Andy & Ari On3 - INSTANT REACTION: USC beats LSU in A NAILBITER in Vegas | Can the Trojans play D now?

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

LSU-USC promised to be a thriller and it delivered. Join Andy & Ari on this special edition of the show as the two react to the matchup between Brian Kelly and Lincoln Riley.Want to watch the show instead? Join us on YouTube here! https://youtube.com/live/XREtG5s1ZuA Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey

Welcome to Andy and Ari on three. It's your instant reaction show. We are presented by Wendy's and the sauciest nugget of the night is that I may owe Ari Wasserman $1,000. After two years of thinking, I had won our USC bet. Okay, we'll back up. We made a bet when Lincoln Riley got hired at USC. And Ari said he'll be within the college in the college football playoff within the first three seasons, and I said he won't, and we sat at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas as they failed to tackle anyone from Utah in the Pac-12 championship game, missing their best chance thus far to make the college football playoff, and I was sure after that I was going to win that bet. I was sure all last season I was going to win that bet. I was sure all that, I was going to win that bet. I was sure all last season, I was going to win that bet. I was sure all off season, I was going to win that bet. Ari, I am not so sure now after watching USC beat LSU. Andy, you got to tell the people

that I have offered to pay you 800, 850, even $900 to get out of this bet and save a little money. So I was with you on that. This did not go in any way, shape, or form the way that I thought it was. You know, we see defensive issues at places. We see offensive issues at places. You know, hires get made, promises get made. A lot of talk during the offseason of how much things are going to change, and then a lot of the same shows up the following year I think that we can say with a straight face now here that USC really took it seriously they they hired a new defensive coordinator they

called a hell of a game they arrived at the football they delivered hits they tackled immensely well and it looked like a completely different football team at least defensively than we have become accustomed to seeing from USC so I don't know if they're going to be making the playoff I'm certainly happy that I've got a little bit more leeway than when we made the bet it was a four-team field and the 12-team field had not been introduced yet but this could be depending on how things go a really quality win for a team that is on the on the crux of winning 10 games at the end of the year and has a nice little bit of a resume point so I I don't know that I feel like I won or I'm back in the driver's seat here but I do think that I've got a reason to pay attention now oh absolutely and look we're going to talk about Miller Moss because he was awesome and clearly Lincoln Riley

made the correct choice at quarterback. And again, maybe the old way of doing things where somebody sits behind somebody good and learn some things and then suddenly takes the job and runs with it. Maybe that is an effective way of doing things, but Miller Moss was fantastic. But the defense is the story. I'm watching them make open field tackles that they were never making before. The first series of the game, LSU drives down inside the 10-yard line. And I have no problem with Brian Kelly saying,

go for it on fourth down there. No problem. When you are playing that program, which has been that bad on defense, and you have them on the goal line minutes into the game, you absolutely try to put it in the end zone. And USC stood up and made a stop. And that goal line stand turned out to be the difference in the game because LSU would have been playing defense completely differently had they been up seven with USC having the ball at the end of the game. And it was very impressive. Dantelin did a great job. Clearly, they're tackling better.

They're putting better places. They're using more size-appropriate defensive linemen than Alice Wrench liked to use. And now you change your expectations for this team. Cause if they can play defense, like I've said this on the show over and over and over again, Ari, I'm never worried about Lincoln Riley on offense. Never, never, never. And he showed why tonight, but I always worry about them on defense. And I keep saying, I don't believe I

like I believe he's too smart to let this go it'll screw this up well maybe he did it maybe he was willing to adjust and now they practice in a way that they can have a better defense you know Andy uh I don't know if I want to relitigate the past here, but I was thinking a lot tonight about the column that you wrote from the Pac-12 championship game two years ago, where you basically laid out what had to be done in order for this program to be taken seriously, the way they had to practice, the way that Lincoln Riley may have had to address his coaching situation with Alex Grinch. And after you wrote that column, they retained Alex Grinch for a year. And I just, I don't know if it's just like a bad personal flaw of mine, but I always just try to like think about what could have been. And if they would have just had a defensive coordinator in there that could

