USC Trojans

Two Trojans were selected on Day 2 of the NFL draft as Robert Woods and T.J. McDonald both heard their names called during the Friday session.

Woods was selected by the Buffalo Bills in the second round – the No. 41 pick overall – and he provides an instant weapon at receiver for the Bills to put opposite Stevie Johnson.

This becomes especially important when you consider that the Bills spent their first-round pick on quarterback E.J. Manuel from Florida State, so they wasted no time in giving him a dependable option to throw to. The Bills also added speedy wideout Marquise Goodwin from Texas in the third round.

When Woods requested an evaluation from the NFL last fall, he was given a projection of a second-round grade if he came out for the draft, which is exactly how things played out.

The pick of McDonald by the St. Louis Rams in the third-round (No. 71 overall) was a bit of a surprise as there hadn’t been a lot of pre-draft buzz about McDonald, who had a subpar senior year after earning All-America honors as a junior.

The scouting report on McDonald was that he was a physical and aggressive athlete that didn’t match up with some of the other elite safeties in the draft.

The good news for McDonald is that the Rams are coached by former USC defensive back Jeff Fisher, who played for the Trojans a few years before T.J.’s dad, Tim, also roamed the USC secondary.

Fisher liked what he saw in the younger McDonald enough to draft him in a spot that will give him a chance to compete for the open safety positions with the Rams.

The biggest shock of the day was the fact that Matt Barkley has yet to be selected through the first three rounds.

The pre-draft speculation for Barkley was all over the map, with some analysts thinking he would slip into the first round while others figured a more likely landing spot was in the second round. To think that Barkley would still be around when the final day of the draft starts is something that nobody predicted.

In addition to Barkley, other Trojans looking to get selected on Saturday in the final four rounds include center Khaled Holmes and cornerback Nickell Robey.

Player of the day: Junior All-America wide receiver and 2012 Biletnikoff Award winner Marqise Lee dazzled the 15,284 in attendance with eight receptions for 148 yards and two touchdowns, showing no ill effects of a knee injury suffered earlier in the spring.

Standout performers: Looking every bit a suitable replacement for departed wide receiver Robert Woods, sophomore wide receiver Nelson Agholor hauled in seven receptions for 116 yards and two touchdowns of 1 and 44 yards, respectively. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Cody Kessler passed for three touchdowns and a game-high 242 yards, completing 15 of 22 pass attempts. Defensively, senior free safety Demetrius Wright had two interceptions while sophomore defensive tackle Leonard Williams had a team-high six tackles.

Biggest play: Early in the first quarter, Kessler, who has battled redshirt sophomore Max Wittek all spring for the starting quarterback position, connected with Lee on a 70-yard touchdown strike.

Biggest surprise: Former Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei wide receiver Victor Blackwell, a redshirt sophomore, accounted for seven receptions for 155 yards and a 29-yard touchdown. Blackwell made a case for himself as the No. 3 receiver, especially after another candidate, junior George Farmer, suffered a season-ending ACL/MCL injury late in the spring.

Spring game final analysis: The heralded receiving duo of Lee and Agholor lived up to the type, accounting for a combined 264 yards and four touchdowns. USC coach Lane Kiffin has said he won’t name a starting quarterback until fall camp, but Kessler had the edge over Wittek on Saturday in passing yardage (242-145) and touchdown passes (3-2). Kessler did not thrown an interception while Wittek tossed two picks. Defensively, the Trojans' secondary looked vulnerable to the pass while the front seven applied good pressure and was stout against the running game. Senior defensive end Morgan Breslin was a force off the edge.

LOS ANGELES -- It was a day for the offense on Saturday at the Coliseum, as the Trojans put together one of their most impressive offensive displays of the spring.

There were multiple contributors during the scrimmage, including Max Wittek and Marqise Lee, who seemed to be making up for lost time after each sat out earlier portions of spring with knee injuries.

"The story of the day was the passing game and the offense in general,” USC coach Lane Kiffin said. “All three quarterbacks played great and it was obviously great to have Marqise back.”

