[Goose]

So hope springs eternal that Under Stanford Control (again) will struggle on the OL, and Darnold won't be quite the player he was with so much talented experience protecting him!

Indeed. From looking at replay, the USC OL had two attributes that really helped Darnold. First, while they might get beat eventually, they almost never got beat right away. Darnold could rely on at lest some time to throw, and second, when somebody did get beat, the rest of the OL kept blocking their man for the entire play. This gave Darnold the ability to scramble away from the man who got penetration  to an area where he had protection, and he was very good at this. He would run sometimes, but mostly scramble to throw it. It also helped a lot that USC had receivers that were considered so good you couldn't play up on them. Thus Darnold often had somebody who was open early in the play in case there was penetration. Often the receiver didn't catch the ball, but that was another story.  Also, the receivers were pretty good at just running around at random until they got open. I sometimes thought that last year the USC offense was Darnold evading the rush until somebody running a random walk pattern got open, and then throwing to that guy. Next year, that may not happen so much.

[Goose]

So hope springs eternal that Under Stanford Control (again) will struggle on the OL, and Darnold won't be quite the player he was with so much talented experience protecting him!

Indeed. From looking at replay, the USC OL had two attributes that really helped Darnold. First, while they might get beat eventually, they almost never got beat right away. Darnold could rely on at lest some time to throw, and second, when somebody did get beat, the rest of the OL kept blocking their man for the entire play. This gave Darnold the ability to scramble away from the man who got penetration  to an area where he had protection, and he was very good at this. He would run sometimes, but mostly scramble to throw it. It also helped a lot that USC had receivers that were considered so good you couldn't play up on them. Thus Darnold often had somebody who was open early in the play in case there was penetration. Often the receiver didn't catch the ball, but that was another story.  Also, the receivers were pretty good at just running around at random until they got open. I sometimes thought that last year the USC offense was Darnold evading the rush until somebody running a random walk pattern got open, and then throwing to that guy. Next year, that may not happen so much.