USC defensive coordinator Alex Grinch has been nothing if not consistently candid and blunt when it has come to assessing his defense, its performance, his performance, etc.
And so after USC's too-close-for-comfort 41-35 win over Cal last Saturday -- a game in which the Trojans gave up 21 fourth-quarter points to threaten what was a comfortable 20-point lead -- Grinch didn't try to hide his frustration.
When asked afterward about a fourth-down stop the Trojans made in the second quarter, he said he didn't remember it, looking down to the ground. That wasn't what he wanted to talk or think about in that moment.
He was far more indulgent when he asked what changes or fixes could be made over a short week, with USC playing again against Colorado on Friday night.
"You're 10 weeks into the season, which as soon as I say that you want to vomit at some the issues we have 10 weeks into the season," he said in one of his frankest responses of the fall. "So I don't know if some of these things we can get fixed in 48 hours, 72 hours. We had 11 months to do a lot of things around here and we got five days to get it right for next weekend. We've all got to feel a sense for urgency for everything we do."
As frustrated as USC fans may be with a defense that has strung together its three worst performances of the season, no one feels it more intensely than Grinch.
Since a 30-14 win over Washington State back on Oct. 8 -- after which USC ranked 27th nationally in scoring defense (18.67 points per game), 47th in total defense (351.5 yards per game), tied for second in turnovers forced and first in sacks -- the Trojans have proceeded to give up 562 yards and 43 points to Utah, 543 yards and 37 points to Arizona and 469 yards and 35 points to Cal. That was the second-most yards and points the Golden Bears' hibernating offense had managed all season.
USC is now 60th nationally in scoring defense (25.22 PPG) and 96th in total defense (409.2 YPG), which is worse than the 408.9 yards per game the Trojans allowed last season to set an ignominious record as the worst in program history.
