Conquest Chronicles

It's been a while since I was here on my old stomping grounds here at CC, but this post doesn't fit well with Twitter. For the past couple of years we have heard that USC only wants to hire a head football coach who gets USC’s culture or "the USC way". But what is that culture? First a little history.... Removing the Pete Carroll years from the discussion, the only culture you can point to are the McKay years.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PRODIGAL SON Lane Kiffin coached under Carroll at USC from 2001 to 2006 ('05-'06 as offensive coordinator) before receiving a call from the late great Al Davis who offered him the Oakland Raiders head coach position in 2007, effectively making Kiffin the youngest head coach in league history at the age of 31. The novelty quickly ran out on Kiffin as the Raiders went 4-12 in his first season in Oakland.

ENROLLED: 4 Gary Bryant Jr., 4-Star WR Bryant Jr. graduated a semester early from Centennial High School in order to participate in USC’s spring football regiment. The former Husky will compete for playing time in the loaded wide receiver room filled with the likes of Amon-Ra St. Brown (Junior), Tyler Vaughns (RS Senior) and Drake London (Sophomore). In his senior season, Bryant put on a show at whatever position his coaches told him to line up at.

When the Trojans open their season against UNLV Sept. 1, there will be one connection that everyone will be looking out for -- that of freshmen and former high school teammates, quarterback JT Daniels and wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. While coaches haven't announced a starting quarterback and it's not yet clear how big a role St. Brown will play in the offense, this is the beginning of a connection that we might be watching for the next four years. So let the games begin.

The University of Southern California is always a team of prominence and talent. This season will be no different. The question may be is there talent enough in all the right places? In head coach Clay Helton’s third season the team still has a lot to prove and it all starts at the QB position with sophomore J.T. Daniels. He showed in 2018 what a freshman is with his inexperience but he also showed flashes of why he was a freshman starter in the first place.

Like many fans, I was indoctrinated and brainwashed by my lineage. My grandfather graduated from SC in 1922, so growing up all I heard about in the world of sports and education was USC! I later found out that my uncle was an All-American swimmer at SC, and that many of my aunts and uncles also graduated from this fine institution. One of my earliest memories was gifted to me from my dad. He told me a story about my grandfather attending a SC - NotreDame game at the coliseum later in his life.

Hey Trojans, just stopping by from Addictedtoquack.com. This season I've been putting together a fanbase Q&A called 13 Questions for each week's opponent - the idea being to get an overall picture of the program as it currently stands plus some insight into the fan experience, traditions, etc, of each school rather than focus on the Xs & Os (there are many folks more qualified than me for those). Then I compile a bunch of the answers along with some of my own research into a semi-coherent piece.

Can we all talk about our baby brothers? Remember back in 2014, when they erroneously claimed that "they owned the city of Los Angeles," then managed to lay an egg against 'Furd 31-10 the following week? They had an opportunity to clinch the Pac-12 South with a win and a possible Rose or Fiesta Bowl berth. In typical Bruin fashion, they imploded because they didn't care about all that. Arizona, for crying out loud, went on to the Fiesta Bowl instead of them.

Greetings Trojans, just stopping in from AddictedToQuack.com! I write there occasionally and am putting together a season-long project in which fans of each Pac-12 team predict their 2017 regular season WL record via poll. The idea being, for a season-end piece I'll revisit said polls to see which fanbases had the most accurate expectations, which were sadly deluded or pleasantly surprised, and whatever other extremely scientific data I can cook up.

USC had some quality prospects going into this year's NBA Draft, and when the dust settled, two players were taken -- sophomore point guard De'Anthony Melton at pick 46 to the Rockets, and junior power forward Chimezie Metu at pick 49 to the Spurs. Metu helped the Trojans to 23 wins and a second place finish in the Pac-12. The team outperformed expectations and just missed a berth in the NCAA tournament.