Wittek got the start with the first unit and quickly hit De'Von Flournoy with a nice touch pass over Anthony Brown for 25 yards. On another drive he completed a 40-yard pass to Lee and then closed out the drive with a 20-yard scoring pass to Nelson Agholor. Wittek also had a 4-yard touchdown to Lee with a back shoulder throw against coverage from Brown. Wittek ended the day completing 14 of 17 passes for 200 yards and two touchdowns.

Lee wasted no time in showing everybody that he is officially back. In the early part of the scrimmage he caught a 60-yard touchdown on a go route from Cody Kessler. Later in the day he caught a bubble pass and put a juke move on Chris Hawkins to set up a 20-yard gain. Simply put, Lee looked every bit the reigning Biletnikoff winner with 10 catches for 191 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Those weren’t the only standouts for the offense, though.

Justin Davis continues to impress, as he had 17 carries for 116 yards and a touchdown. Davis showed some power on a short run, overpowering Lamar Dawson. He also read a good block from Kevin Graf to get a first down on a 3rd-and-short. His prettiest run came near the end of the scrimmagewith the ball at the 30. Davis broke up the middle and was headed for the end zone before Josh Shaw tracked him down at the 3-yard line. Davis punched it in from there two plays later.

(Read full post)

Shortly after USC’s 62-51 loss to Oregon in November -- and four games before the end of the season -- the mastermind of the Trojans’ defense, Monte Kiffin, informed his son he would be stepping down at the end of the season. Lane Kiffin revealed that detail to ESPNLosAngeles.com on Wednesday.

“He said, ‘Hey, I just want you to know, you’re not going to have a tough decision to make after the year,' ” Lane Kiffin said. “He was like, ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.’ "

Monte Kiffin, 72, resigned in December and was hired a month later to be the defensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys. Before joining Lane at Tennessee four years ago, Monte Kiffin was credited with creating some of the best defenses in NFL history while with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

USC hired former Cal defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast, hoping his schemes have better success than Monte Kiffin’s 4-3 defenses against spread and multiple-look offenses.

“When you come to this conference now, you see things you don’t see in the NFL. That’s not an easy thing to do,” Lane Kiffin said. “If you’ve gone 25 straight years of playing this certain scheme, now all of a sudden you play someone totally different, those rules and things suddenly don’t necessarily transfer over.”

Lane also said his father never could quite adjust to the NCAA rule limiting players’ contact with coaches to 20 hours.

“He’s an old-school coach now. He sleeps in the office. He doesn’t understand what a vacation means,” Lane Kiffin said. “He needs more time with the players because there are so many little rules in his defense to teach the guy. I don’t think we played really fast on defense, and that’s because we were thinking too much.”

 

PASSING ATTACK
When Georgia Tech has a more efficient day through the air, you know things are bad. Max Wittek's future looked very promising after his starting debut against Notre Dame. Now, not so much. Wittek, starting for the injured Matt Barkley for the second straight game, didn't have any good stretches on Monday. And backup Cody Kessler never got a shot to show what he could do.

RUSHING ATTACK
Lane Kiffin called runs a fair amount early, but with Curtis McNeal less than 100 percent healthy, Silas Redd wasn't effective enough to keep the Trojans' offense moving until things got dire in the fourth quarter. And both running backs struggled to hold onto the ball, even though the expected rain never came in.

IN THE TRENCHES
USC's tackles -- Aundrey Walker and Kevin Graf -- played as poorly as ever, and better play from Khaled Holmes and John Martinez wasn't enough to salvage the offensive line's day. The Trojan D-linemen celebrated whenever they made a play behind the line of scrimmage, but that wasn't very often.

DEFENSE
Of the list of things to blame for USC's thoroughly embarrassing performance on national television, Monte Kiffin's defense is not near the top of the list. It was by no means great or even good, but it wasn't that bad. Georgia Tech put up 68 on North Carolina. It could've been a lot worse. Better tackling form would've been a good sign for the future, though.

