USC pummeled Utah 42-24 with a dominant defensive effort, forcing Utes quarterback Travis Wilson into four interceptions after he had thrown just three entering Saturday.
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The player of the game for the Trojans was freshman linebacker Cameron Smith.
The Trojans evened it after Smith’s 41-yard interception return led to Vainuku’s fourth-down touchdown dive, and they took the lead on a vicious 18-yard touchdown run up the middle by Jones.
Smith would go on to pick off a third pass in the second half; all in all, his interceptions resulted in 17 points for USC.
The majority of Kessler’s production couldn’t have been possible without the Trojans’ standout wide receiver, JuJu Smith-Schuster, who had 143 yards receiving on just eight catches and one receiving touchdown. The sophomore completed 47 of 62 passes and had the most passing yards ever against Arizona, breaking the mark of 511 yards set by Arizona State’s Ryan Kealy in 1998.
Britain Covey caught two touchdown passes for the Utes (6-1, 3-1), whose eight-game winning streak ended.
“We have nothing to lose”, Cravens said. For those keeping track at home, the Trojans have fired their past two coaches midseason.
Ignore for a moment the fact that Las Vegas bookmakers have installed USC as 4.5-point favorites: This is not the setting for this game anyone imagined a couple of months ago, when USC was the Pac-12 favorite and top-10 team. This year, Steve Sarkisian was sacked midseason. He was replaced by, who else?
So under interim coaches Oregeron and Helton in the past few years, USC has gone 8-3.
Cal has not beaten USC since 2003, in the pivotal triple-overtime game which held the Trojans out of the BCS national championship game. To put it another way: USC wins 73 percent of the time when it has an interim coach, 66 percent of the time under a permanent coach. The No. 3 ranking was their highest since finishing the 2008 season second in the nation. The Tigers have looked like one of the few consistently dominant teams this season and already have a marquee win over Notre Dame. At least, there was reason to believe the Trojans could beat the Utes at home. If that’s not a great silver lining of an awfully dark cloud, I don’t know what would qualify as an example. It’s USC. It’s pointless to try to figure it out. There was a lot of confusion across the country this week.
Oregon State will be over matched in this game, especially with Utah wanting to rebound after their poor performance last weekend. Utah should be able to move the ball on Oregon State easily but I think Oregon State will cover the spread. They remain in first place in the Pac-12 South with a one-game lead over the rest of the division.
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McCaffrey can do it all, and for the second week in a row, had 300 total yards, making him the most versatile player in all of college football. The Trojans played desperately with their season on the line and could potentially win out and make the Pac 12 title game, but this is still an inconsistent program that has underachieved to be 4-3 and will make a coaching change at the end of the year.