have them play defense when they had maybe the most exciting quarterback of the last 10 years on their team, they might've actually had a chance to do something. That said, Miller Moss played an incredible game. There were a few off-platform throws that he made that had me pretty shook. We're talking about 27 to 36 with 378 yards and a touchdown. Very accurate, kept his composure. And we talk so much about who can get the

best transfer quarterback in or who's ready to play right away. And, you know, I think that it's nice to see that somebody was patient and somebody stuck around in a program when they probably didn't have to, earned his coach's trust, got the starting job, and then went out and got maybe one of the three best wins USC has had in the Lincoln Riley area. I think you can make the case this is the best one. Samuel Schneider in the chat with a great comment. This is exactly what I would imagine a lot of USC fans are thinking. I am flabbergasted and so happy as an SC fan, but not sure yet.

Spent two years losing faith. This is huge. And I thought the rhetoric from Lincoln Riley all offseason did not it did not give me a lot of confidence i thought the rhetoric from lincoln riley was kind of similar to the rhetoric from billy napier at florida about well look at what i inherited look how bad that was and that's not acceptable going into year three the difference difference was Lincoln Riley seems to have taken the steps to fix it. Again, we'll see. It's one game and I realize I'm the one who has said we would overreact to this game one way or the other. But that looked like a team that can play defense.

And I will say this before we keep going about LSU I told you this before we got started Ari like if I'm an LSU fan I'm the Alonzo morning gif tonight I'm I'm grumpy but I'm like okay 27 points against what is probably going to be a really good offense that's going to be a better defense than last year uh I think that that's like a stoop point, but I think our friends in Baton Rouge are probably just angry. Oh, no. T-Bob Aber, and I think he's in Vegas. So he and Matt Moscona, and I'm telling you, watch our show now.

You can pick up the replay of theirs, but they do a show normally in Baton Rouge where they go to a cigar bar and get hammered before they do the postgame show. And it results in high comedy when they lose. I guarantee it's high comedy. They're doing it in Vegas right now. I guarantee it's high comedy. Well, I was reading a bunch of tweets about how the stadium was 80% LSU fans and half the casinos ran out of a certain type of bourbon. Cause they all were there drinking it.

I know that they liked the party and they had a good time. Um, but this thing to me here, Andy is, you know, you're not sure what Miller Moss is going to be, but I think this was a really nice reminder too, because it was kind of easy to fall asleep at the wheel while you're focusing the last few years on how terrible their defense was of how loaded they are at the skill positions. Like when you think about the receivers that they have with Hudson

and Zach Branch and Jacoby Lane, like all three of those guys are very, very good players. And then you add like the X factor and then reduce Robinson. I think he only had two catches for about 50 yards tonight, but you can tell he's going to be a mismatch all year long. It's going to be hard to cover that guy. He's big, fast, strong, and certainly going to be playing in the NFL one day. I don't even know if we should use the word good. If they have a competent defense that can get stops at a semi-regular pace and give up 25 points to 30

points a game, I still think that that is going to put USC with this offense in position to win a lot of games that they would have lost otherwise had that 30 points again, a game been closer to the forties or mid forties even. So I really come away from this game. You know, I think on one hand, do we watch two, eight and four teams playing each other tonight? Or on the other hand, do we see the eight and four teams playing each other tonight or on the other hand do we see the resurgence of a usc football program that people thought was dead after they lost caleb williams i'm excited to see how it plays out but i feel cautiously optimistic that usc can hang with just about anybody on their schedule right now and uh funny enough i think we're two or

three weeks away from them heading to the to the big house for a nice little showdown to welcome them to the Big Ten. So, yeah, very, very pleased with what I saw here. And frankly, Andy, surprised. So the schedule says it nicely. But what's interesting is they are going to have to play good defense because they're about to play some very good defenses on the schedule this season. You mentioned Michigan. They go to Ann Arbor on September 21st. They play Penn State in LA on October 12th. They play Nebraska in LA on November 16th. They play Notre Dame in LA on November 30th. Those are all very good defenses. Michigan,

