I still remember the good ol' days of selling my college books from the previous quarter. They won't make me any money sitting on a shelf and I sure as hell won't sell it back to the bookstore so they can give me $50 so they can turn around and sell it to another student for three times that amount. Besides, I had two things going for me. One, I have great personality. Two, my books were good as new. In some cases, they were brand new since I never even read the book. So I would spend the first day of school running to the different classes where my old books would be of use and sell them to the highest bidder. It worked out great. It meant reinvesting mom and dad's money to something other than education.

Anyway as I sat in my office today thinking about college, I started thinking about my economics class. I honestly spent more time playing that Snake game on my old Nokia phone instead of paying attention in class, but I do slightly remember something about the principle of maximization. He explained by talking referring to the number of cooks in the kitchen. One cook outputs a certain amount. Hiring a second cook doubles that amount. Then eventually hiring more cooks just means you have people getting in the way and the increase of output per cook decreases and so you're no longer maximizing your results. I translated that to real life college terms to pass the test. Beer #1 makes me feel good. Beer #2 makes me feel better. Beer #3 makes me feel great. Then it hits the point where beer #4,5, or 6 really have no effect and I could've stopped spending money at Beer #3. Yes I was a light weight.

Well now that the football season is just about over and as we begin to focus our attention towards recruiting I can't help but think about this lesson in economics. Pete Carroll has been a master at recruiting. He's like a copier sales man who sold 10 new xerox machines to a paperless company. (the ice to eskimo analogy is old) In 2006, PC was able to attract the likes of Stafon Johnson, Moody, and CJ Gable. They are all great RBs in their own right. The following year, in the same class, USC landed the #1 and #2 ranked RBs in the NATION with JoeMac and Marc with a C. In addition, they landed Broderick Green who has been my favorite of the three.

Do we really need all those great running backs? Well in many ways yes, and in some ways no. In today's game, the two back system has been very effective. Stafon Johnson and CJ Gable have both been very effective. One brings speed and the other brings a lot of power. Having Joe Mcknight thrown in to the mix gives us a back with an added dimension to add even more production in our backfield. Plus, if helps us deal with potential injuries by having a 3rd top caliber back. Now this is where our lesson in economics come in. Is having so many more high caliber backs standing in the sidelines hurting our overall output? Do we simply have too many cooks in the kitchen or in this case too many running backs in the backfield.

There's a lot of of talk about the running backs not really getting in rhythm because of the constant substitution. Back in the Reggie and Lendale days, the other backs wouldn't really get on the field unless it was garbage time. So Lendale and Reggie got in rhythm and became the Thunder and Lightning combo that we all miss. Are our current backs not able to maximize their production because of having too many in the rotation. If we stuck to CJ and Stafon, would we have better overall production in the offense?

Another good question is whether or not USC is able to maximize its success with having so many "cooks in the kitchen." USC has not been able to attract any top rated backs in a couple years. I understand that we really don't need it so USC hasn't really aggressively recruited anyone. But in the long term... The big picture. It just doesn't look good to have so many top recruits leave the program to transfer somewhere else.

I didn't care to mention Vidal Hazelton in any of my posts because he has been a disappointment. He had a great year last year, but let the other receivers outwork and outshine him this year. Vidal was a #1 ranked WR when he came out of high school. He was ranked ahead of Percy Harvin. Now him leaving, to me, leaves another bad impression.

So back to my question. Is USC maximizing its production with having so many star recruits in each position? Are the transfers going to hurt USC in the future? Would CJ and Stafon be better of if there was less of Joe? If I were in my microeconomics class would this be the classic example of having too many cooks in the kitchen?

I know this. Sanchez and Mustain were #1s. Vidal and Patrick were #1s. Our running backs were all HS All Americans. But when I turn on Sportscenter and watch the highlights and the top plays and listen to Heisman chatter, I never hear a Trojan in the conversation.