The regular season concludes this Saturday in Los Angeles as Notre Dame looks to secure its place in the first 12-team college football playoff with a win over long-time rival USC. Despite an early season hiccup of all hiccups, the Fighting Irish arrive in Southern California as one of the strongest teams in America and playing perhaps the best football of the Marcus Freeman era. On the other sideline, the Trojans have been teetering on the edge of implosion through November but stabilized themselves in recent weeks with wins over Nebraska and UCLA.

Notre Dame (-7.5) at USC

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California
Date: Saturday, November 30, 2024
Time: 3:30 PM ET
TV: CBS

USC will be looking to make it a close game. And if history is any guide, both in the past and in 2024, that’s more likely than not. The Trojans have beaten Utah State 48-0, Wisconsin 38-21, and Rutgers 42-20 so far this season but all other 8 games have been decided by 8 points or fewer with USC going 3-5 in these contests.

Vegas Corner

The books opened with Notre Dame as a humble 3.5-point favorite in the off-season and still just a 6.5-point favorite when Vegas opened new lines last week. This feels low, but as we’ll get to below beware the history of the Irish in the Coliseum. Earlier this week the line moved a point in favor of the Irish and has remained steady through Thanksgiving as I complete the preview.

Weather Report

This may be the least important weather section of the year. Temperatures are expected to be in the high 70’s for this 12:30 PM local kickoff with a decent amount of cloudiness. Humidity will be low and very little wind is expected to be swirling throughout the Coliseum.

Series History

If it wasn’t for the Covid pandemic this would be the 78th consecutive meeting between the schools. As it stands we’ve only missed meetings during World War II (1943-45) and 2020 since the initial meeting in 1926 in Los Angeles.

Notre Dame currently leads the series 51-38-5 which does not include any vacated wins from either side.

Care for a corporate-sponsored rivalry? 

It’s been a positive era for Notre Dame in the rivalry winning 5 out of the last 6 meetings in addition to 6 out of the last 8, and 9 out of the last 11 contests. Due to the pandemic, this is just the 3rd meeting inside the Coliseum since 2016.

A ghost for Notre Dame traveling to L.A. is that very rarely do the Irish win big visiting the Trojans. In the series, there have been only 7 games (14.5% of the time) in the Coliseum where Notre Dame won by 15+ points and it hasn’t happened since the regular season finale in 2000.

Fun Fact

Back in 2017, the South Bend Tribune had a nice piece on the history of the Jeweled Shillelagh and the medallions that grace the trophy. We very rarely get a close up of the trophy as it’s typically held in hand by a player and it’s one of the physically smaller rivalry “trophies” in the country.

Here are some fun facts regarding the story from the Tribune:

The medallions that grace the Jeweled Shillelagh trophy. 

• The gems in the medallions are emerald (Notre Dame) and ruby (USC).
• The trophy debuted in 1952 and Images Jewelers in Elkhart, Indiana have been making the medallions since 1982.
• The medallions for the rivalry began back in the early days of the ND-USC rivalry but when Images Jewelers were commissioned they needed to create more medallions for the current shillelagh because it wasn’t up to date.
• When the original trophy ran out of space, a new larger shillelagh was crafted in Ireland in 1997 and features only Images medallions.
• The original shillelagh is kept inside the Joyce Center at Notre Dame.

Coaching Staff

Lincoln Riley turned 41 years old earlier this season and is finishing up his 8th season as a head coach, including year 3 with USC. An Air Raid prodigy, Riley’s career was on a rocket upward trajectory first with Oklahoma (55-10 in 5 seasons with the Sooners) and through most of his 2022 debut season with USC. However, since defeating Notre Dame at the Coliseum to close out that 2022 regular season, the Trojans are just 14-12 overall and 2-8 against ranked teams.

Offensive line coach Josh Henson came over from Texas A&M for the 2022 season and while he’s listed as the offensive coordinator this is 100% Lincoln Riley’s scheme and the head coach runs the show on game day.

Coming off a disappointing 8-5 season in 2023, Riley overhauled his coaching staff, particularly on the defensive side of the ball where he fired DC Alex Grinch, with the following new assistants (previous jobs in parentheses):

D’Anton Lynn – Defensive Coordinator (UCLA defensive coordinator)
Matt Entz – Linebacker (North Dakota State head coach)
Eric Henderson – Defensive Line (Los Angeles Rams defensive line)
Doug Belk – Secondary (Houston defensive coordinator)
Anthony Jones, Jr. – Running Back (TCU running back)

Frustration is boiling over for Trojan fans as the off-season moves have led to an improved defense but it hasn’t resulted in more wins on the field.

Mascot

My last game preview was the Florida State game and once again we have a person dressed up on a horse as a school mascot. Has this always been a student-led affair? Nope! USC liked a man named Richard Saukko riding his white horse Traveler in the Rose Parade and asked him to ride at Trojans home games beginning in 1961. He did so all the way through the 1988 season.

He runs around after USC scores touchdowns. 

The school is currently using Traveler IX and the breed can and has changed through the years as long as the horse is pure white. The first woman to ride Traveler came in 2017.

Portal

USC had around 20 players leave the program this off-season and went shopping in the portal to grab the following new faces for 2024:

QB Jayden Maiava – UNLV – He started the year as the backup but is the starter now after Miller Moss was benched and entered the portal on November 7th.

