USC Flat Out Embarrasses Notre Dame. It Was Ugly.

Not a lot needs to be said about this one. I am not going to say I told you so because I have never wanted to be wrong more than for this one. Everett Golson is officially in Brian Kelly's dog house. He was so ineffective against USC that he was pulled in the late 2nd quarter. Would he have been pulled if the game wasn't already out of reach? Only Kelly knows. Kelly said after the game that he is not sure if Golson will be the starting quarterback going forward. That can mean a couple of things. He could be pulling the plug on Golson or he could be trying to light a fire under him.

Kelly should do what Lou Holtz did with Steve Beurlein. Beurlein threw a lot of interceptions his junior year. Holtz sat down with him and simply said, "I guarantee that you won't throw 7 next season." Beurlein said, "Okay." Holtz said, "That's because as soon as you throw 6, I am taking you out." Beurlein responded with a great senior season.

Malik Zaire did look alright in relief. He led a couple touchdown drives. He was 9 of 20 for 170 yards. Those stats would have been a little better if the receivers didn't have some drops. Zaire also didn't turn the ball over. But let's not get too excited just yet. He game in with the game already way out of reach and much of his action was against back ups. I would guess that because of the sanctions many of them were not even on scholarship.

Defensively, this depleted unit seems to every week break a Notre Dame record, but not the ones you want to break. It was no different this game as Cody Kessler became the first quarterback ever to throw 6 touchdowns against Notre Dame.

After dominating this rivalry for nearly a decade, the Trojans had slipped and lost 3 of 4 and two straight at home. But they took back the bragging rights in this rivalry. What is really frustrating for Notre Dame is that the sanctions for USC are now done and they get all their scholarships back. On top of that, next year this game is the week after Navy. We all know how that works.

Notre Dame has some decisions to make in the coming days on whether to go to a bowl game or not. That is not an easy decision and tomorrows blog will cover that.