There Were Almost None

2/5/2012 8:42:12 AM
By: Trojan Ed



I believe that both Notre Dame and Oregon were signature wins for USC and Kiffin -- the Oregon victory was USC's best road win, based on the opponent's ranking, in over 20 years.

However, both games easily could have gone the other way.  At South Bend, if the QB handles the snap from center and Straling's scoop and score is replaced with a ND touchdown, it's a tie game and ND has all of the momentum, as USC's O had really bogged down at that point.  At Oregon, if Kelly manages the clock better, or if Bailey doesn't make that great one on one tackle, the Ducks could well have won that game in regulation.  USCplayed great that day, and still could have ended up losing.

As for Cal and UCLA, they were both horrible.  Their records were as "good" as they were only because the rest of the Pac-12 was so bad in 2011.

The point of this isn't to diminish the two quality wins from 2011 -- USC made more plays than its opponents and deserved to win.  That said, 10-2 was almost 8-4.

Kiffin deserves credit for 2011.  10-2 exceeded most people's expectations (certainly mine) and the team improved over the course of the season.  And he beat both rivals, both having down (or unfortunately for them, perhaps typical) years.  I just think we need to recognize that the Pac was horrible in 2011 (outside of Oregon, Stanford and USC) and not confuse the 2011 Trojans with, say, the 2002 squad.  We certainly shouldn't engage in grade inflation by calling Cal a big win or satisfy ourselves with "good" losses.

Post Please Log in OR Register for an account before posting.