Inside the Trojans' Huddle: No. 12 USC closes out non-conference with Louisiana, Big Ten play is here with Rutgers

well my first thought is they won the game no shock there uh my second thought was thank god we're done with the exhibition season and we can start to turn our attention to the real stuff um I thought it was a real up and down game.

You know, it's like you want to get excited.

And just when you thought you might be getting there, there was just enough stuff to make you go, geez, come on.

You know what? We got to be a little bit beyond the penalties that were called.

I mean, some of them were the personal foul stuff and that sort of, I mean, for me, it kind of takes away from it.

You know, I look at team discipline and all that sort of stuff.

You know, I thought defensively defensively, There's some good things and not so good things.

I'm sure Gary Patterson thought there wasn't very many good things or a lot of good things because the way SC was run on again, you start to get the impression that maybe it's not just this idea of coaching and that

sort of stuff.

I thought offensively they were okay.

I thought the running game was all right, by my opinion.

I thought Maaba did a Maaba game, which he's been doing.

He gets a good percentage.

I mean, he gets his interception in, which always makes me kind of –

but quarterbacks are going to throw interceptions.

I mean, there's no quarterback that doesn't throw interceptions.

Yeah.

The question is, are they ready after watching Louisiana for Rutgers? I'm sure they are because Rutgers is, you know, we'll talk about Rutgers later, but I'm more concerned about the Louisiana game.

I guess it was acceptable.

That's the way I look at it.

It was inevitable, and I'm glad it's over.

Let's put it that way.

Yeah, this was the final non-conference game, as we mentioned.

It just kind of felt like they did enough to get the passing grade on this one, which is kind of a little disappointing.

I think you wanted to see a more convincing performance, especially on the defensive side.