The first was a comment by Kiffin to ESPN prior to the game, where he said all the recruiting violations he committed at Tennessee were to draw attention to the program. And Kiffin added he wouldn’t need to do that any longer at USC because there is enough attention on the Trojans already.

It doesn’t seem prudent to openly flaunt that you broke the rules on purpose. Yet that is what Lane Kiffin did.

He just doesn’t seem to get it. He has never proven that he can be the head coach and win on any level. And yet he walks around as if he had one hand dragging on the ground because of the weight of five championship rings.

With USC currently under probation for the lack of organizational discipline during the Reggie Bush years, when Kiffin was part of the coaching staff, it doesn’t make sense to draw even more attention to your coaching or recruiting practices.

Kiffin needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, especially until his USC teams have proven they deserve to walk with the same swagger that was commonplace under the Pete Carroll regime.

And that means winning, something that wasn’t a given Thursday night.

That was an issue thanks to the second worry, the Trojan defense. With Monte Kiffin coming on board to run what once was one of the most feared units in college football, it was assumed the Trojan defense would only improve.

Yet against a smaller Hawaii team and an offense that Kiffin had all summer to prepare for, the USC defense just looked flat. The former swarm mentality just didn’t seem to be there and they surrendered 588 yards, 63 more than the powerful Trojan offense could put together.

The players seemed frustrated with their own faulty performance. Late in the third, linebacker Michael Morgan laid a forearm into the head of Warrior quarterback Bryant Moniz. Moniz had to be helped off of the field and missed the remainder of the game (If Moniz had remained in at quarterback, this one might have come down to the wire).

It was a lack of discipline on the field that hadn’t been present under Carroll.

And this was a team expected to win the PAC-10 by many of the experts, despite their coaching changes and the distractions that racked their off-season.

It doesn’t look like such a safe bet now. On the plus side, USC has two more weeks of easier opponents before the conference begins — against doormat Washington State.

The one thing that does appear to be working the way it is supposed to is the play of Matt Barkley, who was able to tear up the Hawaii defense at will. Without him, USC would have been opening the season with a big black mark on their record, a loss out of conference against a weaker opponent.

All of the skills players came through. Barkley (257 yards passing, 5 TDs), Marc Tyler (154 yards rushing, 1 TD) and especially Ronald Johnson (59 yards receiving, 3 receiving touchdowns and that 100-yard punt return).

The offense certainly won’t be the issue for this Trojan team, which is a good thing since they may have to work to outscore their opponents given the state of the now-porous defense.

At least that is one question that won’t have to be answered.