Penn State, and Notre Dame, probably elite defenses. That is going to require USC's defense to be very good in those games because the offense might not be able to put up the kind of points they're going to put up against everybody else. But that's the thing. That's how you win national championships. You create a team that can win in a bunch of ways. Lincoln Riley teams have never been able to win except one way. Well, guess what? They won a 27-20 game against a group of elite athletes that had a really good offense and like USC had an improved defense. That's a different kind of win than you've seen from Lincoln Riley teams in the past. That is evolution. That's what we've been asking for. That's why I always would rant, like, why don't you just ask someone

who's been in an Alabama practice and just do what they do? Well, maybe they are doing what they do. And look, if you watched UCLA play defense last year, they absolutely played tough physical defense. Dan Lynn was their coach. And I asked Lincoln Riley, this is a Big Ten media,

and I said, how much discussion was there dan lynn was their coach and i asked lincoln riley this at big 10 media they said how much discussion was there between you and lynn about how you're going to practice during the hiring process and he said absolutely there were some things that had to be worked out well clearly they're doing what they need to be doing. So it is evolution. And I'm happy to see it because, again, I think Lincoln Riley is too good of a coach to let that blind spot beat him. And if he didn't let that blind spot beat him, if he figured out a way to create a holistic program that can win games in a bunch of different ways, that's a good thing for USC, and it's a fun thing for college football. Yeah, it was a year too late, but also, too, it could have been two years too late or three years too late. So you're in a position right

now where you have a team that is exciting. I came into tonight thinking that USC was just going to be a marginal team this year, and I saw a lot of things in this football game that made me feel cautiously optimistic about their ability to hang in with whoever they're playing. I thought that Miller Moss was better than I probably gave him credit for in my head. The defense was better, obviously, than I would have given them credit for. But the thing that I will say, Andy, and I think you made this point a few years ago and have been making this point repeatedly ever since, the basic fundamentals of good defense, being in the right spots, delivering big hits when you have an opportunity to do so,

tackling soundly, those are all built on the way you practice and the way that you view defense. And I remember watching the USC-Washington game last year, and I think that you view defense. And like, I remember watching the USC Washington game last year. And I think that might've been the worst defensive performance I've ever seen in my entire life in the sport of football at any level. And then tonight, like, I mean, honestly,

like I'm not saying that funny. Like I actually think that that was the worst defensive effort I've ever seen. How many coverage busts were there tonight? Was there one there on that last drive by USC there were a couple but nothing drastic and nothing that that resulted in in a long walk-in touchdown how many times last year when you're watching USC did a wide receiver or a opposing offensive player find open field and could have laid down and read a chapter of a book

and then got back up, caught the pass and walked into the, I mean, I felt like that happened every single week, like just the basic fundamentals of knowing where you need to be. And it sounds so stupid, but like, it's so important. Like it felt like they were in command. It felt like they knew what they were doing, where they, what their jobs were. They were job-oriented, and I thought they were very physical. These are all things that I would not have been able to say a year ago, and any time you can fix that, I mean, I think that the defensive coordinator, Danton Lynn, deserves a lot of credit for the shift in not just being better, but that's a culture shift.

That's not just like here's a new playbook. That's like how you practice, how you show up, how you take pride in what you do. These are all very important tenants to a program that, frankly speaking, probably isn't in a position right now where they're going to be hanging with Georgia anytime soon, but a team that is trying to build something that isn't just a flash in the pan, Lincoln Riley's overrated, what a joke. He has no defense, which is what we were talking about for the last 12, 18 months.

So at the very least, I think if you're a USC fan, regardless of how the season plays out, you probably feel a lot better about the general build because we're not that advanced into the build. Paul in the chat. Now that USC has a competent defense, anything is possible. Well,

I think here's another thing as we lavish the praise on the defense, let's go to the thing that I always praise Lincoln rally for the offense. You mentioned the playmakers, the young playmakers, the sophomore class is loaded. 10 different Trojans caught passes on Sunday night. That is outstanding. Because that tells you, who do you cover?

