If you haven’t checked in on USC for a while you may have remembered their brutal defeat at the hands of Alabama in their opener, or their offensive drought against Stanford, or their close but still 3rd loss in their first 4 games on the road at Utah. In September it looked like Clay Helton was for sure going to be let go by the end of this season.

Notre Dame (+17.5) at USC

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
Exhibition Park, Los Angeles, California
Date: Saturday, November 26, 2016
Kickoff: 3:30 PM ET
Television: ABC
Series: 46-36-5 Notre Dame

Today, USC is perhaps the hottest team in the country outside of Tuscaloosa. They’ve won 7 straight games, handed Washington their only defeat to date, and are a Colorado loss against Utah away from a re-match with the Huskies for the Pac-12 Title. Even if the Trojans don’t make their league championship game they will be heavy favorites to win their bowl game while finishing 10-3 and likely at or near the Top 10 in the polls.

3 Matchups to Watch

Ronald Jones vs. Notre Dame Rush Defense

The Texas native nearly picked Notre Dame but is now flourishing as a sophomore in Los Angeles. Jones didn’t start the first 6 games for USC and also didn’t get going until later in the season. He’s now officially on fire. Over his last 4 games, Jones has acumulated 608 rushing yards with 8 rushing touchdowns.

Irish Offense Converting 3rd Downs

USC has played a really tough schedule and a lot of their traditional defensive stats are lackluster. They’re below average to kind of bad in turnovers forced, sacks, tackles for loss, and red zone defense. What they’ve been pretty good at is getting off the field on 3rd down. Yeah, the Irish haven’t been too great in that department on offense in 2016.

Special Teams Gaffes vs. USC’s Athletes

Let’s not let Adoree Jackson bound all over the field when he has the ball on special teams, okay? We don’t have Will Fuller this year to demoralize him.

2 Sides of the Line

USC’s offensive line has played a decent amount of bodies but is rounding into form with a solified unit these days. Sophomore 5-star Chuma Edoga (6-4, 290) started the year at left tackle but has been replaced by last year’s starter 5th-year senior Chad Wheeler (6-6, 310) since week 3 once the latter was healthy.

Redshirt sophomore Chris Brown (6-5, 300) won the battle at left guard but has been replaced by last year’s starter junor Damien Mama (6-4, 325). At center, junior Toa Lobendahn (6-3, 295) started against Alabama but has been out with a knee injury ever since. In his place, redshirt junior Nico Falah (6-4, 280) has made the last 10 starts.

On the right side junior Via Talamaivao (6-2, 315) has made every start at guard. At tackle, 5th-year senior Zach Banner (6-9, 360) is back as starter and only missed a couple of games with an ankle injury.

The Trojans line has found a groove lately. They were held to a modest 113 yards against Washington (who isn’t?) but have averaged 312 rushing yards in their over previous 4 games in the Pac-12.

uscdefense

Clancy Pendergast is in his 3rd stint at USC and second as the defensive coordinator after his one-and-done season back in 2013. He’s known as a 5-2 disciple but he’s been varying the looks for the Trojans a lot this year often using only two true linemen up front.

USC lost redshirt junior 5-star Kenny Bigelow to a season-ending knee injury and sophomore Noah Jefferson to academic suspension after their first game. They’ve had Utah grad transfer Stevie Tu’ikolovatu (6-1, 320) anchor the line all season at nose guard.

Sophomore 5-star Rasheem Green (6-5, 280) is playing a big role as a tackle/end hyrbid player and has 4.5 sacks and 4 pass break-ups this season. Making their living on the edges are sophomore Porter Gustin (6-5, 260) who has an impressive 56 tackles and 10.5 TFL. On the other side, junior Uchenna Nwosu (6-3, 235) has 43 tackles and 7 TFL.

1 Prediction

Even with USC’s rough start to the season we knew this would be a tough game. As we enter the last weekend of the year it’s looking significantly more challenging.

For all of the Trojans trials and tribulations since 2010 they’ve almost always found a way to develop a quarterback with a lot of eligibility left. Poor Max Browne waited 4 years to finally take reigns inside the Coliseum and his gig lasted 3 games. Think about that the next time you want to criticize a quarterback for leaving town when they don’t get to start after a year or two.

In steps redshirt freshman Sam Darnold who now stabilizes the Trojan quarterback depth chart and offers a bright future for the next 3 years.

Darnold is the second highest rated quarterback in the Pac-12 and despite playing minimally in the beginning of the year he’s already 4th in the league in passing yards. I do think he’s getting a little of that typical media hype because he’s already reached a certain floor as a freshman, plus USC is on a nice winning streak. That’s not to say Darnold isn’t good but, as we saw with Kizer, things can be deceiving in your first year of playing college football.

USC has done a really good job working around Darnold’s skill-set–and while Kizer can go through stretches of this game producing more largely because of his running–it’s the Trojans supporting cast that should offer far more consistency.

I’m not expecting a blowout. Although, in some corners of the Notre Dame fandom a blowout is losing by more than 8 or 9 points. So, if the Irish lose by 12 or 35 and both are considered blowouts then I guess I could be expecting something of that order.

blowout

This is a rivalry game which means some weird stuff could happen. There’s something lingering in the back of my mind that Notre Dame’s going to cap off this ludicrously absurd season with an upset of USC. Somehow, I think that would actually make Irish fans more angry. For one, that they waited until the 12th game to put together their best game of the season. And secondly, it’ll only inflame certain segments from within us to jack up the FIRE EVERYBODY talk in resistance to a win.

Unfortunately, Notre Dame isn’t winning this game. USC’s defense is too stiff and there are too many weapons for Darnold to play with on offense. I don’t believe we’ll see a really distracted team with the drama hanging over the program right now. Still, that hasn’t stopped this team from losing even when they are putting in a good effort.

Notre Dame 21

USC 37