SPECIAL TEAMS
Kyle Negrete had a couple of good early punts, but his teammates' third-quarter punt coverage overrun that put Georgia Tech in the red zone and later led to a touchdown doomed USC. Considering how much time the Trojans spend on special teams in practice, the unit's 2012 performance was a massive disappointment. The difference-making days of 2011 have seemed so distant in recent weeks.

COACHING
Uninspired play is putting it mildly. Georgia Tech played with so much more urgency than the Trojans, and that has to go on Lane Kiffin. USC athletic director Pat Haden has consistently supported his head coach, but how many Trojans fans would be upset if he decided to end the Kiffin experiment now?

After all, that was it for Matt Barkley.

His college career, we now know, ended for good on a vicious sack by Anthony Barr against the UCLA Bruins last month -- in a losing effort, no less. Barkley’s first thought upon hitting the ground that day was that he had broken his collarbone for the second time.

His second thought, he recounted later, was that his day on the field was over.

And we can probably surmise that his third or fourth thought was that his season -- and college career -- might well be over, too.

So, no, this wasn’t entirely unexpected.

USC Trojans coach Lane Kiffin announced Thursday that Barkley will miss Monday’s Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets because of the shoulder sprain, adding that Barkley simply ran out of time to come back.

AC joint sprains typically take four to eight weeks to heal; Barkley evidently needed more than the six weeks he was afforded after the Nov. 17 loss to UCLA.

The week following the injury, after it was official he’d miss the regular-season finale against Notre Dame, Barkley already sounded like he had come to terms with the possibility that he had played his final snap in a USC uniform.

“Nothing is always as it’s supposed to be in life,” he said at the time. “Sometimes things go as planned, but oftentimes they don’t go according to plan.

“That’s just something you have to deal with. I’ll handle it and stay positive.”

Of course, the next question involves Barkley’s decision to return this season to school for his senior year. Had he announced this time last year he was going to the NFL, he’d almost assuredly have gone higher in the draft than he’ll go now.

And his reward for staying was a seven-win season, a myriad of off-field distractions and, of course, an undesirable bowl game he won’t even get to play in. But, as he has all year, Barkley vehemently defended his decision on a risk-taking basis.

“I took a chance,” he said in November. “I don’t think enough guys really go for it these days.

“It didn’t turn out the way I planned, but over these last four years and especially this year, I’ve learned so much that’ll prepare me for the next level and later in life.”

Kiffin, who recruited Barkley early on in high school but left before his freshman season, has taken on a defensive tone regarding the quarterback in recent weeks. Asked Thursday how he thought Barkley’s career went in retrospect, Kiffin immediately turned talk to why Barkley’s career record compared negatively to other USC signal-callers.

Barkley was 34-11 in 45 career starts for the Trojans; Matt Leinart was 37-2 in his 39 starts.

“I think that Matt has had a great career here at USC,” Kiffin told reporters in El Paso on Thursday. “As a quarterback, you can’t control everything. You’re judged so often on your win-loss record, and Matt can’t play defense.

“If we were able to, over his career here, play great defense, his win-loss record would be different.”

Maybe so. But beyond the win-loss record and lack of a big bowl win, there are things Barkley will be remembered positively for, such as leading the program post-Pete Carroll, beating UCLA 50-0 and staying for that senior season.

His career didn’t go exactly according to plan, but it went pretty well.

LOS ANGELES -- Saturday was Monte Kiffin’s final practice on the USC campus in charge of the USC Trojans defense.

But he didn’t want to talk about it as he walked off the Trojans’ practice field for the final time. He did, however, want to talk about the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets offense, the unusual animal USC is facing in a week for the Hyundai Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas.

In fact, he can’t stop talking about the wishbone triple-option Georgia Tech runs -- an offense he hasn’t attempted to scheme against in more than three decades.

“The dive, the quarterback and the pitch,” said Kiffin, who resigned from his post as USC’s de facto defensive coordinator last month. “You don’t know which one it is.”

He’s been repeating those words over and over to his players for the last week. And they’re starting to stick, according to senior safety T.J. McDonald.

