Lackluster Hyundai Sun Bowl performance leaves USC program at a loss
Updated: January 2, 2013, 10:21 AM ET
By Steve Bisheff | WeAreSC
http://insider.espn.go.com/colleges/usc/football/story/_/id/8801729/usc-trojans-crossroads-disappointing-sun-bowl-season

The difficult part now isn't looking back. It is looking ahead.

If you are a USC football fan today, how can you be excited? How can you look forward to 2013 when the tattered remains of 2012 can still be seen, blowing in the sad aftermath of those gusty winds in the Sun Bowl?

Unless Athletic Director Pat Haden has a sudden change of heart, what you saw in El Paso is what you're likely to get back in L.A. -- a once-proud program in sad disarray.
Lane Kiffin said he was "very surprised" at how poorly his team performed in that 21-7 nightmare. He shouldn't have been. This coach and his players have underperformed all season long. The only history they made was the wrong kind, becoming the first preseason ranked No. 1 team to finish out of the AP rankings since 1964.

These Trojans spent the last day of the year the same way they spent all their previous days, looking unemotional and unprepared. The real rambling wrecks turned out to be from USC, not Georgia Tech, making Monday no different from all those previous Saturdays.

So, you have to wonder now, how does it get turned around? Kiffin says he will evaluate everything. Great. He had a full month to evaluate what he should change to get ready for his first bowl game at USC, and we all saw how that turned out.

The coach says he will just go out and "recruit the No. 1 class in America." That sounds good, too, but three members from what appeared to be a great class already have decommitted, and you can't help but wonder, after they watched that debacle from El Paso, how many more might follow in the next few weeks.

The poster boy for everything bad that happened in Texas was Max Wittek. The redshirt freshman quarterback, who flashed some potential in his first start against Notre Dame, was simply awful this time. He was wild, erratic and flustered -- not a good combination.

But about halfway through the game, you started to feel sorry for him. He looked lost and confused, and, at least on television, it appeared that Kiffin never tried to console or soothe him, or offer any sort of attempted encouragement.

That's the thing with this coach, though. As long as he insists on calling the plays, he remains isolated from the players and, in turn, any emotional connection is lost. It is hard to be there for the kids when your eyes never leave your play chart.

Now that he'll be forced to look up, though, he has to wonder what becomes of the Trojans' quarterback situation for the future. Wittek will be listed as the frontrunner, but his stay at the position might prove as short as Aaron Corp's was a couple of years ago.

It wouldn't surprise me now if the job was Max Browne's to lose. The Gatorade National Player of the Year from Washington, Browne will be enrolling in time for spring practice. He has the size, the arm and, from all accounts, the poise to come right in and take over. But he will still be a true freshman, and no matter how talented he is, it is extremely difficult to learn quick enough to play effectively right away at this level.

Whatever happens at quarterback, that's just part of the puzzle. A new defensive coordinator will be hired, but there is no guarantee the Trojans will be able to defend the spread offense any better than they have.

Really, though, the problems run much deeper. This is more about the overall culture of the program. An inferior team beat USC up on both sides of the line of scrimmage in Texas, something that happened far too often throughout 2012.
Under Kiffin, the physicality has been lost. This is a team that used to pride itself on being stronger and tougher than the other guys. Not anymore.

Now the opposition routinely overpowers the Trojans physically. The way Stanford did. The way Notre Dame did. The way even a mediocre Georgia Tech did.

The people who think Haden doesn't see this are wrong. I've been around him enough to know he understands what is happening. He played for John McKay and is acutely aware of the history and tradition associated with the program.

He didn't hire Kiffin, but he admires the coach's work ethic and seems reluctant to do anything that might affect the strong recruiting pipeline he has developed. Of course, whether those recruits can be coached any better than the current players remains to be seen.

In the meantime, my advice to all those suffering Trojans fans is to look up young Browne's eye-popping high school highlights on YouTube.

At this point, it might be the only thing capable of getting them even a little excited.
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