For those of you who aren't familiar with how I write these wrap-ups, let me give you an idea. I tape every game, and chart every play to see who did things right and who did things wrong. I put together some different stats than you would see in a normal box score. I grade each position group as well, because frankly, the guys that do it in the local media don't know what they should be looking for. I try to look at it as a coach would as far as being critical. Players should always be looking to improve, and coaches will find things on the film that need to improve. The first one of these is free content, but the rest will be premium, because they require some elbow grease to compile.

What a great way to start the season. The Trojans surpassed my expectations and absolutely killed a good team. The scary part is that there is still plenty of room to improve, especially offensively.

Here are some good stats.

1. Auburn rushing: 36 carries, 43 yards. Incredible.

2. +3 in turnover margin. The first two stats are the reason that SC won so easily.

3. The most incredible start of the game: Auburn averaged only .17 yards per first down play!!!! That is by far the lowest I've seen that stat since I started keeping it in 2001.

4. Six sacks for -42 yards for the Trojans.

5. Auburn needed an average of 9.1 yards to convert on third down. In other words, Auburn was basically at 3rd and nine all day.

6. Auburn converted only 20% of its third downs. Hard to do better when you can't get yards on first down and when you're constantly in 3rd and nine.

7. 4 for 4 in the red zone.

8. Ryan Killeen: three for three. Great!

9. Auburn averaged only 18.5 yards per kickoff return, 6.5 per punt return. The coverage teams did their job.

10. Auburn had 11 rushes (non-sacks) of no gain or less.

11. Auburn never got any closer than SC's 33 yard line.

12. Auburn only got one sack.

Here are some bad ones.

1. The Trojans converted only 27% of their third downs because...

2. on average, SC needed 8.4 yards to convert on third down because...

3. SC averaged only 4.75 yards per first down because...

4. most importantly, SC had TWELVE rushes of no gain or less. That's abysmal.

5. The Trojans rushed for only 84 yards when you discount the last drive, which was garbage time. AU has a good D, but the Trojans have to do better than that.

Here are the position grades. My grades are not on the curve. Some may seem harsh, but when you go back and look at the tapes and rewind plays several times, you see things that you don't see when you first watched the game.

QUARTERBACK: I'm going to do what many have said that you shouldn't do: compare Matt Leinart to Carson Palmer. I'm doing that eventually, that's where the coaches want him to be, and what he is striving to be himself. One can't expect him to play like Plamer early, but what can be expected is for Leinart to execute. In general, Matt did a good job of doing just that. The coaches wanted him to take care of the ball, and with the exception of a terrible decision in which a lineman alnost got an INT when Matt threw the ball instead of taking a sack, he did just that. He got the ball out quickly, and for the most part threw to the right guy. He was fairly efficient, but there is a ton of room for improvement. Of his 13 incompletions, 10 were the result of poor throws. That's too high of a percentage, and the biggest problem was accuracy. That is to be expected in a guy's first game, but that doesn't mean that the staff won't try and correct him when they watch the film, especially since on most plays, he had plenty of time to throw. If Carson would have played a game like this, fans would have wondered what was wrong with him. However, there are some circumstances that raise Leinart's grade. First, the running game was hardly outstanding, putting pressure on Matt to perform. Second, the gameplan was very conservative, making it harder to loosen up the defense for the short passing game. I'm happy with the way that Matt played, but I expect him to be better this week. GRADE: B-

WIDE RECEIVERS: A very workmanlike game. The only true drop came from Mike Williams, and that was a throw that was somewhat behind him. Mike had a very good game, and continues to show his strength by dragging defensive backs after contact. The other guys were pretty quiet, but they did what they were supposed to do. Dominique Byrd had a nice receiving debut, but look for more on him in the offensive line section. Once again, the gameplan kept this group from being as dominant as it can be. They were solid, and did what they were told to do. GRADE: B+

RUNNING BACKS: These guys showed their youth. The pass blocking was good except for the one sack, and it would have been tough for LenDale White to carry out his assignment, since the path of the play action moved him away from the defensive lineman who made the play. There were some nice runs, but both Hershel Dennis and Reggie Bush had moments where they did too much dancing. Dennis had an OK game, but it was nothing special. Poor Reggie seemed to have a blocking breakdown every time he touched the ball, but Reggie needs to learn that he can't cutback every time there is a blocking breakdown. Todd Blackledge properly pointed out that you can get away with in high school but not on the college level. The backs were at their best when they just came straight forward. Chauncey Washington did so very well at the end of the game, but the defense had quit by then. Hershel Dennis and Reggie Bush are effective with their own styles, but in some situations, I would like to see them be more physical. GRADE: C+

