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Join us next week for the commemorative t-shirt special.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Monte Fucking Kiffin, Bro
The University of Washington: 311 passing yards, 225 rushing yards, 536 yards.
Friday, October 1, 2010
The First Annual USC Assistant Showdown is Tomorrow
As we've been discussing this week, the Washington game presents USC's first real challenge of the year. And it also represents the first of what might be many meetings between Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian, who were both assistants under Pete Carroll. Their relationship is one of friendship and rivalry.
Sark and Kiff were both young offensive assistants under Norm Chow during Troy's rise in the early 2000's, Sarkisian coaching quarterbacks and Kiffin coaching wide receivers. When the Carroll-Chow rift sent Norm Chow to the NFL, Sarkisian and Kiffin both wanted Chow's old job, and Kiffin won it. Kiffin became the Offensive Coordinator, and Sarkisian became the Assistant Head Coach and maintained responsibility for the quarterbacks. In 2007, Kiffin was hired away by Al Davis to become the youngest head coach in NFL history to have a disastrous tenure.
As Kiffin left, Sarkisian became the new offensive coordinator, leading the Trojans to two straight Rose Bowl victories. During this time, Kiffin was quickly fired from his head coaching position at Oakland. In 2009, Sarkisian and Kiffin both got their first college head coaching gigs - Sarkisian was hired by Washington to replace the incompetent Ty Willingham, and Kiffin was hired by Tennessee to replace the incontinent Phil Fulmer.
At Washington, Sarkisian's team showed immediate improvement, beating USC in Seattle and looking like a top-tier Pac-10 squad until Jake Locker went down with an injury. On Rocky Top, Kiffin displayed brashness and braggadocio, but ended the year with substantially more recruiting violations than wins.
Of course, everybody knows how Pete Carroll left for Seattle, how Pat Haden hired Kiffin, and how Kiffin and Sarkisian are now going to be scheming from opposite sidelines on Saturday. We can look forward to seeing this rivalry grow and develop over time, or at least until 2012, when Kiffin leaves USC for an NFL job after leading the Trojans to consecutive middling seasons.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Charlie Weis Opens Mouth; Surprisingly, Not To Eat Food
Conclusions one may draw:
(a) Charlie Weis apparently believes every rumor he reads on the internet,
(b) Charlie Weis can't understand why Pete Carroll, the charismatic coach of a dominant program, is not criticized, whilst he, the fatass "coach" of the butt of every college football joke of the decade (see what I did there), is reviled.
But while those two things may prove Charlie a naive and child-like buffoon, he did nail one thing: "You could bet that if I were living with a grad student here in South Bend, it would be national news."
Not only would it be national news, it'd certainly be international news, and most probably extra-galactic news because that would imply a coed had agreed to live with Charlie Weis.
(a) Charlie Weis apparently believes every rumor he reads on the internet,
(b) Charlie Weis can't understand why Pete Carroll, the charismatic coach of a dominant program, is not criticized, whilst he, the fatass "coach" of the butt of every college football joke of the decade (see what I did there), is reviled.
But while those two things may prove Charlie a naive and child-like buffoon, he did nail one thing: "You could bet that if I were living with a grad student here in South Bend, it would be national news."
Not only would it be national news, it'd certainly be international news, and most probably extra-galactic news because that would imply a coed had agreed to live with Charlie Weis.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
On the Hail Mary...
I guess you can't reasonably expect a USC blog to opine unbiasedly on one of the most hostile endings to a USC-UCLA game, ever.
But seriously though. Consider the facts. 52 seconds left. USC leads by 2 touchdowns. Ball on UCLA's 48. Pete Carroll calls for the knee.
Rick Neuheisel calls timeout. At this point in the game, it's almost impossible for UCLA to come back. If USC kneels twice more and punts, UCLA gets the ball back at its 20 or worse with no timeouts and 40 or so seconds to go.
It's pretty clear the move was more defiant than strategic. But at what cost? For your convenience, I have written a play that happens to explore similar themes:
Scene 1: I offer you a Nutter Butter.
Scene 2: You step on said Nutter Butter.
Scene 3: I punch you in the face.
Fin.
Tragic, is it not?