Zachariah Branch is clearly a human joystick. But if you devote a lot of resources to covering Zachariah Branch, there's four more guys who can burn you. Kyron Hudson, Deuce Robinson. It's a scary thought. Yeah, no, and also too, they all seem to be very unique in their own sense. Deuce Robinson is a tight end-ish type player,

but like Zach Branch is a little bit bigger, bigger bodied. A few of the other receivers are a little bit smaller, more able to get open in space. Like they're very versatile in what they have too. And another thing, Andy, I think we're going to come to find out too that they're running back. Woody Marks is a really, really good, efficient runner. And I know that if you pay attention to the offseason, that this name popped up quite a bit.

But watching him play and seeing him do what he does, I do think that USC, who struggled a lot of times on the ground last year, if it wasn't Caleb Williams running around, adding an effective running game with a guy who runs hard and fights for extra yards does a lot to help the productivity and the versatility of your offense. Yeah. So it's 10 guys who caught a pass. It is six guys who had more than 45 receiving yards. So USC was really a pick your poison offense tonight. And you're right about Woody Marks.

Woody Marks was a good running back at Mississippi State who got stuck in a tough situation. Obviously, Mike Leach passed away. The year of Zach Arnett, they tried to run a different offense with a bunch of guys who were recruited to run the air raid. It was never going to work that way. Now Woody Marks is a more competent offense. I thought USC's offensive line played pretty well.

That that's a unit that has not been that good that needed to get better. Like the, the thing that Lincoln Riley had at Oklahoma, that's been better than what he's had at USC before was the offensive line. If he can have an offensive line that he feels confident in, if they can run that counter and gain five, six yards when they run it, it really does open up everything else. Yeah, yeah. So super excited about where we're headed.

Really good to see a bet that was dead come back to life. Yeah. And it's the point that we made on the podcast over the weekend too the amount of teams that are like appointment television this fall i feel like it's probably higher than it has been in the recent past i mean like you want to be in front of the tv to watch usc now you want to be in front of the tv to watch penn state you want to see what michigan is doing you want to see uh dylan riola see Dylan Riola at Nebraska. Notre Dame is a team that we are excited about. There is a lot of versatile viewing options for the people who love this sport. And then also too, the talent. Does the country know who Zach Branch is mean, I think that most college football fans that are really into the game,

people listening to the show probably do, but like he isn't a household name yet in every single person's living room. And it's like, it seems like that's an inevitability. Yeah. If you play the video game, he is. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's a household name in your house.

Five star player who had like 70 000 uh return yards last year i mean the guy is an incredible watch and there's a lot of very good young skill talent in this in this sport this year and i think that you would be wrong if you did not include him in the top five of whatever list you're making because he is an incredible player and somebody who can bail out a quarterback in very different ways. Yeah. Another guy for USC that I really would like to point out is Jalen Smith because he's a corner.

I feel like every time I looked up, he was making an open field tackle tonight. And that is just not something that, that USC has had. And this is a guy who's been playing at USC it's not like he was imported he's he's been part of their defense and they they figured it out like he figured it out he's doing things that that weren't being done for USC so uh Elias in the chat was mentioning it maybe this was two good teams. Maybe this is two equally flawed teams.

And that is the danger of week one because we don't know exactly what we're seeing. I covered the famous Texas back game against Notre Dame in 2016. And it turned out Texas has just beaten a four and eight Notre Dame team. And Texas was going to go, I believe Texas went five and seven that year.

So we don't know. Right. These may just be equally flawed teams. But watching USC make open field tackles is not something I've seen in the Lincoln Riley era. You remember last year's opener against San Jose State? The one that nobody could figure out how to watch on TV because the Pac-12 network

that basically just put it behind a firewall and it was impossible to figure out. USC gave up a ton of yards in that game against a team that had no business being on the field with them. 28 points. They were only leading 21-14 at halftime, and it just was a very sloppy, terrible defensive effort. So I don't know what LSU is going to be. Frankly, I don't know what USC is going to be when we look back here in five or six weeks. But what I do know is that LSU has dudes.

