Coaches made adequate adjustments against Stanford, Steve Sarkisian says

USC Coach Steve Sarkisian reacts to a penalty call as fullback Soma Vainuku watches during the first half of Sept. 19's game against Stanford at the Coliseum.

Staff Writer

Sept. 22, 2015 11:42 AM PT

USC on Tuesday began moving past last week’s defeat by Stanford by correcting mistakes the Trojans made against the Cardinal.

“There’s obviously still a bad taste in our mouth but I think our players understand there’s plenty left out there for us this season, a great deal that we can accomplish,” Coach Steve Sarkisian said after practice.

Sarkisian said USC did not platoon as much as it did in the first two games because Stanford “really taxed us mentally in the game. They gave us just a myriad of personnel groupings, formations. ... They really gave us a lot of stuff to try and make us think.

“And we just tried to keep the guys out there that we felt like could do the best of getting aligned, getting assigned and operating fundamentally.”

Did the USC coaching staff make adequate adjustments?

“Sure,” Sarkisian said. “I don’t have any problem about us making adjustments. I think at the end of the day we need to coach our guys better to finish on plays. ... We had to make some adjustments on the fly of different things they presented to us.

“I thought our guys handled it well. We went to some extra D-linemen, we moved our front around, so for the most part, yeah.”

USC is set to play its first Pac-12 Conference South division game on Saturday night at Arizona State.