RB Woody Marks – Miss State – A 5th year player who is approaching 3,000 rushing yards in his career.

WR Kyle Ford – UCLA – Solid backup for the Bruins and now the Trojans.

WR Jay Fair – Auburn – Showed promise in 2023 but has been limited to just 8 catches in 2024.

WR Charles Ross – San Jose State – A non-factor with 1 catch this season.

WR Jaden Richardson – Tufts – Also a non-factor with 1 catch this season.

DT Nate Clifton – Vanderbilt – Starting for the Trojans.

NT Gavin Meyer – Wyoming – Also starting on the interior for USC.

USC wore sharp throwbacks against Nebraska a couple weeks ago. 

LB Easton Mascarenas-Arnold – Oregon State – Holding down the Mike linebacker spot and leads the team in tackles by 20 stops.

CB DeCarlos Nicholson – Miss State – A backup corner.

CB John Humphrey – UCLA – More added depth and backup corner.

CB Greedy Vance – Florida State – He’s starting at nickelback for USC.

S Kamari Ramsey – UCLA – One of the starting safeties and the top NFL prospect on the defense.

S Akili Arnold – Oregon State – The other starting safety.

PK Michael Lantz – Georgia Southern – Hit all 4 field goals last weekend but had missed his prior 3 attempts overall.

Top Men

RB Woody Marks – USC pretty much whiffed this off-season on offensive portal acquisitions (was it due to their quarterback question marks?) but not with Marks. He’s 3rd in the Big Ten in rushing yards (this feels so weird to type) and is averaging 5.7 yards per carry.

WR Zachariah Branch – The former 5-star and Composite no. 1 overall receiver in the 2023 class has yet to break out nationally but his numbers are improving from his first season at USC. In his career, he’s caught 74 passes for 778 yards and 3 touchdowns.

LB Mason Cobb – The former Oklahoma State defender transferred to USC ahead of 2023 and can do a little bit of everything. He’s second on the team in tackles, has picked off 2 passes, and broken up 3 more passes so far in 2024.

SS Akili Arnold – USC was looking to shore up their defense and Arnold was one of their prized transfers this year. He’s played a ton of football with 196 tackles, 7 TFL, and 3 interceptions in his career.

Bad Matchup

USC’s Unknown at Quarterback

I bring this up because technically USC is undefeated with Maiava at quarterback. The off-season transfer took a redshirt in 2022 and then put together a strong 2023 campaign at UNLV before taking the portal to Los Angeles. He’s more mobile than the departed Miller Moss and brings a little more playmaking ability to the USC offense. If the Trojans have any chance, he’ll have a really strong game in the Air Raid offense.

Good Matchup

Notre Dame’s Passing Game vs. USC’s Secondary 

This hasn’t been a strength for Notre Dame this season but the passing game should be able to stay efficient against USC and offer enough balance with the strong run game. The Trojans are allowing 67.7% completions (130th nationally!) and their overall passer rating on defense is middling. I think people could be surprised at how well the Irish move the ball through the air on Saturday.

Special Teams

As mentioned, the Trojans brought in transfer kicker Michael Lantz while senior Eddie Czaplicki is back as punter after transferring from Arizona State prior to 2023.

Sophomore speed demon Zachariah Branch remains a super dangerous weapon on special teams with 547 kick return and 395 punt return yards through 21 career games.

Prediction

Lincoln Riley certainly is under a lot of pressure now at USC and is less than 3 years into a mammoth 10-year deal worth $110 million. His buyout isn’t public knowledge but reporting suggests it would cost more than Jimbo Fisher’s record-breaking $76.8 million fee that Texas A&M paid this time last year.

I don’t think Lincoln Riley is going anywhere anytime soon.

Of course, Riley’s coaching acumen and stewardship of this storied program are in question but this 2024 season has been a curious one for USC. They’ve played a tough schedule, played in a ton of close games, and last off-season’s biggest weakness has been improved a lot as the Trojans’ defense comes into Saturday ranked 29th by FEI–that’s up 51 spots from last year!

FEI 2024 RANKINGS

I think  the secret with USC in 2024 is that…they just aren’t that talented.

Marks is the 3rd leading rusher in the Big Ten.

Even taking quarterback out of the equation this is the least scary set of skilled players on offense I’ve seen from USC in maybe a couple decades or more. You might have to go prior to the Pete Carroll era. That’s what makes this a curious case. The Trojans improved their defense, finally got their offensive line stabilized, but their inability to hit a homerun in the portal at quarterback and surround that position with impressive skill players has really caused the program to stall in 2024.

But even with much better quarterback play this USC team could be 10-1 right now and viewed a lot more skeptically like current Miami and unlike an Ohio State or Texas.

There’s tons of pressure on Notre Dame to win this game and they should be locked in. Not only have the Irish traveled to Los Angeles many times in the past and played in a ton of close games, they’ve fallen victim to outright painful upsets. Notre Dame seems to be doing a good job not overlooking this rivalry against a 6-5 team.

If Notre Dame comes out sharp on offense this could be one of the rare comfortable wins in the Coliseum. USC just doesn’t have the efficiency nor explosiveness on offense to consistently move the ball against this Irish defense. Notre Dame’s refusal to kick field goals, or flat out miss them, is one way this game stays close. But I do think the Irish end up with the win and cover to move to 11-1.

Notre Dame 28

USC 17