OFFENSIVE LINE: Keep in mind when reading this that Auburn has a very good defense, and their defense played well on Saturday. That being said, I would have liked to have seen more from our running game. 30 carries for 84 yards (discounting the last drive) was barely better than last year's game. Dominique Byrd did not have a good day blocking. Norm Katnik got beat a few times. When Vandermade went out, Travis Watkins really struggled. Even the normally rock solid Winston Justice missed an assignment. The pass blocking though was very good. The only sack was just the resuly of a good defensive call and play. Leinart had plenty of time to throw. The penalties were minimal. That being said, I want to see more from a veteran group, and that means running the ball better than we did on Saturday. GRADE: C+

OFFENSIVE COACHING: I thought that Norm Chow called an excellent game. We were conservative, but in this game, the situations caused for us to be conservative. When we ran the ball on 3rd and 16 on our own 20 with about 3:30 minutes to go in the first half, I was very happy, because Norm saw what everyone saw. The only way that Auburn was going to win the game was if we screwed up, so he called the game to keep us from screwing up. At the same time, when given the opportunity, he went for the death blow. After finally calling the play action waggle play that Byrd ran for the big play (he set that play up all game), he called another play action play, and went deep for Williams. The play didn't work, but it sent a message to the other side that this game was about to be over, and Auburn's coaches responded by panicking. Despite being down only 13 points early in the third, Auburn's next two drives contained only five pass plays: two incompletions, one short completion, one medium range one that ended up a fumble, and a sack. Chow did what a coach is supposed to do. He looked at his personnel, looked at the game situation, and called plays accordingly. GRADE: A

DEFENSIVE LINE: An absolutely dominant performance without any let up at all. Mike Patterson had one of the greatest games I've ever seen from a defensive tackle. If I were the center, I would have sat in the locker room and cried after the game. Shaun Cody had a very solid return to the field, getting a sack and tipping a pass. BKU was BKU, and Nazel was Nazel, both pressuring the passer and getting sacks. But the amazing part about this group is that it doesn't end with the starters. LaJuan Ramsey had a three play stretch in the fourth quarter in which he forced Campbell to scramble out of the pocket, sacked Campbell and forced a fumble that Nazel recovered, and killed the center to stop Williams for a five yard loss. Frostee Rucker also had a nice debut, deflecting a pass and pressuring Campbell. (Who didn't pressure Campbell?) The only negative from this group is that an inexperienced Rucker twice lost contain and allowed Campbell to scramble for first downs, but that is hardly enough to stain what was a basically perfect performance from the best defensive line in the nation. GRADE: A+

LINEBACKER: I told a lot of people before the season that I thought that we had upgraded at middle linebacker, and Lofa Tatupu proved that by turning in the second best performance on the team, next to Patterson. Double digit tackles, a hand in two sacks, not a single recognition mistake. What a debut! How did this kid end up at Maine out of high school? Grootegood had another dominant performance, getting a sack, forcing a fumble, and just generally wreaking havoc all over the field. Melvin Simmons made a few mistakes that led to some good runs, but he had an overall solid game. The DL manhandled the Auburn OL, and the LBs confused them. GRADE: A

SECONDARY: Nobody talked about this group, but I thought they did an excellent job. When run support was necessary, it was there. Nobody got behind the group. Darnell Bing had two big plays in his first game ever. Kevin Arbet and Will Poole were outstanding. Poole should have been credited with a forced fumble on a huge hit on Williams. Nunn had one screw-up on a stop route when he allowed the receiver to get way too much seperation, but their wasn't much room out there for receivers, and when there was, it was the result of a picked-up blitz. Jason Leach had the hit of the night when he nearly beheaded Courtney Taylor, sending a message. This group started the game off with the big turnover, and helped to harass Jason Campbell with good coverage. GRADE: A

DEFENSIVE COACHING: It's easy to call defenses when your DL is destroying the other team, but Carroll didn't let up on Auburn, throwing another montage of fronts and blitz packages at Auburn. He threw something completely different at Auburn that they didn't see last year, and the Tigers had zero answer. What really confused Auburn's OC was that Carroll used the free and strong safeties interchangeably, even putting Leach on the line of scrimmage as he did with Polamalu last year. Grootegood, Leach and Bing were moved all over the place, making recognition very difficult. There was some experimentation with the zone blitzing scheme, which yielded mixed results. However, the confusion created by a completely different scheme than Auburn saw last season proves why even Notre Dame fans think that SC "is the best coached team in the nation." GRADE: A

SPECIAL TEAMS: Another area that no one is talking about. The Tigers got nothing on returns. Ryan Killeen was perfect. After a rocky start, Tom Malone came out smelling like a rose 45 yards per punt, including a 71 yard rocket launcher, and two punts pinned inside the 20. The Trojans did not have many opportunities for returns because of poor Auburn punting and good coverage. The only real mess ups were a 25 yard punt by Malone in the first quarter and a missed tackle by Justin Wyatt that caused an 11 yard punt return, but overall, a great performance from a much maligned group. GRADE: A-

Questions, comments or info? Contact me at tvenegas@msn.com.

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