The time for Clancy Pendergast is now. His defense needs to step up and completely reinvent itself. With all the Linebackers we have now we should have fresh support in the second layer and bodies flying off the edges. This team has strength and speed. Very athletic on the defensive front and it’s time for Clancy to step up and let the kids play. Turn them loose and build depth through minutes on the field.
Last season and for that matter the last few years we have not seen the type of consistent dominating defense that championship programs deliver. Top 20 Power Five programs win championships on the defensive side of the ball not the offensive side. Just go talk to the Oregon Ducks and all those Chip Kelly disappointing finishes with those amazing creative offensive efforts. Doesn’t win championships. The Trojans and specifically Clancy Pendergast must sharpen their deliverable. The talent is there. The experience is a bit questionable in key areas but that’s experience again. Let them play and let them learn by mistakes they make and correct them.
Whether or not Graham Harrell has an explosive offense won’t matter much if we are just trading TD possessions. We have to be able to shut it down from the defense and turn the ball over to the offense with good field position. After the last few years it was pretty clear that the defense was struggling when Porter Gustin was not on the edge. Imagine if Clancy had pulled him out against OSU in the 4th quarter with the game in-hand. Imagine that for a moment with all those under 10 score losses that we all saw last year. Can’t play it again but we can review what worked and what didn’t work.
There is so much potential for this years team and in my opinion if Clancy Pendergast and his staff come out flying all over the field athletically then we should begin to see some very interesting results.
Fight On