Mustain: The Once and Future Starting QB?

Even though conference expansion/implosion is the topic du jour, USC’s sanctions any other week of the year would be the main focus of media and college football blogs alike. As has been widely reported elsewhere, USC Trojan underclassmen are beginning to resemble rats on a sinking ship, looking to flee a crippling 2 year bowl postseason ban handed down by the NCAA. While UGA is in the running to land former AJC Super 11 Jarvis Jones and Florida/Alabama are purportedly committing recruiting infractions in pursuit of USC RB Dillon Baxter, we have yet to hear any rumblings on transfers from any of the upperclassmen of Troy.

NCAA bylaws directly allow players who would otherwise be barred from postseason bowls for the rest of their collegiate career to transfer without sitting out a year. One particular Trojan who squarely falls in this group and is well-known by SEC fans happens to be Mitch Mustain, formerly of Springdale, Arkansas and the one-time Razorback starting quarterback.

Coming out of high school, Mustain was named the 2005 Parade All-American Player of the Year, 2005-06 Gatorade National Player of the Year and the 2005 USA Today National Player of the Year.After following his high school coach, Gus Malzahn, to Arkansas, he transferred to USC after being benched mid-season (with an 8-0 record) and followed out of Fayetteville high school teammate Damian Williams and Malzahn in pursuit of a more pass-oriented offense.

Mustain is currently buried on the USC depth chart, having made only 16 passing attempts in his 2 seasons as backup QB, is stuck behind returning sophomore Matt Barkley and could also potentially fall behind the newest incoming prep QB All-American, Jesse Scroggins. Mustain might mentally be planning on following USC alum Matt Cassel‘s roadmap from perennial benchwarmer to NFL starting QB, but that road is haphazard and much less attractive without Pete Carroll donning the headset in the Coliseum this fall.

While Mustain’s official position thus far in the sanctions upheaval is that he has no plans to leave, there are several teams who desperately could use a QB. For obvious reasons (see Nutt, Houston), Ole Miss has to immediately be dismissed as a candidate, as well as any Pac 1X members, given the inter-conference transfer restriction rules, sanctions or not.

UNC, Tennessee and a darkhorse Auburn are among several viable destinations should Mustain decide on pursuing a transfer for his final year of eligibility. UNC is projected in the top 25 in multiple preseason magazines but is held back mainly by their offense (Phil Steele even predicts that QB TJ Yates, a 3 year starter, could lose his starting roll to a redshirt freshman); up in Knoxville, beyond the joy that UT fans would get from the coup of stealing a player from the Kiffster, the cupboards are relatively bare, with recent JUCO transfer Matt Sims the only serious candidate for playing time at QB behind a patchwork O-Line. Auburn could be attractive for Mustain, given the familiarity of HS Coach Gus Malzahn’s offense, and Mustain could be only one stolen laptop away from serious playing time.

While USC is currently appealing the sanctions, it may be a bit of an uphill battle to get the sanctions overturned. It is possible that USC upperclassmen being in play to transfer this year could be a moot point, as the waters are still murky as to whether the NCAA will allow a USC upperclassman to transfer out during the ongoing appeals process. A comparable sanction/appeal timeline should approximate Alabama’s recent appeals process, which ran roughly 9 months. I would imagine that the NCAA would ultimately come down on the side of the student-athlete in this instance, allowing players to transfer during any ongoing appeals, given the institutional actions that led to this transfer window opening in the first place.

While the conference musical chair game will continue to garner the most press attention, expect to see a slow trickle of transfers and decommitments throughout the summer, as USC prepares to lose 10 scholarships a year for 3 years. Hopefully UGA will be able to bring Jarvis Jones back home to Georgia, as well as plucking a few extra recruits away from USC’s top 5 2011 recruiting class.

RUH-ROH

SUCK A NUT USC!!! PAC-10 BUH-LOWS AGAIN!!!

OUT WEST

We've been here since Tuesday...


Losing this...


Then we will be going here on Friday...


Seeing some of this...


Celebrating like this...


And showing the dominance of this...


Here we come, Tempe. GO DAWGS.

Weekend Garbage Late Edition

Greetings from Sin City! I apologize for this being late and shorter than I anticipated, but I've got to go lose more money on everything.

