards and 4 TDs as a sophomore while Hazelton had 50 receptions for 540 yards and 4 TDs as a sophomore.

Hazelton, a year younger than Ogletree, is from State Island (N.Y.) where he played at Moore Catholic High before heading to Hargrave. Ogletree is from Queens (N.Y) where he played for Holy Cross. HC defeated Moore Ogletree’s senior season in the 2004 CHSFL ‘AA’ championship game. (Read Dylan Butler’s title game article here.)

Ogletree on facing Hazelton …

“It’s cool. We’ve become friends. It’s good, talking a little trash when I see him online. When we played in the same league, he was always cool. I was about to go to Virginia and he was looking at Virginia so we spoke about that a lot. I spoke to his dad about some of the positives of coming here and all that. He was cool.”

(more…)

Finally, we’re at the end of the offseason-from-hell. With so much collateral damage to the roster since the Gator Bowl, I’m just glad that the season is about to start. From here on out, any lost players would have at least seen action on the field (or from the sidelines). There’s something a little less painful about losing men during the season, I guess.

Of course – lucky us! – the offseason-from-hell is leading directly to what should be a game-from-hell. In every match-up, USC is simply better than the Hoos. Much better. Their secondary is better than UVa’s quarterback and receivers, their offensive line is more talented that Virginia’s defensive line, their coaches are better, etc. etc. With a new quarterback, offensive line, defensive line, etc. etc., this season is looking like another of those rebuilding years for the Hoos. So facing a top-5 team in the first week is not going to be pretty. I’ve been reduced to hoping our quarterback doesn’t get hurt…. etc. etc.

I’m hoping the wet turf and some rust will slow down USC a little. And, maybe, the Hoos get some breaks here and there. But the Trojans will be hungry enough to handle Virginia easily. Sorry, but our boys are going to start the season with an ugly loss.

And since there’s not much to predict with the outcome, I’ll take a stab at the other unknown: the starting quarterback. I’m going with Scott Deke, though we’ll see all three quarterbacks rotated throughout the day.

USC 37, UVa 13
Prediction record: 0-0

… to being on the Skins’ roster this season. (H/T Spruill4Thorpe*).

*message board post that will expire

Last night, the Deacs traveled to Baylor and destroyed what they saw. OG has a nice recap, with a little of the standard my-team-beat-up-on-a-cupcake nitpicking:

It wasn’t a perfect showing, but it was pretty dang good. Riley Skinner had an excellent start, completing 27 of 36 passes for 220 yards and three touchdowns. He found D.J. Boldin more than anyone else – seven times for 33 yards, but had the most success throwing to Ben Wooster (six catches, 90 yards, one touchdown) and Chip Brinkman (three catches, 29 yards, two touchdowns).

The rushing game struggled, although the final total of 165 yards wouldn’t show it. Were it not for C.J. Washington’s two carries for 63 yards on the final drive of the game, that number wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive. Josh Adams carried the ball 14 times for 37 yards and a touchdown, and Brandon Pendergrass’s 14 rushes only went for 34 yards and a touchdown. Neither had a run longer than 10 yards, and averaged 2.6 and 2.4 yards respectively.

Yes, dang good. And this is going to be a tough team for the Hoos to beat, especially on the road. Skinner looks good right now, and that’s not good for a Virginia team with an inexperienced line and a consistently suspect secondary.

CC has my answers up his site now. Check it out here.

As I mentioned earlier this week, the folks over at SportsHubLA.com wanted The Sabre’s take on the UVa-USC match-up. They sent three questions over and I did my best to answer them. Take a look.

Here’s the press release on the walking wounded:

Out
John Bivens
Sean Gottschalk
Staton Jobe

Doubtful
Ras-I Dowling
Matt Snyder

Questionable
Maurice Covington
Austin Pasztor
Joe Torchia

Probable
Landon Bradley
Kevin Crawford
Dontrelle Inman
Peter Lalich
Chase Minnifield
Hall Simmons
Brandon Woods

The biggest blow would be if Ras can’t go, though we’ve known about this possibility for a few days now.

We’re bringing back last year’s tradition of doing Q&A exchanges with bloggers or reporters that cover our rivals during game week. This week, we’ve got the fine USC blogger at Conquest Chronicles answering some questions here, and I’ll be returning the favor on his site later today or tomorrow.

1. What do you expect out of Sanchez, and does missing practice time affect him much?

He has a great grasp of the system so I don’t expect him all of a sudden to forget things after a 2+ week lay off, but I am concerned with his conditioning and timing. It’s going to take time to get him back into top physical shape, which is why I expect to see the Backups at QB get some playing time regardless of where the game is terms of scoring.

2. There appears to be a number of inexperienced guys on the offensive roster. Is there a spot on the offense that’s weaker than usual because of this, or do expect the team to reload without a hitch?

Well, there has been a lot of talk about the offensive line and no offense can succeed with a solid O-line. The line has made great strides as training camp progressed. I think they’ll settle in and be productive, but I also don’t think it will happen over night, real game experience is really the best way to improve. OL coach Pat Ruel will have them ready to go, and he claims they won’t be the weak link.

3. What’s harder to do on USC’s defense: run or pass? And if you had to pick a pre-season MVP for the defense, who would it be?

Based on previous seasons I would say run. Pete Carroll’s defensive strategy has always been bend-don’t break so opposing offenses would always pick up some easy yardage underneath with a short passing game. This year I’m not so sure. Even with a few new faces on the D-line, I think with the secondary we have, Carroll is going to let them loose and call a lot more blitz packages and dare you throw against them. Pete Carroll hates to give up the big play but he may relax how he defends in the secondary this season.

As for an MVP…That’s a tough one to pick a single player but the nominations will be easy…Rey Maualuga, Brian Cushing, Fili Moala, Taylor Mays or Kevin Ellison — pick your poison.

4. Is there a mercy rule in the PAC-10 that you guys might want to carry over to inter-conference play on Saturday?

No mercy rule, but I think this game will be closer than everyone thinks because of the O-line and because of the QB issues. The defense will make it tough on you guys but until the offense gets settled in, I am ready to accept any game is a gimme. In short one word…Stanford.

Good luck to you guys this weekend.

The folks over at SportsHubLA.com asked me to answer a few questions for their site, which I’ll link here once they’re posted. In the meantime, check out this video preview from the Hub. It’s like they said: “Because, frankly, some people just don’t like to read.”