Petros Papadakis
USC entered this college football season with expectations of championships and top individual honors. Instead, the Trojans are limping to the finish line.
The disappointing 7-4 season has once again raised questions about the head coaching abilities of Lane Kiffin.
Petros Papadakis, a former USC standout and current FOX college football analyst, says this season was about as bad as it could have been.
“I think it’s been an utter failure. I think that you can say that very clearly it has been a disappointment and it’s been a failure,” Papadakis told the 110 Sports Podcast. “They were not overrated, they underachieved.
“This is the exact same team basically that played so well down the stretch last year that people were saying, ‘Wow this team could be playing the best football in America.’”
USC did finish last season on a roll and it got even better when Matt Barkley announced he would return. Since then, and after an offseason of “unfinished business” comments, you could argue it has slowly gone downhill.
“If they lost to UCLA, which is a rival, and they lost to Oregon everybody would say, ‘That’s too bad, we thought they would do better,’” Papadakis said. “But losing to Stanford and losing down in Tucson, those were not acceptable for that football team.
“They started the season as number one, and now they’re battling San Jose State for ‘also receive votes in the Top 25.’ So, that’s one of the most disappointing seasons in the history of USC football to start out number one.”
It seems odd to think about USC in the light of being doom and gloom, but this was a season of letdowns for fans of the school. The past few months have not only been filled with losses, but with weird stories about players switching jerseys mid-game and student managers deflating game balls. It all adds to the pressing short-term issues for the program.
The swirling rumors and questions around Kiffin will not settle down. With a potential loss this weekend, USC is headed into territory where things could go from bad to worse, although athletic director Pat Haden has said Kiffin will return.
“I’m not sure what they are going to do with Lane Kiffin or how they will tweak the staff,” Papadakis said about the rumors. “They do have two more years with the sanctions. He has navigated that pretty well.
“With Matt Barkley out, I think they have a built-in excuse for the Notre Dame game and I don’t think it matters. But five losses after they lose to Notre Dame, with the potential sixth loss in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl or wherever USC is headed; when you started out number one, that might be one of the biggest collapses in USC history.”