What I do know is that they're big, strong, fast, and are built as a program to exist on the same field as the teams that we think are going to win the national title this year and who looked like the more physical team to you tonight. mean they both had their moments but I thought that when USC arrived at the football they arrived with power and um you know they did things that I thought were so inherently deeply flawed within the program that it would take more than one off season to fix like I'm frankly like stunned at how much of a difference this was let's talk lsu now does brian kelly need to stop playing in these standalone games he's oh and three in them at lsu

and then his last year at notre dame remember that's when they went to tallahassee on the monday in the monday night game they had a much better team than florida state that year and wound up having to go to overtime with McKenzie Milton playing for Florida State. These are bad for him. They need to play week one on a Saturday and just let their game kind of blend in with the others, even if it's against a good opponent. This is just not working for him. And like we said, we don't know what this means for either team grand scheme. We think we do. It did look like LSU's defense was better.

It looked like Blake Baker was putting the pieces in a better position. But LSU has a chance to rally here. They play Nichols next week. Then they play at South Carolina, which Lenora Sellers is a tough quarterback to contain. So if you're having defensive issues, then we'll see. But South Carolina was in a dogfight with Old Dominion yesterday. So LSU should be able to win that game. UCLA, that's a Big Ten opponent, but not like the one they just lost to.

So really, I don't know. Besides that South Carolina game game we're not going to see much till they get to the old miss game which i feel like that's a bigger game for old miss than lsu because baton rouge has just been such a house of horrors for old miss but now if old miss can hand lsu its second loss with alabama still to go with oklahoma still to go with Oklahoma still to go, then all of a sudden maybe we're, we're talking about something different in that game too. Yeah. You know,

and that's going to be the Superbowl every week for the Ole Miss rebels who have basically gone on all gone all in this off season to try to win the sec and maybe some more. But yeah, I mean the thing that I think is interesting is, is that when LSU made the Brian Kelly hire, it was during that same time where USC made the Lincoln Riley hire

and we were seeing coaches that had what we otherwise would have thought were destination jobs leaving for other jobs. And I think that we all basically understood that Brian Kelly went down to Louisiana because he knew the talent down there and the resources that LSU had and the recruiting ceiling that that program had probably was much higher than some of the restrictions

that he was facing at Notre Dame. He accomplished everything that he needed to and wanted to probably at Notre Dame outside of a national championship. So he wanted to put himself in a position to go win a national championship. And now here we're three years into this and we're losing openers uh the defense was terrible last year and i have to to ask a question because you know we were just in gainsville together covering a florida team but like went how long does brian kelly have at lsu before things start getting uncomfortable for him and i'm not implying that he's going to get fired.

He beat Alabama and won the sec West his first year. So, I mean, he has done something. He had a Heisman trophy winner last year. So do you think that like, it's a rational to think that LSU fans are going to become tired of him this year? Well,

you use the word rational and LSU fans. So yeah, that's true. Those words don't go together. Like LSU right now i can guarantee you want want him fired into the sun do you not just fired off the job rational to be impatient with him yeah um no i don't think it is. Okay. Now, if they go six and six this year. Yeah. Okay.

We can talk about that. But if there are another nine and three and it's a few bounces to the ball, like this is a one possession game. No, I think he's got you there. And you look at the way they're recruiting, you you look at the the dj pickets of the world and the bryce underwoods and some of the other people that are that are coming in that 2025 class like that's what lsu classes are supposed to look like so i think he's he's getting them where they need to go but again if they like if they go six and six we'll have a

different conversation about that but if they're if he's won nine games again and is going to a bowl game trying to win a tenth, I don't have a problem with that. Yeah, I'm just reading the chat, and I know that people are really upset. If you're an LSU fan after that game, emotions run high. But I have seen a lot of Brian Kelly mockery on the Internet today, and it was a little bit higher than I'm usually accustomed to seeing with him, especially considering the fact of, of the things that he accomplished at his previous stop.