“Everybody has a responsibility, and that’s it,” McDonald said. “You read your key and you go.”

McDonald said he “didn’t understand” the defenses that some of Georgia Tech’s opponents have used this season.

“It didn’t make a lot of sense sometimes,” he said.

But the defense Kiffin wants the Trojans to play makes sense to McDonald. It requires every player on the defense to work together to stop all three options -- the dive, the quarterback and the pitch.

Passing is a secondary worry. Tech quarterback Tevin Washington completed just 72 passes this season -- fewer than USC’s Matt Barkley threw in his final three games.

“I want to make this quarterback show me he can throw the ball,” McDonald said. “They’re a running offense, and they know that and we know that.”

As for Kiffin, he said he’ll be more ready to say goodbye after the New Year’s Eve bowl game, but he’s already envisioning the occasional return visits.

“I’d like to come back here at some point and watch,” Kiffin said. “See the head coach and see how these freshmen became sophomores and juniors and seniors.”

Wittek rearing to go

Barkley made an appearance at two USC practices over the weekend, but only to watch.

The injured quarterback is staying off the field at least until Wednesday, when he’ll attempt to suit up for the Trojans during their first bowl practice in El Paso.

Meanwhile, Max Wittek and Cody Kessler continue to split first-team reps in his stead, with Wittek still the planned starter if Barkley can’t recover from his sprained shoulder in time to start.

Wittek dismissed any concern about a lack of readiness for a bowl-game start.

“I’ve been preparing for things like these opportunities all year,” he said. “It’s not too much different than Notre Dame, other than the time that we have to prepare for Georgia Tech.”

Head coach Lane Kiffin said Barkley’s injury has allowed him to get both potential quarterbacks adequate practice reps of late, which would otherwise be impossible.

“The one positive about Matthew not being here is those guys get more reps,” Kiffin said.

Robey has a plan

Junior cornerback Nickell Robey is expecting to receive his pre-draft evaluation back from the NFL any day now, and he’s also planning on placing a lot of value in it regarding his decision whether to return for his senior season at USC.

“It’s pretty important to me, because NFL scouts took the time out to watch my film and really concentrate on what I need to get done,” Robey said. “The more information I get as far as my ability at the next level, it’s going to better my decision.”

He even has an exact round grade and corresponding decision in mind. If the NFL Draft Advisory Board tells Robey they expect him to be a third-round selection, he’ll come back to school, he said.

So only a first- or second-round grade will lead him to the NFL.

“Nothing less than that,” Robey said.

Rogers impresses his coach

Incoming receiver Darreus Rogers has practiced three times with the Trojans, and has already earned the respect of his position coach, Tee Martin.

Martin said Rogers has the athletic ability of a college receiver and a mind that is learning how to handle the demands of the next level.

“He asks the right questions,” Martin said of Rogers on Friday. “And, yeah, it’s only the second day, but his retention has been good. I just throw questions at him in the middle of anything and his attention span has been good.”

Rogers will not travel with the Trojans to El Paso due to NCAA rules. He will enroll at USC in January and can resume working out with the team then.

Final notes: Running back Silas Redd submitted an evaluation request to the NFL but is “definitely leaning toward staying” at USC for his senior season, he said. Redd transferred from the Penn State Nittany Lions in August. ... The Trojans are in the middle of a four-day holiday break before reconvening in El Paso on Wednesday. Many players flew home and are meeting the team in Texas. … Martin, on trying to recruit Rogers while an assistant at Kentucky in 2011: “I knew I didn’t have a shot, but I knew who he was. He wasn’t coming to Kentucky.”

LOS ANGELES -- USC Trojans coach Lane Kiffin will continue to call plays for the offense in 2013, he said Sunday.

Kiffin, criticized for what some found to be uninventive play calling, had previously said he planned to re-evaluate the USC program after the Trojans’ Sun Bowl appearance against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Dec. 31.

That does not include his own work as the de facto offensive coordinator, we now know. Kiffin confirmed Sunday he won’t be hiring a new playcaller this offseason. Offensive coordinator Kennedy Polamalu will keep his job title and continue to work as the team’s running backs coach.

