He then served as Kiffin’s replacement at USC in 2014, leading the Trojans to a 9-4 record and a win over Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. So Nick Saban chose to give him a shot at safety a year ago and it was a great success. There is also a new offensive coordinator (Tee Martin) and new defensive coordinator (Clancy Pendergast), and like Helton, neither are strangers at USC.
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USC struck first on its opening drive.
Even Montgomery’s Shaun Hamilton was in the middle of action, finally (five solo tackles with two being for loss). A more realistic exectation was USC maybe competing in the Pac-12 South.
Florida extended the nation’s longest winning streak in season openers to 27 by defeating University of MA 24-7, with Luke Del Rio throwing two touchdown passes in his first career start.
“We just didn’t want to take a shot at the field goal right there”, Swinney said.
– USC linebacker Jabari Ruffin was ejected for a flagrant foul in the second quarter when he stomped on Alabama’s Minkah Fitzpatrick.
Freshman Jalen Hurts, after losing a fumble on his first collegiate play, settled down to throw for two touchdowns and run for two more in less than three quarters. Hurts quickly flicked it about 15 yards downfield to Stewart, who then ran away untouched. Nick Saban has yet to name the starting quarterback for the Crimson Tide.
“It didn’t change our defense, it didn’t change anything we were thinking” cornerback Adoree’ Jackson said. He also offered Alabama something more: a level of running ability we’ve never seen from an Alabama offense under Nick Saban. Afterward, Kiffin was awarded the game ball. Alabama’s current recruiting theme, after all, is “Savages”. The Bama defense harassed Max Browne much of the night and kept him off balance in the passing game and Marlon Humphrey intercepted a tipped pass and returned it for a touchdown.
Harrison Butker’s 39-yard field goal cut the lead to four points.
Swoopes scored on a 3-yard keeper on the first possession of overtime, and Notre Dame immediately answered with a 25-yard touchdown pass from DeShone Kizer to C.J. Sanders to send the game to a second overtime. Hurts finished with 150 total yards.
USC should get better against Utah State next week. This one was 71-yards and made it 24-3.
Speight threw an interception on his first snap but bounced back with TD passes to Grant Perry, Jake Butt and Amara Darboh to put MI up 21-0 early in the second quarter. We still need to get more guys who can play winning football and create more depth on our team. “When you have mistakes and you have missed assignments and have costly penalties like we had, at the end of the day, you have to take accountability as a coach”. USC tried to go over the top of the Alabama defense and targeted Anthony Averett alot but with limited success.
Callaway could not have received a tougher challenge in his first game with the Trojans, going up against an Alabama defensive line that led the nation with 52 sacks last season.
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“This not who we are, and we don’t believe that”, Helton said. He had a great year as a deep man last year, and it’s possible we haven’t see the best of him yet. He was going to go in the third series of this game no matter what, and that’s exactly what we did.
