Oh it was

Quote
JamesJM
My son used to live in Oregon... game days were.. "Spectacular".

Entire towns literally closed up shop for game days. I had never give Oregon football much thought until experiencing it live and now I follow them with gusto.

I've never been to the Stanford/Notre Dame game but my son and some of his friends have been many times.... they report that it's as 'festive' an event as one can attend. - JamesJM

Yeah the whole the college gameday experience is truly unique. "Festive" is a fantastic description. It was homecoming week too so it was an extra "festive" atmosphere. With all the school tradition, the student section, the Trojan band, the Trojan alumni ( Trojan Mom's and Dad's, Trojan grandparents etc), the chants and Traveller bring an unrivaled atmosphere to a football gameday experience. We had a blast. Very friendly, polite, and knowledgeable fans in general too. I happened to be wearing my Rams hat to the game and had several really good conversations after being stopped by many of the Trojan/Rams fans in attendance.




This commentary is probably for another thread but oh well...

I can't help but see the parallel between the decision Helton made to go with "experience" over young "talent" by naming Max Browne as his starting QB over Sam Darnold to begin the season. That decision almost cost him his job and the Trojans season. Ever since he named Sam Darnold as the starter the Trojans offense has been off to the races. All of a sudden by inserting the young QB with ++ talent, the running game has opened up, the passing game is now a threat to all levels of the field and getting spread around to the playmakers. Darnold is much better in the pocket and gets the ball out faster, which in turn has made the OL much better in pass pro. His accuracy has allowed the tight window throws and RAC, along with way less drops. Even though he's a young inexperienced kid, he has that rare "it" factor to remain calm and cool under live fire. Guys like that you don't see them really thrive until they are put in live action like that and under diress. That stuff never shows up in practice. You either have "it" or you don't it can't be coached. This is a case in point why you always start "talent" over experience at least to see if they have the "it" factor. If you are lucky enough to have both qualities look out. And there is nothing other than injury that should keep one of those guys out of the starting lineup come gameday.

I follow the Trojan recruits and local HS kids pretty closely so I was privy to Darnold being special pretty early on the talent curve especially when compared to Browne. After watching pretty much every single throw in TC by both Keenum and Goff, its not a stretch to say there's an even bigger talent disparity between Goff and Keenum.

Too bad Fisher can't look at what happened in a very similar situation in Trojan land.

Going with experience over youth and talent is a mistake. Its a bad message to send to an offense, in general. Great offenses rely on talent to overcome mistakes. Mistakes are going to happen no matter how much you try and control for them. Great offenses are fearless. Unfortuntely, I think we have the opposite message being sent to ours right now.








This is coming from someone who has been for the most part in Fisher's camp. Personally, I would have started Goff day 1. I