Kiffin also said he still does not plan on interviewing defensive coordinator candidates until after the Sun Bowl. USC’s head defensive slot is open after Kiffin’s father, Monte, resigned last month.

Here are other notes and quotes from the Trojans’ two weekend practices. USC will practice four more times in Los Angeles this week -- Wednesday through Saturday -- before breaking for the holidays. They will meet up again in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 26 to prepare for the New Year’s Eve bowl game.

No Barkley for a while

Quarterback Matt Barkley, out for a month with a sprained throwing shoulder he suffered against the UCLA Bruins, did not attend either of USC’s weekend practices.

Kiffin told reporters Saturday that Barkley will sit out of practices until at least Dec. 26.

Max Wittek, Barkley’s redshirt freshman backup, said he is preparing as if he’ll start -- just as he did for every other game the Trojans played this season. He has split reps with third-stringer Cody Kessler.

Barkley and Wittek are officially listed as co-starters on the Sun Bowl depth chart.

Farmer the surprise star

Sophomore receiver George Farmer has earned his head coach’s praise after each practice since the regular season ended.

“He’s really had four good practices in a row,” Kiffin said Sunday. “It’s great to see.”

He says it’s a product of his increased focus of late, which he credits in part to the stress of school soon to be over. Farmer is done with final exams as of Monday, with the rest of his teammates finishing up by Wednesday afternoon.

“Strictly focused on football; that’s your job, that’s your craft,” Farmer said. “With the pressure of finals off of you, I think that’s a plus.”

Farmer caught only one pass this season, and has just 10 offensive touches to show for two years of college football. He said Sunday he wasn’t worried about that.

“I just feel a lot more comfortable; keeping up on the minor details,” Farmer said. “Now it’s just playing faster; that’s what I’m trying to do.”

He said he’s also paying more attention to keeping himself healthy and adopting some preventative measures to avoid the hamstring injuries that have plagued him at USC.

“I do a lot more stretching,” he said.

Final notes: USC’s Saturday practice was distracted by an on-campus police investigation for a suspect alleged to be in possession of narcotics, with a helicopter hovering over the practice field while the Trojans worked out. USC announced the investigation was called off -- without the suspect being caught -- later that day. … Redshirt freshman receiver Victor Blackwell was named another practice standout by Kiffin. … USC did one-on-one linemen drills during Sunday’s practice, which players credited for bringing out excitement and passion. “It’s really about toughness and going back to camp mode a little bit, not having a game this week,” Kiffin said.

When Gerald Washington was a 23-year-old first-year tight end for the USC Trojans in 2006, he lived in an apartment off campus with four other football players: Vidal Hazelton, Anthony McCoy, Jeff Schweiger and Walker Lee Ashley.

His roommates knew he always carried around a pair of boxing gloves, and they knew he was quite a bit older than them, having spent four years out of high school as a helicopter mechanic in the Navy.

They didn’t know the 6-foot-6, 260-pound Washington grew up boxing in the San Francisco Bay Area and gave it up only at his mother’s behest, playing mostly tennis for a spell, instead. So when Schweiger, a big-time defensive end recruit who flopped at USC, brought up the idea of some in-apartment sparring one fall weekend, Washington was all in.

“Everybody used to say they boxed,” Washington said, recalling the incident with laughter. “And I was like, 'No, I really boxed.'"

The end result of that 2006 session? Washington refereed more than he sparred, so everyone came away unscathed -- except for Schweiger, who had a busted lip to show for his challenge.

“I’m not a bully. I didn’t try to hurt them,” Washington said. “I let them think they were doing something good.”

Now 30, Washington is a rising star in the boxing world, fighting on the undercard for the Luis Ramos-Ricardo Williams fight on Saturday at the Business Expo Center in Anaheim, Calif., a matchup staged by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions. Washington is hoping to get on the card for the Andre Ward-Kelly Pavlik fight scheduled for Feb. 23 at USC’s Galen Center.

