Why You Shouldn't Get to Discouraged about Saturday

This post would be a lot easier if Curran hadn't have gotten his hand up and Garcia had thrown for 320 yards instead of 313 but that's not how things turned out. Still there are some reasons to come away from this game optimistic. First, Steven Garcia had a career night with 313 yds, 2 td's (and two more that were called back) against 1 int, and showed poise leading a come back on the road in the SEC against a ranked team. On top of that he was ticked of with himself after the loss, “I can't even talk right now, I'm so (ticked)” and “I don't think I played well enough, it's kind of haunting me right now, the last play”. If were going to break this cycle of mediocrity we need to develop a culture that doesn't accept mediocrity, that plays to win rather than to just put up a good effort. This culture is developing on both sides of the ball. Take Norwood's post game quote, right after the defensive coordinator gave him an out explaining the defense's missed assignments were because Gathers and Peppers were out forcing USC to play a 3 man front, Norwoord said, “We gotta get right, just plan and simple. You can sit here and say it's X's or O's. But we've got to go out and make it happen”.

Still the main reason that USC fans should be optimistic is that we have seen the potential of this team. If we can combine the two efforts (the D against NCST and the O against UGA) we could play with just about any college football team. Combine the young talent, a potential quarterback, and a strong (young) defense with a developing winning mentality and you could make a case that the ole ball coach may finally be turning around this team. Now I don't want to get carried away, if last week a win was a win then this week a loss is still a loss and I don't think this is a 10 win season or anything but 8 games and a bowl win to top it off isn't unrealistic. And hey, at the risk of being “that guy”, why not next year? Lots of young talent, UF will (hopefully) have a drop off, UT is still a few years away, and we have shown are ability to play with UGA over the decade, dare I even say it?