On this episode of the Peristyle Podcasts hosts Ryan Abraham and Coach Harvey Hyde are back together discussing the near epic collapse in Boulder where the Trojans had a 41-14 lead and had to hold on and recover an onsides kick to escape with a 48-41 victory. 

Ryan was at Folsom Field for the game and the 100 year old stadium had some issues trying to accommodate the over 1,000 media requests, the most for a game in CU history. The Coach Prime effect is real and while the Buffaloes media relations people tried their best, the program grew too much and too fast to handle the wave of publicity that Deion Sanders brought to Boulder. 

The game itself was unsatisfying for everyone, USC fans were upset that the defense failed to slow down Colorado late in the game and Buffs fans saw a chance for victory fall just short. Coach Hyde talks about how winning is the most important thing, but you want to be able to be proud of your performance and it would be hard to do that after this game.

Both Coach and Ryan got Cotton Bowl vibes from this one, with Colorado nearly duplicating the improbable comeback Tulane had back in January. Coach feels USC got lucky to get out of there with a win after dominating early before everything went to heck. He also felt it was a shame no one was talking about Caleb Williams and his 403 yard, 6 touchdown performance, because the defense was so bad. Williams through five games has 24 total touchdowns and last season at this time he only had 15. 

The majority of the episode discusses USC’s defensive struggles and Coach Hyde thinks opposing offenses are doing a good job of exploiting the Trojans weaknesses, luring defenders up before hitting them over the top for explosive plays. There are a lot of areas for concern but Coach specifically talks about the excessive cushion given in the red zone being one of the major flaws. He also thinks tackling is still a big problem as well as the inside linebacker play. He wants to see more people flying around to the football and he sees guys that aren’t and wants to know why others are not in there showing what they can do.

Most importantly Coach wants to see Lincoln Riley get more personally involved in this defense and address some of the deficiencies. He would also like to see offensive analyst Kliff Kingsbury get involved and do some self scouting of the defense and tell Alex Grinch where he thinks the holes are and where improvements can be made. 

At the end of the day with this collection of talent on defense, the whole is less than the sum of its parts and that is on coaching. Both Ryan and Coach Hyde think USC could have a much better defense with the talent assembled, so it's time to make that happen or get someone who can.

As usual the guys answer listener questions via email, text message and voicemail to finish up the show.

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Make sure you check out USCFootball.com for complete coverage of this USC Trojan football team. 

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