USC Football Mailbag: Will coaching improve? (4/20)

The latest edition of Reign of Troy’s mailbag tackles a series of questions on fixing USC Football’s coaching weaknesses. Can the Trojans improve discipline?

USC Football managed to achieve their goal of winning the Pac-12 in 2017, but the Trojans still had concerning deficiencies which need fixing in 2018.

This week’s mailbag devotes some time to those coaching concerns…

Q: I am interested in your thoughts re the coaching staff. I believe it would have to be considered a major risk area going into 2018, given the coaching weaknesses in 2017:

(1) Penalties are one of two things a team has control of. We were ranked near the bottom. Can our coaching staff turn this around with tough discipline, get player buy-in, and end up in the top ten percent in 2018?

(2) The other area a team has control over is turnovers? Once again, we were ranked near the bottom, realizing this came primarily from Sam Darnold. However, can the staff instill tough discipline to put us in the top ten percent in 2018? And Deland McCullough is gone.

(3) The offensive play-calling seemed to be off-kilter throughout the whole 2017 season. Can  a year of maturity for Tee Martin right the ship in 2018?

(4) Special teams were a disaster area in 2017? Can John Baxter get his mojo back in 2018?

(5) Offensive line play was very inconsistent in 2017. How much was this due to injuries versus poor technique? Can Neil Callaway still relate to college-age players?

(6) Game management was overall poor, especially toward the end of each half in 2017.  Also, we wasted a lot of timeouts and poor play calling enters here as well. But the buck stops with Clay Helton. Will he mature in 2018?

General comment:  Clay Helton seems reluctant to hire seasoned coaches. Can’t imagine a Nick Sabin team with our coaching inexperience.

And finally, must add that John McKay and Pete Carroll both won national championships in their third year at USC.

Keep up the great work,

Eddie in Hacienda Heights 

A: This is a bit different for the mailbag, but let’s take each of these points on their own.

(1) Penalties. Eddie is right, USC ranked 122nd out of 130 schools in FBS in penalty yards per game in 2018.

There is one caveat to that: Pac-12 teams in general ranked low in that measure last year, and that’s been a consistent trend over the past several years. For instance, Oregon ranked dead last and UCLA ranked 126th. In fact, only three schools in the conference ranked in the top half of FBS. Stanford stood in at 41st while Washington and ASU achieved third and seventh respectively.

Those three standout though when you’re trying to figure out whether penalty stats are a marker of discipline and related to coaching. Before Chris Petersen arrived, the Huskies were consistently low ranked in penalty yards. The year he took over, they remained low, but since 2015, Washington has been a top-half team in that measure. Over at Stanford, David Shaw has the Cardinal consistently in the top half as well. Surprisingly, Todd Graham’s ASU regularly featured among the top penalty teams nationally.

USC, meanwhile, has regularly ranked outside of the Top 100 in penalty yards. In the past 10 years, the Trojans highest rank was 60th. That’s the only time they’ve been a top-half team. And that includes Pete Carroll-coached teams.

Which brings us to the next angle: Do penalty stats correlate with success? Short answer: Not necessarily.

Carroll had highly-ranked and competitive teams rank in the bottom half of FBS. This year, playoff teams Georgia and Oklahoma ranked 76th and 85th.

At the same time, there’s a sizable gap between USC’s 122nd rank and 85th. Nick Saban’s teams are consistently in the top half. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to get closer to that, even if it’s not the lofty Top 10 percent climb Eddie offers.

The simplest way to get the numbers down would be to cut out pre-snap penalties, especially false starts, and that does lie with the coaching staff demanding more discipline from the players.

Spring Camp wasn’t exactly an encouraging show on that front unfortunately.

Darnold will be replaced by a first-year starting quarterback, so don’t expect that interception total to decrease. If the new Trojan quarterback can get that fumble number way down though, that’ll be the difference USC needs.

Losing Deland McCullough is a blow, but his absence shouldn’t result in USC’s running backs losing fumbles out of nowhere.

(3) Playcalling. One of the disadvantages of Clay Helton taking a chance promoting so many young, promising coaches is the growing pains which come along with it. Tee Martin is entering his third year as a playcaller and conceivably that experience should help him get a better handle on managing the flow of the offense. Moreover, there won’t be questions about Tyson Helton handling certain aspects of the playcalling this year.

If you’re a glass half-empty kind of person, you could say this will be the most difficult year of playcalling for Martin. He won’t be able to lean on the brilliance of Darnold’s backyard football.

CHECK OUT: 10 Ridiculous Sam Darnold Highlight Plays

If you’re a glass half-full kind of person, you could say playcalling duties could be easier this year. The Trojans will have a first-year signal caller and a hopefully a simplified playbook to work with. Plus, there will be even more incentive to lean on the rushing attack.

Martin would be greatly served having a more consistent offensive line, but Trojan fans can only hope his experience with last year’s inconsistency may have taught him a few lessons about mitigating poor line play.

(4) USC ranked 89th in special teams S&P+ and 65th in FEI, both advanced statistical measures. That’s definitely a disaster for a special teams coach like John Baxter, who has been touted as one of the nation’s best. It’s especially a problem for a Trojan team which devoted a great deal of time to special teams during practice.

Should USC be better in 2018? Absolutely. Will they be? I think so.

Last year, the Trojans relied on inexperienced players. This year, with more depth across the lineup, they won’t need to put their faith in first-year players when there are second-year players whose only chance to contribute will be on special teams.

(5) Offensive line. It’s easy to forget that early in the season, USC lost their most experienced offensive lineman, Viane Talamaivao, and replaced him with a true freshman, Andrew Vorhees. That alone would have been an issue hampering the progress of the line but the Trojans put out four different offensive line combos thanks to injuries to Toa Lobendahn and Chuma Edoga.

On top of that, key players like Edoga dealt with nagging injuries throughout the season, missing a good deal of practice time.

More from Reign of Troy

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• USC football adds Xavion Alford as transfer from Texas
• USC Podcast: RoT Radio Ep. 396 on the Football Season’s Fallout
• Talanoa Hufanga named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, USC football with five first-teamers

That doesn’t excuse the performance of the offensive line at times, especially the way a largely healthy unit was manhandled by Ohio State’s defensive front.

But maybe that’s the wake up call Callaway and company needed.

(6) Game management. There’s reason to be optimistic here. Helton did seem to have a better handle on late-game decision making in 2017 than he had in 2016. He seemed to learn from mistakes as they went on with regard to calling timeouts, punting, going for it and more.

That’s not to say he was perfect, but no coach is. Every fanbase complains about the game management of their coaching staff and if you watch college football around the country, chances are you see some instance of poor management just about every week.

Trojan fans can just hope that every year of experience under Helton’s belt will continue to serve him well.

TRENDING: Spring Camp Superlatives — Who Stood Out?

As Eddie pointed out, Year 3 has been kind to many USC coaches in the past.