Trojans try to make best of bye week break

As its long-awaited bye week nears an end, USC is both embracing the respite and continuing to refine its discipline.

Fresh off a 45-23 action-packed victory in Palo Alto, the emphasis in practice this week is on small changes, mainly the chronic yellow flags that have plagued the team.

“We all work so hard, we’re so aggressive in our play, and that’s how penalties happen,” defensive end Kyle Moore said.  “It’s us being too aggressive, hitting the quarterback late, so we’re just trying to work on that and not do that.”

Today will be the last day of practice for the Trojans before they are off for the weekend, with some players even heading home for a brief visit.

“A bunch of guys are gonna be able to rest and take a little bit off,” senior linebacker Brian Cushing said. “I’m not gonna do much, just watch the other guys bang each other up for one weekend and sit around and relax for a little bit.”

USC coach Pete Carroll and his staff won’t be taking any sort of break from football though, as Friday night will bring the first round of the high school CIF playoffs, a key scouting and recruiting opportunity.

“It’s a big weekend for us this late in the year to see teams that have obviously done really well and have had a lot of success,” Carroll said.

USC has already secured 16 verbal commitments for the 2009 recruiting class, according to rivals.com, from four and five-star prospects, so coaches will be watching games to both check on committed players and see still-targeted ones.

“This is a big deal for us to be able to pinpoint a number of games to see young guys for next year’s recruiting class and even the year after that, so that’s all part of our strategy and what we do,” Carroll said.

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The USC defense gave up a season-worst 376 yards of total offense to the Cardinal and showed a vulnerability for the long run, giving up three 20-plus yard carries, but help could be on the way.

Senior safety Kevin Ellison could be back in time to provide reinforcements to the defense for the Trojans’ next game, Nov. 29 vs. Notre Dame

“He’s gonna try and practice next week, so we’ll see what happens,” Carroll said. “He’s doing all kinds of rehab work with trainers and stuff. He gets these days [off[ plus the weekend days, so we’ll probably see what he can do on Tuesday.”

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For senior defensive tackle Fili Moala, the bye week couldn’t have come at a better time, as his 60-year old father is suffering from respiratory and heart problems at home in Buena Park. His mind was in other places while manning the defensive line against the Cardinal last Saturday, but this weekend he will get the chance to spend time at home.

“I was anxious last week; I didn’t know too much about his condition,” Moala said.  “My mom had just told me that he got released.”

Comments

1 comments

TROJANMAN

Sun Nov 23 2008 13:00

My comment is about the BCS and the obvious bias that seems to happen every year at the Trojans exspense. Example,...USC loses to Oregon St., which to this date, is a pretty damn good footbll team. They lose at Oregon St. and the win was not like SC got murdered, rather they ran out of time in attempting their comeback. As a result, they get reamed in the rankings, and that loss is held against them, just as the Stanford loss is, which put them where they're at now.

Now, a team that seems to get much favor, Florida. Florida lost to Ole Miss, at home, and yet, with Texas Tech going down, are being seriously considered to be a national contender. Who cares that overrated Tim Tebow said, "No team will play harder than us, blah, blah, blah." You lost! I'm no Florida hater, just pointing out that teams on the east coast are heavily favored in the BCS, and most definitely on the television. If people are really buying that Tebow speech, what about Pete Carroll coming out in support of the playoff system, willing to play anyone, anywhere, and on any given saturday. Oh, not to mentioned USC is averaging no more than 2 losses for the past 6 seasons, which include 3-4 rose bowl "games"(blowouts), and 2 national titles, one shared, because the BCS held SC out of the title game. Oklahoma, or LSU, one of them should had been held out (favoritism). Also, SC, should have been in the title game Carson Palmers final year there, but again, held out cause of the BCS. All this really has got me mad at college football, hoping that one day in my lifetime they will switch to the playoff system, letting rankings be settled where they should be settled,. . . . . on the football field.

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