Polls

After our first week victory over Ga Southern, we dropped to number 2. After our trouncing of Central Michigan, we lost first place votes (even some to a team that didn't even play that week).

Now, after our close victory in South Cacklacky, we've dropped to number 3. At this point, we will be 10-0 and ranked number 12.

We also lost all but 2 of our first place votes in each poll, and Oklahoma also has less first place votes than they did last week.

However, I've never seen such a quick regression of a team's ranking this early WHEN THEY ARE WINNING ALL THEIR GAMES.

With this precedent, what happens if we lose a game? Do we drop out of the polls?

At this point, unless the Gayturds lose to the Vols, we will drop to number 4 even if we beat AZ State.


PAC-10

BUH-LOWS!!! Alright, lemme get this straight. Four of your teams lost to Mountain West Conference teams. Wow. You also lost to 3 other out of conference teams. In a week where all of your teams played out of conference, you went 3-7 and four of those losses were to a non-BCS conference.

Guess that PAC-10 domination never quite got off the ground.

USC

I hate you because Mark May loves you, and therefore I hate you. I'd typically be happy to watch a Big 11 team get slapped around like you did to Ohio State, but this means I have to listen to Mark May tell me how this is the return of the greatest team in history (everyone knows it's Bama, c'mon).


Gregg Doyel Can Suck A Nut

Thanks to the Senator for pointing this out nn his blog.

Read why Gregg Doyel is a buffoon. Rather than go through and react to every line this moron has written with all the fury imaginable, I'll just say this:

This sumbitch thinks Bama is probably a superior team to the Dawgs and should be ranked above us, because we're obviously vastly overrated. Are you kidding? I wasn't even that mad about how you said we suck, but I cannot stand for any notion that Bama is "superior" to us. I mean, they were the greatest team ever in the first week of college football, but Tulane almost received the torch of upset from UL-Monroe the following week. Now, you're feeding the the fan base that defines being in denial.

For that, your actions are inexcusable. Suck-a-nut.

Weekend Garbage

Craig James
You are the king bastard of college football. Your coverage of college football is horrendous. It's amazing that you make John Saunders look respectable. If you were covering Saudi Arabian equestrian tournaments, you would still suck.

During halftime of the Alabama/(the embarrassment that is) Clemson game, ABC and their halftime gang went through the normal routine of showing clips from previous games during the day.

They only showed one clip from the UGA game and that was of Knowshon running in for a touchdown.

All Craig James could find to comment on was that UGA is dumb for risking injury to Knowshon behind our weak offensive line, because after the play it appeared that Knowshon had injured his hamstring (just a cramp)! Nevermind it was his third fucking touchdown. That wouldn't be important information to provide.

Just before the game resumed, Craig did have this funny line to say, "Bama came to a fist fight, while Clemson came to a school dance."

Despite this great line, Craig James still sucks at life.

Why don't you help June Jones out and give his players some of that "motivation" that used to make SMU so great.


Tommy Bowden
See, you had a good thing going. You can't ever finish the job, but you do enough to keep your team's fan base satisfied. They don't notice you are a complete moron and void of any common sense.

Then you decided to not put the ball in the hands of CJ Spiller and James Davis for...pretty much the entire game.

Now they know how dumb you are, and the pitch forks and torches will be outside your bedroom window before November.


Wannstache
Why is this surprising? Can Pitt losing anything really be an upset? I picked Bowling Green, because you never bet on the Wannstache. Anyone who had Pitt in their top 25 is a fool. Don't be hypnotized by the 'stache. I know it's beautiful, but it is never successful.


Techno Music
It's not allowed in football. Ever. North Avenue Trade School goes crazy for it. Clemson was jumping up and down to it Saturday night.

It must be something with engineering schools. I guess you guys want to go all the way with it and never get laid. Dungeons and Dragons? Check. Sausage parties? Check. Techno music? FUCK YEAH!


Blowing it
Damn it, Tennessee. Now, I have to listen to this PAC-10 garbage for eternity because you roll over at the end of the game. It was the 2006 LSU game all over again. A Crompton curse might be real. Now we get to hear, "3rd string PAC-10 QBs can beat your SEC defense."

Now we have to try and defend this dishonoring of our conference when we go to Arizona.