Not really a super in depth analysis or anything but I compiled some basic stat comparisons for USC and ASU heading into this weekends game.

Total Offense
ASU: 457 YPG (25th)
USC: 429.33 YPG (39th)

Passing Offense
ASU: 314.67 YPG (17th)
USC: 298 YPG (23rd)

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The first ever Pac 12 media poll is in:

North

1. Oregon (29)

2. Stanford (13)

3. Washington

4. Oregon State

5. Cal

6. Washington State

South

1. USC (24)

2. Arizona State (13)

3. Utah (4)

4. Arizona (1)

5. UCLA

6. Colorado

Link

I feel Utah and Arizona should be swapped and probably Colorado and ucla. I'd bump Oregon St and Cal up a spot each and UW down a couple of spots. I'm pretty surprised to see USC at #1 in the South, but I'd gladly take it.

So today the first ever hot and sexy Pac 12 media poll is out:

North
1. Oregon (29)... 239
2. Stanford (13)... 220
3. Washington... 142
4. Oregon State... 120
5. California... 110
6. Washington State... 51

South
1. USC (24) ... 230
2. Arizona State (13)... 207
3. Utah (4)... 170
4. Arizona (1)... 140
5. UCLA ... 89
6. Colorado... 46

Despite being sanctioned, having lost more than 2 games in a season multiple years in a row, and having Lane Kiffin as their head coach, Pac 12 journalists still picked the Trojans as #1 in the South division. Lazy journalism or is the rest of the Pac 12 south just that weak?

What about the rest of the conference who is under rated? Who is over rated?

In non college football topics, summer is winding down, did you accomplish all your summer goals? Are there any last things you want to do this summer?

Today I overslept my alarm by 5 hours, and I'm not really sure how that happened. What's the worst you've over slept?

Bumped

From the world wide leader:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In a sharply worded rebuke of Ohio State's Jim Tressel, the NCAA on Monday accused the 10-year coach with withholding information and lying to keep Buckeyes players on the field who had accepted improper benefits from the owner of a tattoo parlor.

In a "notice of allegations" sent to the school, the NCAA said Monday that the violations relating to the coach are considered "potential major violations."

LINK

The thing is, didn't the NCAA already know about some of this? I mean its not like some of this didn't come out before the Sugar Bowl, yet they allowed them to play that game! I know, I know, trying to apply logic to the NCAA is silly and they work on their own time line etc.

I have to think that this could potentially spell the end of Tressell at OSU. There is no way in my mind that the NCAA simply accepts the penalties OSU has already levied. They'll want to stamp their own brand of justice on this, and as well all know it won't be pretty.

So the last OT seems to have died out a bit (or everyone is catching up on emails after 4 days off) thus I feel compelled to start a new one!

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Random question I know, but I know in years past there was usually a final scrimmage at the Coliseum before the first game of the season and after students move in. However I can't seem to find any info or schedule or whether or not there will be one this weekend. Anyone here know? The only thing I can find is something on Scott Wolf's blog that seems to indicate the final scrimmage is on Thursday...

Per Field Gulls and the Bolts in the Blue Blog, former USC Safety Kevin Ellison, recently in trouble for possessing 100 vicodin pills, was claimed off waivers by the Seahawks.

Kinda surprising that after the whole LeDale White thing Pete would take another chance on a troubled former player. Still the Seahawks do have a hole at SS. Ellison becomes the third troubled former Trojan to be given another chance by Pete in his short Seattle tenure so far.

Link

After a long break between these I'm back with the (6th?) part in my look at USC's recruiting (well more like commits as I don't include info on players who were recruited but went elsewhere) from 2002-2009 under Pete Carroll. This time I'm back with Defensive Ends. Originally I was planning on doing the whole defensive line in one post but there ended up being enough to separate them out. I also found the portion of the USC site where they keep all the official player stats which has helped tremendously in compiling a better picture. I'll try and have defensive tackle soon.

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Apologies for the delay on this one, I took the weekend off from the computer more or less and I didn't have a chance to work on this more yesterday. This was the hardest section so far to compile as offensive line men don't get any stats credited to them so it is harder to find out how much they played in any given year. Most of the info comes from short bio snippets on the team's official website but those were largely incomplete.

I've tried to group the players by specific position below, but you will note that some guys are listed as OT/OG etc, as the information I could find on them mostly indicated they were a back up who played both positions. I apologize for the inconclusiveness of the below information.

If desired I can post recruiting stars as well. From what I remember while compiling this list most of the guys who didn't end up as starters were lower rated players. In general there aren't a lot of 4 and 5 star offensive linemen to begin with (although certainly more than FB or TE).

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Apologies for the delay on this, I was about to post it yesterday and then a power surge at work caused me to lose the entire post, that's what I get for doing things in notepad during a heavy wind storm.

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The third part of my on going series focuses on the position USC is most famous for, the running back.

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Moved this to its own post, I'll edit up my RB post tomorrow during my lunch break and then maybe tackle TEs when I get home from work.

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Disclaimer, a lot of this is based upon my memories as an under grad at USC and my time spent watching the team since graduating. I tried to fill in some of the holes with sites such as Rivals, mostly to remind myself how some of these guys were viewed coming out of HS. I don't contend to be a pro or anything and obviously recruiting at a college powerhouse is not quite the same as drafting in the NFL but I thought maybe it would be worth a look.

I'm going to only post up one part of this to see what kind of thoughts people have on the format and information. That way if there are a lot of suggestions I can refine and improve the other sections.

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