USC Football and Stuff (DIY #2)

“Dogs—”

USC Football booster Brian Kennedy on the state of the program

We love the media because if we can feel involved in a story then we can better understand it.  When we understand things we feel educated and responsible.  However, one must realize that the media and the real world exist on two completely different planes. 

I thought of the above things while making my infographic because so much of the buzz around USC football last season (I won’t use the words misinformation or fake news) came from a few sources.  LA Times and other websites built a whole narrative around the football program due to the team’s struggles in the season.  A narrative that does not really get at what you would see if you walked around USC spring football practice in the few days before school got shut down. 

Traditional media—not even social media—built a narrative that the football program had failed.  By making my DIY about the team, I simply wanted to present this narrative in and of itself.  Once again, I think many of the statistics in it should make people in heritage hall scratch their heads, but I do not consider myself totally detached from reality (at least not yet). 

I culled data from a variety of sources to produce my infographic.  I feel like good infographics mix numbers with graphs, so I tried to do that as much as possible.  Formatting wise, I chose the color scheme just because it made the most sense for the argument I wanted to make.  I really liked using Canva for this assignment because I could move everything around very easily. 

My infographic does feel like a joke but a lot of the statistics in it tell a very real story (aside from the graph on the bottom).  In order to restore a sense of pride in the program, USC should work to recruit more heralded talent out of high school.  Also, the second graph shows a clear decline exists in the achievements the team has made in the last 20 years.  With Clay Helton’s contract slowly winding down, I think things will change. 

Coming into this season, USC has hired several new coaches including a new defensive coordinator.  The Trojans open up the season against Alabama in Texas.  I still do not know if/ how I will get there.  Depending on the outcome of his season, a lot of things my infographic shows could have a different stigma surrounding them.  For example, if Clay Helton has a good season at the helm then I guess no more Mike Bohn memes (I know, bittersweet). 

The only thing I regret about the infographic involves the fact that I reverted to including a graph purely for comedic purposes.  The news machine surrounding college football has not really started up yet because well… However, once it does a chart like this could look different.