This has been a tough week for Chetey Petey. He is getting mocked and ridiculed bot nationally and locally. Even his campus newspaper attacked him (not for running a shady program but for choking against his former OC) earlier this week.

Now it looks like he is also losing support in Trojan Orange County. The OC Register is absolutely savaging Petey for his handing of Barkley/Corp saga:

With Barkley, Carroll is acting like one of those out-of-control Little League dads. Barkley said the bone bruise in his shoulder can’t get any worse, but isn’t it possible, if he’s altering his throwing motion or compensating for the soreness, that he could suffer a different type of injury to his shoulder, arm or some other body part? Is it really worth the risk against the lowly Cougars?

The reporter is not trusting of Petey's words:

Clearly, Carroll wants Barkley to be his starting quarterback. Period. Given Barkley’s immense talent and upside, I’d have no problem with that — if Barkley weren’t still injured.

And he is still injured. When last we were allowed to speak to him, on Tuesday, Barkley acknowledged that he still experiences pain. Carroll described his throwing motion Wednesday as "controlled."

I watched almost every pass Barkley threw, and he just didn’t look right. He doesn’t look like himself. He doesn’t have his fastball.

It might be back by Saturday. Maybe Barkley will prove me wrong. He says he’s getting better every day — which, of course, is what every injured athlete says.

But if he’s about the same as Wednesday, you can forget about seeing a bunch of bombs in USC’s purportedly soon-to-be-opened-up offense against Washington State — even if, as Carroll insisted, Barkley is "able to throw all the throws that we are doing in the game plan."

When Carroll elevated Barkley over Corp in August, one of the chief reasons was that Corp was still injured. Carroll said he tried to think about Corp’s well-being as if he were the quarterback’s own father.

One wonders what Aaron Corps thinks of all this. There is also good ole Mitch Mustain punting around in South Central. ROFL.

U$C* is 40+ point favorites against the Cougars. Given how they go 2-3 deep with 4 or 5 stars in every position they should just demolish the Cougars. So the question is will these reporters continue to be wary of Petey's words after this weekend's blowout or are they going to back to the same routine of writing fluff pieces about Barkley being the next Montana and Petey being the greatest coach of all time (who "follows the rules").

One can certainly sense the media momentum has turned against Petey. He is getting criticisms from his own base (which was unthinkable in recent years). I think these reporters are going to wait to see how Petey handles Tedford's teams in two weeks. If Pom Pom doesn't get it done in Berkeley ... things could get even more interesting.

GO BRUINS.