2011 Will be Business as Usual for USC

In Kiffin’s first year in Los Angeles, The Trojans finished the season
with a record of 8-5 which included a 21-point home loss to Oregon. In
those five losses, four opponents scored over 30 points. Going forward
with defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin that shouldn’t be the case this
season. Trojan opponents converted almost 44 percent on third down which
was up seven percent from 2009. Monte Kiffin’s defensive scheme relies
on the strong play from the linebackers to cover the entire field. That
could be the case in 2011 with incoming freshman Lamar Dawson. Dawson is
continuing The USC tradition of linebackers wearing number 55. Dawson
will try to follow in the footsteps of Junior Seau, Willie McGinest, and
Chris Claiborne. The Trojans don’t have a ton of senior leadership at
linebacker and Dawson will be looked upon to come in and bring some
swagger.

Overall as a team, The Trojans have a chip on their shoulders that is
the size of Mount Rushmore. When The NCAA placed The Trojans on
probation they took their lumps in 2010 and tried to appeal the
postseason ban in 2011. The decision was upheld and thus The Men of Troy
won’t be apart of the bowl caravan for consecutive years. Lane Kiffin’s
strategy has changed a little as The Trojans have an “us against the
world” mentality.

I expect USC to win The Pac-12 South but since they cannot play in the
postseason they will look to shatter the dreams of teams with bigger
plans. The Trojans start the campaign by hosting The Minnesota Golden
Gophers and they would love to have new Gopher head coach Jerry Kill’s
tenure start with a loss. In the following week, The Utah Utes will play
their first game as a member of The Pac-12 versus USC and The Trojans
won’t look to treat their house guests kindly. Both Arizona and Arizona
State are licking their chops as each one will look to slip into the
title game and take USC’s spot as The South’s representative. Each team
must face The Trojans who will be primed and ready. The Fighting Irish
of Notre Dame have dreams of making a BCS bowl and The Trojans have not
forgotten about last season when The Irish came to The Los Angeles
Coliseum and shocked USC by defeating them 20-16. USC will host Stanford
in a game that might keep The Cardinal from an undefeated season. To
top it all off The Trojans finish up the season with their crosstown
rival The UCLA Bruins. Bruin head coach Rick Neuheisel is on the hot
seat and a loss to USC won’t help the situation.

Junior quarterback Matt Barkley has the look of a first round pick in
next year’s NFL Draft. Barkley came to USC as the top prospect of his
recruiting class and hasn’t disappointed since he’s been there. If
Barkley can keep his interceptions in single digits for this season it
will be great as Barkley improved his completion percentage last year by
nearly three percentage points to 62.6.