USC mailbag: Mike Leach sends in a comment on Twitter (really)

Washington State coach Mike Leach watches a first-half play against Oregon State on Saturday.

Sept. 28, 2017 7:35 AM PT

Every week*, The Times’ USC beat reporter, Zach Helfand, will answer your questions. Tweet yours to @zhelfand or email them to zach.helfand@latimes.com. And after every USC game, you can leave a voice message on the USC Overtime hotline, at (213) 357-0984, for a call-in podcast posted the day after every game.

*Hopefully

The mailbag is overflowing this week. If this mailbag were carried by an actual mail carrier, he or she would be very sore.

But what a busy half-week of news it has been. The USC basketball team was plunged into scandal. A Pac-12 coach who happens to coach USC’s next opponent tweeted a comment to the mailbag. Oh, and USC will play one of its biggest games of the season in the Palouse on Friday.

Enough preamble, let’s get to it. To the questions:

OK, this technically isn’t a question, but I just want to set the precedent that if the coach of USC’s opponent tweets at me during game week, he will get the top spot in the mailbag.

If you missed it, Mike Leach was asked whether Sam Darnold is an NFL quarterback. He answered the question briefly (maybe someday, he said), then went off on a long tangent about 18-year-olds thinking they’re ready for the NFL when they’re worlds away.

This was classic Leach.

He seemed to think people interpreted his comments as smack talk, but most people didn’t appear to.

From a wins and losses and a playoff standpoint, yes. As Steve Lopes, USC’s senior associate athletic director, explained to The Times before the game, USC has little incentive in the playoff era to schedule games against strong non-conference opponents like Texas. Remember, USC already plays Notre Dame every season, plus a nine-game conference schedule.

The Texas game was the most physically taxing of USC coach Clay Helton’s tenure. The Trojans emerged with a lot of injuries. And it’s fair to speculate whether Porter Gustin would’ve played against a cupcake, and whether he would’ve avoided the more extended absence that resulted from his playing.

On the other hand, the game was dramatic and fun, and isn’t that the whole point?

The Trap Game Rules are going to come in handy often this season because USC is likely to be favored in every game.

This week’s game is not a trap game for two reasons. First, yes, USC players have heard basically every pundit everywhere call this game a trap game for so long that it disqualifies it from trap-game status.

Secondly, and more importantly, Washington State isn’t sneaky good. The Cougars are good. They’re the No. 16 team in the country, a slight 3.5-point underdog, playing a night game at home. This isn’t a trap. If this were a bear trap, it would have a sign above it saying, “Caution: Surprisingly literate bear! This is a very dangerous trap!”

No, Iman Marshall is not changing positions. He’s still considered one of the best NFL cornerback prospects in the country.

He hasn’t played particularly well this season, but don’t forget about last season, when Pro Football Focus rated him in the top 20 in the nation in coverage.

Besides the fact that he has demonstrated that he’s a very good cornerback and it’s reasonable to expect him to start playing as such again, there are a few other reasons why he won’t switch to safety.

One, a midseason positional change for a starter is pretty unheard of. Two, there is no guarantee he’d start over Chris Hawkins or Marvell Tell III.

Three, the only reason for a switch is that Marshall is bigger than most cornerbacks and possibly lacks the top-end speed. The problem with that reasoning is that Marshall hasn’t blown coverages because of his speed. Often, he’s gotten tangled up with receivers, and the receivers have won. That’s uncharacteristic for him, and he will probably fix it. But a switch to safety wouldn’t help.

Don’t start with me again, guys.

The naked bootleg is the most glorious of football plays because of:

The name
How ridiculously well it works when it works
How hilariously helpless it is when it doesn’t

But for USC, this is a casualty of the shotgun formation. It is not impossible, and USC has run at least one naked bootleg pass this season, but it is very difficult to run a successful naked bootleg without going under center.

The play is all about manipulating the defenders’ eyes, making them ignore the quarterback, making them read the wrong keys. The closer you are to the line of scrimmage, and the more a quarterback can turn his back to hide the ball, the better the play-action works.

Jonathan, I’m going to introduce you to Jake, and you guys can hash this out among yourselves.

I think so. Tyler Vaughns has had his best week of practice. He started against Cal, and he basically took over Jalen Greene’s position against Texas after Greene’s drop-turned-pick-six.

The most likely scenario is that Deontay Burnett plays, with Vaughns the No. 2 option and Greene No. 3. If Steven Mitchell Jr.’s groin is healthy enough, he’d be the No. 2.

