there's also this tidbit from Gary Klein's column:
"Sarkisian said USC did not platoon against Stanford as much as it did in the first two games because the Cardinal "really taxed us mentally in the game. They gave us just a myriad of personnel groupings, formations. ... They really gave us a lot of stuff to try and make us think.
And we just tried to keep the guys out there that we felt like could do the best of getting aligned, getting assigned and operating fundamentally."
In other words, he didn't have a fucking clue what Shaw was doing against him, so, while using "aligned, assigned and operating fundamentally" to sound smart to the media, he simply put the most talented recruits on the field and hoped they could use their superior athletic ability (as determined by TBS sites), go out there and just rip it...and hopefully win.