USC aftermath

[HawkGold]

When USC starts paying recruits again you can throw out the conventional recruiting analysis. People travel to any of the circles of hell for a paycheck.

USC which is hard to track on finances are likely well behind Iowa on Athletic funding. Don't be so sure. The powers that be would already be paying if that were to be the case.

You are seeing the demise of football as we know it. The fall will be slow.

 

[Xerxes]

They’ve had 5 head coaches in the last 10 years; their ship has sailed. No change is gonna help, and musical coaches is the death knell of a program. Miami, nebraska, Tennessee, Florida State is starting to do it...

I get that the old guard of the donor bases can’t come to grips with not being title contenders so they throw multi million dollar temper tantrums, but they also see everything through the homer goggles and assume that every great coach is gonna want to come play for their dumpster fire if they just throw a bunch of money at it. And then when good coaches don’t come calling, they start grasping at straws with the guru weirdo types like Mike Riley and before you know it they’re playing MAC teams in a bowl game once every two or three years.

And to make matters worse, they passed on Ed Orgeron for a full blown alcoholic after he went 6-2 in his interim season but the brass couldn't handle his bad loss to UCLA.

He was the head of their ridiculous recruiting stretch under Carroll and has carried that over to LSU and turned a dumpster fire offensive into a feared one.

LSU was solid under Orgeron early but not up to their lofty standards. Smartly they stuck with him and are being rewarded.

 

[HawkeyeWalker]

I agree with most of this, although I can't say that I saw 50 points coming.
But you make some excellent points on the OLine, specifically the guards. You can't overcome a lack of blocking like we had mid-season. The worst pressure for a quarterback is pressure right up the middle. And not having a good running game makes everything more difficult.
This is the type of perspective you get after a season and is very unlike the melt-downs you see after we lose a game.

I truly believe that with avgvto above avg Off Guard play (by Iowa standards) this season, Hawks are at minimum 10-2 l, very possibly 11-1 or 12-0.

I concede that although your 3 losses where by 1 score, that we had 3 one score victories. That said, with better interior oline play (specifically vs MI and PSU) not only do we we win 1 or 2 more, but the close victories may have been by wider margins.

Redzone touchdowns were very rare....interior oline is key down there...

 

[Xerxes]

I've driven by. My uncle teaches at USC. It's a beautiful campus. But two blocks off of campus it looks like a frikkin' war zone. He admitted as much.

Its a very unsettling experience because like you said, the campus is insane. But within just a few miles you have some of the worst neighborhoods in LA. My buddy lived out their for years and he took me around to see the Coliseum, Staples, Dodger Stadium, all in a line just off the 110. Right in the the middle of a concrete jungle.