Jack Sears has potential, but he’s looked like a freshman. Which makes sense because he is a freshman. It’s really difficult to tell just how good a quarterback is going to be until you get him in a real game. Darnold is a good example of that.

Speaking of Darnold, anyone who claims to know what Darnold will do after the season is making things up. I know this because Darnold has said as much, as has his family, as has anyone close to him. He just hasn’t decided yet and probably won’t until after the season.

If he’s a top pick, there’s a very good chance he will leave for the NFL — based on a long history of top underclassmen leaving early for the NFL. But Darnold hasn’t given any indication one way or the other.

As for his interceptions, that’s a good question. So good, in fact, that a proper response would be too long for a mailbag. Check it out online on Thursday. Or better yet, buy Friday’s paper and help pay my salary.

Yes. USC ranks No. 110 nationally in penalties committed and No. 105 in yardage. Why the heck, indeed? Helton sought to make reducing penalties an emphasis.

Oluwole Betiku is very impressive but usually only in spurts.

Vaughns, as mentioned, has played better in practice than his playing time would suggest, though I expect that to change.

And Ykili Ross has been very good in practice and played well against Cal.

Bland and basketball questions

It’s unusual to have so many basketball questions in September at USC, but it’s also unusual to have an undercover FBI operation snare an assistant coach.

I don’t, actually. I know the vacated season is the top track on the NCAA’s greatest-hits album, but this is a strange case. Usually, violations surface months or years after the fact.

Some of the alleged offenses occurred just weeks ago, and all of the violations are alleged to have taken place during the summer. If no more violations come to light, and if USC doesn’t use ineligible players, it’s unlikely the school will have to vacate wins or the season.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be sanctions. Speaking of which ...

It’s difficult to say with any certainty because this case is unprecedented — not in its specific violations but in the scope of this scandal.

The NCAA’s response will be interesting, but USC will have to make some big decisions first, beginning with what to do with its coaching staff and potential ineligible players. In the longer term, most schools decide to self-impose sanctions, which is a likely outcome following the release of Louis Freeh’s report.

What those sanctions will be — from a menu that includes loss of scholarships, financial penalties and loss of postseason eligibility — is hard to say. USC’s response will be informed by its past dealings with the NCAA, specifically in the Reggie Bush case. With Bush, USC often was reactive. USC likely will take a more proactive approach this time, something is already has done: The hiring of Freeh was meant as a loud and public signal that USC is taking the allegations extremely seriously.

What’s important to remember is that it’s often not the sanctions that kill a program. The O.J. Mayo scandal brought relatively benign penalties, including two lost scholarships and a one-year postseason ban. But it also triggered a wave of recruiting defections and coaching turnover. Those are the most destructive elements.

He will have to at some point after the start of practices Friday. But one does not appear immediately forthcoming.

Lindsay comes from a basketball family but (thankfully) has never seen my jump shot, so she doesn’t fully comprehend how bad a basketball coach I would be.

Of more relevance is my checkered past. Starting around when I was 8, my dad began coaching my basketball teams.

He had a signature flourish. Jim Boeheim has his 2-3. Shaka Smart has the Havoc. My dad had the backboard. Anytime a player used the backboard, even if he missed, my dad gave him a quarter.

This was effective from a fundamentals standpoint. But, of course, it also was an impermissible benefit, which I gladly accepted.

Unfortunately, that probably makes me unfit for the position.

Eat here

Of all the fine, cosmopolitan cities in the Pac-12, it is Pullman that has the conference’s great delicacy. Maybe the world’s greatest delicacy.

I am talking about the WSU Creamery’s signature cheese, the Cougar Gold.

I love this cheese so much. It’s a sharp, aged white cheddar of lovely consistency, hard and smooth crumbly. The best, most delightful part is the little crunch it packs. When I tell people about the little crunch, they usually think it’s weird. Those people are wrong and bad. Google tells me that little crunch comes from clusters of amino acids, and it’s in a lot of well-aged cheeses, most recognizably in Parmigiano-Reggiano. The more you age the Cougar Gold at home, the more pronounced the crunch.

The creamery is on campus — the cheese is made by students — and near the stadium. It also serves ice cream. Get the ice cream if you want, I guess, but buy this cheese by the tin. Eat a pound or two before the game, save a pound to snack on during the game and maybe bring a few more pounds home with you. And a few more to age at home.

What I’m saying is, this is great cheese.