NO, it is not. Because YOU stepped on my Nutter Butter!
Dumbass.
But seriously though. Consider the facts. 52 seconds left. USC leads by 2 touchdowns. Ball on UCLA's 48. Pete Carroll calls for the knee.
Rick Neuheisel calls timeout. At this point in the game, it's almost impossible for UCLA to come back. If USC kneels twice more and punts, UCLA gets the ball back at its 20 or worse with no timeouts and 40 or so seconds to go.
It's pretty clear the move was more defiant than strategic. But at what cost? For your convenience, I have written a play that happens to explore similar themes:
Scene 1: I offer you a Nutter Butter.
Scene 2: You step on said Nutter Butter.
Scene 3: I punch you in the face.
Fin.
Tragic, is it not?
NO, it is not. Because YOU stepped on my Nutter Butter!
Dumbass.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Real Journalism?
While this is all a moot point on account of Oregon's ridiculous victory over Arizona last night, the very legitimate Annenberg student news site Neon Tommy speculated on Friday as to a possible Pac-10 six-way tie.
The very same tiebreak scenario our own O.J. reported almost two weeks ago.
Do we at Offers feel validated? You betcha!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Football Season is Over, it's Basketball Time!!!
So, as this blog's title implies, we here at Offers are more interested in lampooning the hilarious failures of the USC Basketball program than we are of actually chronicling the occasionally successful efforts of our other athletic endeavors - namely, football. So with USC being crushed at home by Stanford and our first basketball game happening tonight, it seems like a good idea to start discussing basketball. First, let's quickly review the story lines of the season:
New Coach: Morongo aficionado Tim Floyd was running an up-and-coming program just last year, one that appeared to be very likely to make a jump into basketball's elite. Then it was discovered that the creator of our blog's title happened have given an envelope filled with $1,000 cash to a handler of O.J. Mayo. So that ended his tenure rather quickly. In the turmoil, we actually hired a decent coach. Kevin O'Neal has a reasonably good track record at developing programs. In the 90's, he coached for Marquette, Tennessee, and Northwestern, enjoying some degree of success at each program. He then transitioned into a career as an NBA assistant, coaching for the Knicks, Pistons, and Pacers, coaching under Jeff Van Gundy and Rick Carlisle. He was the head coach of the Toronto Raptors for one season.
All that just says that Kevin O'Neal has been coaching for a long time and people are willing to hire him. More importantly, he joined Arizona as an assistant coach under Lute Olsen and quickly became the interim head coach after Lute Olson took a leave of absence due to some rather nasty personal issues. When Olson returned, O'Neal was left without a team, and decided (inexplicably) to go to USC. So far, he's only been receiving positive reviews from those who cover the team, so this is all very comforting. It'll be interesting to see how he handles coaching a team largely devoid of talent.
The Team is Largely Devoid of Talent: Most of the talented players USC once had have left. Taj Gibson, Daniel Hackett, and DeMar DeRozen all jetted to play for professional teams. Hackett went to Italy, DeMar went to Canada, and Taj went to "Chicago." Even some other players left for greener pastures - Mamadou Diarra, the least coordinated basketball player I have personally witnessed, left to "hopefully play in France," and Keith Wilkinson is now playing in the Ukraine. And I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I'm missing a couple of players who left - it's hard to keep track of them all. So the cupboard is kind of bare.
Who is left? Well, there's Dwight Lewis, our undisputed star player. Around him is a cast of misfits and incompetents. We have Donte Smith at point guard, the only point guard I've ever seen that has a 50% failure rate at bringing the ball across mid-court. We have Marcus Johnson at the wing, who is an excellent defensive stopper, but has no concept of how to play offense. At forward we have Nikolai Vucevic, who is a great rebounder and shot blocker, but is unable to position himself on offense. At the other forward, we have Alex Stephenson, who has some chance of becoming a decent player, but is completely raw.
Even that thin level of incompetence has absolutely no bench supporting it. The only two recognizable players on the bench are rapper Lil' Romeo, or Percy Miller, and Kasey Cunningham, a poor forward that has probably already met his ceiling. Lil' Romeo might not even be able to play this year, because of some eligibility issues that the NCAA has brought up.
