"Most marry down marriages in the black community don't work due to the lack of similiar educational values. Marrying men of different races is now becoming an alternative."

And I seriously doubt it's true. Btw, alought most black people still marry intraracially, interracial dating and marrying is nothing new.

Since I believe Pete Carroll is also the defensive coordinator, he has only himself to blame. I did notice they didn't even have a "spy" on Young nor did they blitz much or pressure the line of scrimmage by putting players in the box and forcing Young to throw the long pass down field.

You're right. When they did come after him they had some success, but, sitting back in the zone killed them. That this was the SC strategy was confirmed when SC was quoted after the game saying they wanted to play their normal zone defense. How you do that after watching the tapes and not even adjust during the game is beyond me.

It's part of sports. Sure, the players have to execute, but, it's hardly that simple. One of the key jobs of a manager, coach, etc., other than getting his/her team ready, is to make critical in game decisions that put their teams in the best possible position to win. Although it's a bit of hindsight bias, questionable decisions like the ones you mentioned are fair game.

Is there such a thing as foresight bias? If so, you engaging in it. To say that if they pressured Young, they would've been burned by big plays doesn't make sense. What big plays? Young is not known for deep passes but he probably would have made some big plays with his legs regardless. The reason you pressure is to get in his running lanes and cut down on some of his running plays and not let him stand back there and dunk your zone and have open lanes to run if there's nobody open. USC's defense was mostly successful when they pressured Young. In fact, it was the only time they any real success against him. So what's the problem with suggesting that they should have done it more?

Also, why shouldn't questionable calls should be criticized. If you're going to make the decision to go for it on 4th and 2 at midfield up by 5 with two minutes left in the championship game you BETTER make it or you're going to rightfully get sceond guessed forever. Whether one agrees with Carroll's decision, I don't think anybody can say it wasn't questionable.

"It's a no-brainer. Now, that's not taking anything away from Texas, which I have a feeling you were rooting for last night. They are a great team. But they would have lost handily last night had 'SC played smart defense."

I think it was more than smart defense though. Except on their first possession, USC was terrible in the red zone in the first half.

Overall though, SC has nothing to hang their heads about. They shared the title two years ago, won it outright last year and came within seconds of defending it this year. Great run. TX and USC battled hard to the end and SC came up short. People who claim one side "outplayed" the other don't know what they're talking about. This game was too close for all that. It reminds me when OSU beat Miami in the last great college championship game and some OSU partisans crowed about how they "took out" Miami. They acted as if a nail biting 2OT win, after Miami best offensive player got injured in the first QT and an legendarily atrocious late interference call against Miami was "domination".

Actually, the Zone Read is easy to stop. Ever wonder why they don't run those type of option plays in the pros? Way too slowly developing and the players are way too fast, big and talented for that stuff. More importantly they are better disciplined as players. A big mistake will get you cut.

On the college level, as King pointed out earlier it's easy to over power lesser teams but when the teams are more evenly matched schemes mean a big deal. Which is why some here are questioning why USC didn't change their scheme when they saw it wasn't working or, when they did try an occasional change, didn't use the scheme that was having some success more often (pressure). It's a fair question and not "insulting" to Young.

"The game is what it was - let's just take it all as whole and not try to reconstruct the if this or if that. The whole of the game that we actually had was pretty damn good - let's not quibble so much about what might have been."

But, isn't that part of the fun!? Hashing it out, going over it while still realizing it was a great game.