Nathan Ware has a great post on his Dawg Blawg today about the 16 penalties that USC picked up namely the ones of the personal foul variety and specifically the hit on Locker early in the first quarter.

It would appear that a lot of us are calling out Pete Carroll on this one, singling him out as a cheap and dirty coach.

I watched the hit over and over, and to me, it looked pretty clean. It may have been a fraction, and I'm talking 0.01 secs late. But in game speed, it's too hard to tell. Obviously the refs felt it was late and so they threw the flag, and good on them. But was it dirty?? I don't think so.

And what about the USC coaches (Pete included) cheering on the sidelines after the hit, even though the refs had already called it late?? Who cares, it was a great hit and it was borderline late. It wasn't like he led with his helmet, or clotheslined him, or kicked him, it was a shoulder hit square into the body of Locker.

As for Pete Carroll's point of emphasis to target Locker?? That's just good game-planning. Anytime you have a guy that can change the game the way Locker does, you want to get in his face, take him out of his comfort zone.

Go Huskies!