Since U.S.C. Offensive Coordinator Norm Chow has now been turned into an offensive Messiah by the Trojans' performance in the second half of last year, I thought this would be a good time to look at this first year. Here is U.S.C.'s progression in the key offensive statistics starting the year before Chow and Carroll arrived:

2000 (Hackett's last year)

Rushing:
4.1 per carry
153.6 per game

Passing:
7.1 per pass
262.3 per game

Total offense:
5.6 per play
415.9 per game

2001 (Chow's first year)

Rushing:
2.6 per rush
87.7 per game

Passing:
7.2 per pass
226.8 per game

Total offense:
4.8 per play
314.5 per game

2002 (Chow's second year)

Rushing:
3.6 per carry
142.5 per game

Passing:
8.1 per pass
306.8 per game

Total offense:
5.8 per play
449.2 game

Now, here's Davie's last year and Willingham and Diedrick's first year:

2001 (Davie's last year)

Rushing:
3.9 per rush
188.2 per game

Passing:
5.1 per pass
101.5 per pass

Total offense:
4.3 per play
289.7 per game

2002 (Diedrick's first year)

Rushing:
3.4 per rush
139.4 per game

Passing:
6.6 per pass
174.2 per game

Total offense:
4.7 per play
313.5 per game

As we can see, Chow and Diedrick produced almost identical results their first year, except that U.S.C. actually was a pretty decent offensive team in Hackett's last year (though extremely turnover prone) and N.D. was a terrible offensive team in Davie's last year. U.S.C.'s offense actually got considerably worse in Chow's first year, except that it quit turning the ball over and the Trojans started playing better defense (does any of this sound familiar?), allowing them to improve their record slightly. In fact, in Chow's first year U.S.C. was almost 100 yards per game and .8 yards per play worse than the year before. In Diedrick's first year, N.D. was almost 25 yards per game and .4 yards per play better than the year before.

Now, this does NOT guarantee that N.D. is going to be almost 150 yards and over a yard per play better in 2003 -- i.e., Chow's improvement curve from 2001 to 2002. But at the very least, it ought to suggest that there is something to teams learning a new system and having a chance to work with it in the second year.