First-and-10: The key critiques and takeaways from USC's latest loss

**Every week, Tajwar Khandaker delivers his 10 most glaring critiques, observations and assessments of the USC football team. As usual, the Trojans provided plenty of fodder in their 15-14 loss to Cal on Saturday.**

Now 10 games through the season, I’m not going to hold back on this anymore. I have not been impressed by what I’ve seen from JT Daniels so far. Yes, he’s had some nice flashes and, yes, he’s still only 18 and a freshman, but the truth is that I have yet to come away from one of his performances and be sold on him as a legitimate QB1. This latest performance encapsulated my worries perfectly.

Daniels looked to be on early in the contest, slinging the ball to the tune of two touchdowns and 147 yards in the first half. The going was easy -- he didn’t have to make many tough throws or difficult reads as he threw mostly slants, screens, and hitches on the way to a 75-perfect halftime completion rate. However, the second half was a different story.

Daniels once again looked inaccurate, unable to make reads and devoid of the necessary arm strength to make some crucial throws as he ended the second half with a lowly 33 passing yards and a costly interception. Statistics be damned, there’s an intangible “it” you always want to see from quarterbacks. With the ball multiple times in the fourth quarter only down by a point, I thought I’d finally see Daniels show me that he had “it." He didn’t.

I’ve already griped about this at length, but man, has it been painful watching center Toa Lobendahn this year. There is not a single excuse for being so spectacularly unable to snap the football -- it should be the easiest part of playing the position. He botched a number of snaps Saturday night, but the one that sailed over Daniels' head for a safety like a Super Bowl 48 opening play flashback was the worst yet. Those two points ended up being the difference in a 1-point loss -- not even to consider the massive implications it had on momentum and field position.

Clay Helton vehemently defended Lobendahn postgame, stating at one time that he had given 73 good snaps last night and only one bad one. That statement was neither true nor was it rational. There is no reason for Toa to be starting there anymore -- he shouldn’t have been for a while. Yet, the reality is he probably will be till this season ends.

After missing a couple of weeks with injury, Olaijah Griffin finally got some action at cornerback in a live game -- and promptly got called for a pass interference penalty and burned for a touchdown. But that’s okay. Corner is one of the hardest positions to adjust to at the college level. Almost no one comes in and dominates at that position right away. Griffin has shown the tools to be a legit cover guy, and he’s shown some flashes of how he can put it together. A rough performance in limited reps in his first game back from injury is nothing to panic about.

After Iman Marshall got called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after heading over to the Cal bench to jaw with the coaches (that’ll get ya every time), the officiating crew announced that No. 8 had received his second unsportsmanlike penalty of the game and would thus be disqualified from the contest. Only one problem -- the first unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was on fellow No. 8, Amon-Ra St. Brown. The refs would later clarify on their mistake and no one was ejected, but the inability of Pac-12 refs to get the smallest things right will never cease to put a smile on my face.

After hardly playing the whole season, fifth-year senior Jonathan Lockett has been thrust into the starting nickelback role these past few weeks as Ajene Harris slid into a starting safety spot due to injury. To my pleasant surprise, Lockett has actually been quite good -- he closes on the ball fast, tackles well and does a good job of generally being aware of his responsibilities. He turned in another strong performance last night with 3 solo tackles and a pass deflection. It’s hard to see how he wasn’t given playing time earlier in the year, especially with the well documented struggles of the other cornerbacks on the roster.

If you asked me Friday, I would’ve told you the odds of Jacob Lichtenstein being one of my top performers from this game were lower than those of Jimmy Butler becoming a 76er. Somehow, some way on Sunday morning both those things are true. After mostly being a non-factor the whole year, Lichtenstein suddenly looked like the best player on the defensive line, eating up double teams and shedding blocks like it was no big deal. Officially, he finished the night with 5 tackles, a tackle for loss and a pass deflection. Too little too late in the season? Perhaps. But production is production; if this isn’t just a one-time fluke and Lichtenstein has more in the tank than we gave him credit for, he could be a nice piece for this defense going forward.

Since it’ll get lost amidst everything else that happened in the Coliseum on Saturday night, I want to make a point in singling out Ced Ware’s performance. He delivered when called upon, finishing the night with 103 yards on 16 carries, a rate of 6.4 yards per carry. He was the one who ignited the Trojan offense in the first half, providing the team's biggest play of the night on a 44 yard scamper up the right sideline that put USC in position to score its first points from only a few yards out. He converted a number of critical third downs for the Trojans down the stretch and sacrificed his body trying to prevent the safety in the third quarter.

There are lots of things wrong with this team, but Ced Ware is not one of them. The guy plays his heart out on every snap and has the talent to match -- it’s always nice to see him get rewarded for it on the stat sheet.

Tyler Vaughns was everywhere for the Trojans, serving as Daniels’ favorite (only?) target as he reeled in 8 catches for 91 yards and 2 touchdowns. They may not have been the most explosive of plays, but his steadiness and consistency were huge for the Trojans as he led them down the field time and time again. He caught some flak this year, and rightfully so, but he came to play last night through the entirety of the game -- even when it seemed like many of his teammates lost focus.

There are lots of ways to get a young receiver going. You can get the ball in their hands early and often with short screens and slants to get their confidence running, you can take some deep shots at them and give them a chance to make some big plays, you can give them some sweeps. Now I don’t have statistics to back me up here, but I think the least effective way to get a young receiver going is to target them just 1 time in a game. It’s incredulous to me that after his breakout performance last week and with the continued absence of Michael Pittman the Trojans did not try more to get the ball into Devon Williams’ hands.

With Pittman gone, Williams’ rare combination of size and speed make him the toughest athletic matchup on the offense; not trying to get him involved makes no sense. It’s an unthinkable way to go about things, and that applies to both the coaches and JT himself.

There’s been a lot of griping about USC not throwing to the tight ends, and most of that has been directed to the coaching staff. Although there are innumerable issues to cover when discussing the coaching staff, this one shouldn’t be put on them -- this has to be put on Daniels. Last night, he threw to his tight ends twice for 28 yards, more than in most weeks. However, they were open on short routes and a few crossers multiple times throughout the game -- Daniels just wouldn’t look to them. His tendency to lock onto receivers keeps him from noticing the 230-pound-plus targets he has running free underneath.

That’s on him. It’s not like the coaches were designing plays for the tight ends to run routes that would never get open. If you still don’t believe me, look at Jack Sears’ lone start -- he threw 3 completions to Josh Falo for 37 yards, or more than Daniels has in any game this season.