What's the schedule like? In a word, brutal. Thankfully the Pac-10 is stunningly weak this year, or else our conference schedule could be 18 straight games of total pain. As it is, we're only really competitive with doormat Washington State and will likely head in as underdogs against the other 8 teams. Our non-conference schedule was clearly set up in anticipation of a better USC program. The non-conference schedule includes such powerhouses as Texas and Georgia Tech on the road, and quality programs like Nebraska and Tennessee at home. Thankfully, the rest of the teams are cupcakes, but with the current Trojan squad, even cupcakes are dangerous games.
What's the prediction for the season?
9th place in the Pac-10, lose in the first round of the Pac-10 Tournament, and no invite to a post-season tournament.
At least the season will be absolutely hilarious.
New Coach: Morongo aficionado Tim Floyd was running an up-and-coming program just last year, one that appeared to be very likely to make a jump into basketball's elite. Then it was discovered that the creator of our blog's title happened have given an envelope filled with $1,000 cash to a handler of O.J. Mayo. So that ended his tenure rather quickly. In the turmoil, we actually hired a decent coach. Kevin O'Neal has a reasonably good track record at developing programs. In the 90's, he coached for Marquette, Tennessee, and Northwestern, enjoying some degree of success at each program. He then transitioned into a career as an NBA assistant, coaching for the Knicks, Pistons, and Pacers, coaching under Jeff Van Gundy and Rick Carlisle. He was the head coach of the Toronto Raptors for one season.
All that just says that Kevin O'Neal has been coaching for a long time and people are willing to hire him. More importantly, he joined Arizona as an assistant coach under Lute Olsen and quickly became the interim head coach after Lute Olson took a leave of absence due to some rather nasty personal issues. When Olson returned, O'Neal was left without a team, and decided (inexplicably) to go to USC. So far, he's only been receiving positive reviews from those who cover the team, so this is all very comforting. It'll be interesting to see how he handles coaching a team largely devoid of talent.
The Team is Largely Devoid of Talent: Most of the talented players USC once had have left. Taj Gibson, Daniel Hackett, and DeMar DeRozen all jetted to play for professional teams. Hackett went to Italy, DeMar went to Canada, and Taj went to "Chicago." Even some other players left for greener pastures - Mamadou Diarra, the least coordinated basketball player I have personally witnessed, left to "hopefully play in France," and Keith Wilkinson is now playing in the Ukraine. And I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I'm missing a couple of players who left - it's hard to keep track of them all. So the cupboard is kind of bare.
Who is left? Well, there's Dwight Lewis, our undisputed star player. Around him is a cast of misfits and incompetents. We have Donte Smith at point guard, the only point guard I've ever seen that has a 50% failure rate at bringing the ball across mid-court. We have Marcus Johnson at the wing, who is an excellent defensive stopper, but has no concept of how to play offense. At forward we have Nikolai Vucevic, who is a great rebounder and shot blocker, but is unable to position himself on offense. At the other forward, we have Alex Stephenson, who has some chance of becoming a decent player, but is completely raw.
Even that thin level of incompetence has absolutely no bench supporting it. The only two recognizable players on the bench are rapper Lil' Romeo, or Percy Miller, and Kasey Cunningham, a poor forward that has probably already met his ceiling. Lil' Romeo might not even be able to play this year, because of some eligibility issues that the NCAA has brought up.
What's the schedule like? In a word, brutal. Thankfully the Pac-10 is stunningly weak this year, or else our conference schedule could be 18 straight games of total pain. As it is, we're only really competitive with doormat Washington State and will likely head in as underdogs against the other 8 teams. Our non-conference schedule was clearly set up in anticipation of a better USC program. The non-conference schedule includes such powerhouses as Texas and Georgia Tech on the road, and quality programs like Nebraska and Tennessee at home. Thankfully, the rest of the teams are cupcakes, but with the current Trojan squad, even cupcakes are dangerous games.
What's the prediction for the season?
9th place in the Pac-10, lose in the first round of the Pac-10 Tournament, and no invite to a post-season tournament.
At least the season will be absolutely hilarious.
Friday, November 13, 2009
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