So I just like, you're suggesting Brian Kelly mockery is something new. No, no. I just mean like too much time talking about talking about the accents or the bloodshot face. I'm talking about like nine and three jokes and like not being good at his job. Like all the other stuff.

Trust me. I'm very aware of the, of the twang situation, but like, it's just, you know, it's a weird sport and LSU fans probably aren't being like, yeah, we won the sec West a few years ago. That's what we, you know, it's a weird sport and LSU fans probably aren't being like, yeah, we won the sec West a few years ago. That's what we, you know what I mean?

Like, and I'm not saying I'm not diminishing the accomplishment. They demand national titles. He's not there to win the sec West. He's there to do bigger, better things. And, um, going into year four now, I mean, Hey, it's still early. It's 12 team playoff. You never know. And I really think that we should be talking a little bit about Garrett Going into year four now, I mean, hey, it's still early. It's a 12-team playoff. You never know. And I really think that we should be talking a little bit about Garrett Nussmeier because I think we saw some stuff out of him that makes me excited about what he could be one day.

Heck, yeah. And that's always a good thing. So, you know, very interesting situation for LSU. I thought they were going to win this game. I thought that they were going to be much better than they were a year ago. And it's just tough to watch a team that is so prideful and so well built and have so much resources struggle to win on these neutral sites the way that they have. Well, I thought Nussmeyer looked great. He

was 29 to 38, 304 yards, two TDs. The interception was obviously in desperation mode at the very end of the game. When John emory came into the game that's when things changed for lsu offensively so perhaps that is different going forward because if john emory was was getting carries earlier in the game would the game have gone differently like would they have scored when he was carrying the ball it was really the only time where i felt like lsu had the physicality advantage. Right. He was running very hard. He was running very angry.

And you didn't see that from LSU's other backs. So presumably he will be playing full games from this point forward. And if he is, then does that change the math on some of these things? We'll see. We'll see.'ll see but i thought lsu's offensive line would control this game more than it did and allow them to run the ball better than they did and that is a credit to usc's defensive line and linebackers that they did a fabulous job playing against some of the best offensive tackles in the country and a just generally very good offensive line. And USC stood up to them.

You know, LSU did gain some yards on the ground. They, you know, they gained, they gained 117 yards on the ground, but four and a half yards of carry. You could probably live with when, when you are throwing the ball the way you're throwing it on the other side and you're getting stops at opportune times it's interesting because the the numbers look really great for the lsu offense but think about how many times that they just didn't convert third downs yeah yeah you know you you're got to a point in that game where USC kept not cashing in on the red zone, and it turned out that LSU left a few drives out there that cost them the game. It was them that didn't convert enough. Yeah.

Well, that was a really fun first college football weekend. It's not over yet. We've still got Florida State Boston College on Monday night, but we will have another show even before that. Our new regular weekday schedule begins tomorrow. I realize it's a holiday, but we're sports writers. We don't take Labor Day off. Monday through Thursday, 9.30 a.m. Eastern, Ari and I will be with you tomorrow. Monday is a pick show. We got games to pick for week two like texas michigan i can't i believe this is here i gotta tell you this is amazing ari i am really digging the monday

pick though show thing like that's gonna be fun it's like because you you get through a weekend and like when it was a weekend that was as eventful as this one, it feels disappointing that it's over because it was so fun and there was so much to watch. And then you wake up Monday morning and you're already like, let's go. What's next week? And you wet the beak a little bit for what's coming around the corner. So I'm super excited to get up early with you and talk some more ball and really happy that we're going to be doing it every day. So I can't wait. That's right.

So Monday through Thursday, 930 p.m. I'm sorry, 930 a.m. Eastern Time. And then Saturday nights, 1130 p.m. Eastern Time, where we go through all the games, all the big action. But yeah, you got that little hit of dopamine when I sent you the list of the games we're picking in the morning. I know you did.

No, I know. I can't wait. I cannot wait. This is going to be a beautiful thing. We will talk to you in the morning.