Over the summer, he signed with boxing power broker Al Haymon, the mysterious Harvard-educated manager who represents a horde of top American fighters, most notably one Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Since then, Washington has fought four times, winning all four and recording three knockouts. His last bout, in November, ended just 21 seconds. He hasn’t even been knocked down.

Hovering around 245 pounds, Washington is fighting every five weeks and has a plan in place to compete for the world heavyweight title by the end of 2013 -- if all goes perfectly and he wins his next dozen bouts. He’s raw, but he has a remarkable fighting frame and developing instincts, honed six days a week at Pullman’s Gym in Burbank, Calif.

Instincts were his main issue in football. He had played only three seasons of organized football -- all as a tight end, with 39 total catches -- when he signed with USC out of junior college after being recruited by Steve Sarkisian and Pete Carroll as a potential diamond in the rough.

He redshirted his first season at tight end, then played as a reserve defensive end during the next two years, recovering two fumbles on the dominating 2008 USC defense.

When he signed with the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent in 2009, Washington felt like he matched up physically with everyone he was competing with for a roster spot -- even first-round pick Aaron Maybin, who ended up a massive bust for Buffalo.

"There was nothing I couldn't do physically with them," Washington said. "I was bigger, stronger, faster."

But he was cut two months later. The same thing happened at minicamp with Carroll’s Seattle Seahawks the next season.

When he was back in Los Angeles the following year, Washington ran into former USC teammate Dominique Wise at a gas station. Wise knew about Washington’s boxing history and broached the subject with him.

Washington started training again soon afterward, losing the 15 or so pounds he put on for football.

He’ll never go back to football, he says now.

"I didn't grow up wanting to be in the NFL or anything,” Washington said. “I always had boxing in my heart."

That’s why the likes of Schweiger and McCoy couldn’t hang with him in the makeshift boxing ring. They were both great athletes -- McCoy now plays on Sundays with the Seahawks – but lacked the killer instinct Washington cites as “absolutely necessary” to be successful in boxing.

“Boxing has to be in you,” Washington said. “The hardest hit on the field doesn't compare to one hit to the face. Someone's coming to hurt you. They're not coming to tackle you. They're not coming to make a play. They're coming to hurt you.”

“Football's the most dangerous sport,” he said, “but boxing's a lot scarier.”

LOS ANGELES -- Here's a look at everything else that happened with the USC Trojans this week, including their first two bowl practices, an early trip to El Paso and more:

Defensive coordinator plans

USC coach Lane Kiffin won't begin the formal process of searching for a new defensive coordinator until after the Sun Bowl on Dec. 31.

Kiffin's father, Monte, resigned as assistant head coach and de facto defensive coordinator following a disappointing 7-5 season. Kiffin says he plans to hire a true defensive coordinator to replace him, despite defensive line coach Ed Orgeron holding that title this season.

"We'll take our time and make sure that we get the right fit," Lane Kiffin said on Wednesday after the Trojans' first bowl practice.

Kiffin did indicate he will begin the process of sorting out candidates before the bowl game.

"I think you can kind of start it in your head," Kiffin said.

Kiffin is not afraid of a mid-January hire hurting his program in recruiting, even with signing day on Feb. 6. He pointed out that he was hired on Jan. 12 in 2010 and still signed a top recruiting class.

"It's not as quick as you think," Kiffin said of the time between the end of the bowl game and signing day. "One assistant coach isn't gonna be a big deal, and we still have over a month after the game until signing day."

Barkley back

Quarterback Matt Barkley missed Wednesday's practice while in New York for an awards banquet and walked into the Trojans' Friday session midway through, wearing sweats but no shoulder sling.

He has not practiced since suffering a sprained throwing shoulder Nov. 17, but he's still on track to start on Dec. 31.

Kiffin told reporters in El Paso on Thursday that Barkley "obviously wouldn't have been able to play if it had been an earlier [bowl] game."

USC's other bowl-game date possibilities were Dec. 22 and Dec. 27.

(Read full post)