Many doubted that Lincoln Riley would be able to rebuild USC quickly and install a culture of winning with a small 2022 recruiting class, having to juggle too many transfers, and lacking of any identity on defense. The 39-year old coach will host Notre Dame this weekend with the Trojans sitting at 10-1, a spot in the Pac-12 Championship Game clinched, and a shot still alive at the College Football Playoffs.
It’s been a huge revamp of the USC roster this off-season. Of the 43 non-special teams players to have made an impact in 2022, a total of 18 players were transfers into the program, all but a few coming this calendar year as well.
Notre Dame (+5.5) at USC
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
United Airlines Field
Los Angeles, California
Date: Saturday, November 26, 2022
Time: 7:30 PM ET
TV: ABC
Series: 50-37-5 Notre Dame
The coaching staff is practically all brand new, too. The only hold over from 2021 was former interim head coach and current defensive backs coach Donte Williams.
So, this looks like a new USC team ready to face Notre Dame on Saturday night. Have their bones truly changed or is their DNA still the same as the previous modern iterations of the Trojans?
USC’s Offense
The offensive line for USC has been pretty steady at 4 positions this season. Fifth-year senior left guard Andrew Voorhees (6-6, 325), 5th-year senior center Brett Neilon (6-2, 295), 5th-year senior right guard Justin Dedich (6-2, 305), and redshirt sophomore right tackle Jonah Monheim (6-5, 295) have started all but one game (Dedich missed the ASU game) this season.
Left tackle has been more complicated. The Trojans tried out redshirt sophomore Courtland Ford (6-6, 305) while sharing playing time with Virginia transfer 5th-year senior Bobby Haskins (6-7, 295) with the latter eventually taking over the job. USC then turned to redshirt freshman Mason Murphy (6-6, 300) a few games ago, including starting last week against UCLA, but he was replaced in the 2nd quarter by Haskins in the win over the Bruins.
USC will rotate a lot of receivers through their lineup. Reigning Biletnikoff winner Jordan Addison created waves by transferring from Pitt this off-season. He had been banged up and missed almost 3 full games before coming back with vengeance last week against UCLA. In 9 healthy games, Addison has 51 receptions, 765 yards, and 8 touchdowns.
Mario Williams was another key transfer that came over from Oklahoma with Riley. He missed most of the last 4 games, although dressed last week with 1 catch to his name. In 7 healthy games, he has 508 yards and 4 scores. Fifth-year senior Tahj Washington transferred from Memphis prior to 2021 and is having a very good year with 549 yards and 4 touchdowns. Junior Brenden Rice is a bigger receiver who transferred in from Colorado and has caught 29 balls with 2 touchdowns.
Redshirt junior Kyle Ford has been productive in recent games, totaling at least 70 receiving yards in 3 out of the last 4 games. The Trojans will also use 5th-year senior Washington transfer Terrell Bynum (133 yards) and sophomore Michael Jackson III has stepped up in recent games and has 196 yards and 3 touchdowns in 2022.
Williams made a smart decision to leave Oklahoma this off-season.
The Trojans received a huge blow recently when former Oregon transfer running back Travis Dye was lost for the season after suffering a knee injury against Colorado. He had 884 yards at 6.1 per rush and 9 scores before going down. In his place, USC will turn to Stanford transfer Austin Jones whose played well all season (6.23 per rush) including 120 yards and 2 scores last week against UCLA. The offense will likely give a few carries to true freshman Raleek Brown, as well.
So, Caleb Williams. The 6’1″ quarterback has built upon his 2021 freshman All-American season following a transfer from Oklahoma and comes into this weekend 6th nationally in passing yards, 4th in touchdown passes, and 9th in passer rating. In 18 career starts, Williams has produced 5,392 passing yards, 54 touchdowns, and just 7 interceptions. He’s also a potent runner with 758 rushing yards and 13 more touchdowns in his career.
Following last week’s performance against UCLA (503 total yards, 3 TD) Williams has inched past Ohio State’s CJ Stroud as the Vegas-favorite to win the Heisman Trophy.
USC’s standard offensive stats are not pretty if you’re Notre Dame (national rankings in parentheses):
Points Per Game – 42.9 (3rd)
Yards Per Play – 7.28 (2nd)
Passing Yards – 3,639 (4th)
Total Yards – 5,643 (3rd)
3rd Down Conversions – 54.26% (2nd)
USC’s Defense
Alex Grinch came over with Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma to be defensive coordinator and things have not been going well so far. The USC defense comes into this weekend as the 4th worst in the Pac-12 according to FEI. Using those rankings, this will be the 4th easiest defense on the Notre Dame schedule trailing UNC, BYU, and UNLV.
The Trojans largely rely on a 4-2-5 scheme with a pass-rusher often standing up. They will use a lot of defensive backs, too.
Redshirt sophomore and Auburn transfer Romello Height was lost for the season in game 2 after a shoulder injury and at defensive end USC has been using 5th-year senior Wyoming transfer Solomon Byrd (6-4, 250) and 5th-year senior Nick Figeuroa (6-5, 275) who’ve combined for 11.5 tackles for loss.
On the other edge, junior Tuli Tuipulotu (6-4, 290) is extremely versatile and moves around a lot through the defense. He’s blowing up in 2022 and rising up a ton of NFL Draft boards. Heading into the Notre Dame matchup, Tuipulotu is tied for the national lead in sacks with 11.5 and is 3rd nationally with 19 tackles for loss.
Can we ruin Grinch’s Christmas?
On the interior, Kansas State transfer and senior Tyrone Taleni (6-2, 280) has 5 sacks and redshirt junior De’jon Benton (6-2, 270) has offered some depth. At nose guard, redshirt junior Stanley Ta’ufo’ou (6-2, 270) anchors things and has totaled 5.5 tackles for loss.
At linebacker, senior Shane Lee (6-0, 245) transferred from Alabama and leads the team with 65 tackles. The status of their other linebacker sophomore Arizona State transfer Eric Gentry (6-6, 200) is murky. He’s a light and long playmaker who was supposed to return last week against UCLA but hasn’t played in the last 4 games. Senior Ralen Goforth (6-2, 225) and redshirt junior Tuasivi Nomura (6-1, 230) offer depth but not a ton of production.
USC’s main secondary players include Colorado transfer 5th-year senior Mekhi Blackmon (6-0, 175) and redshirt freshman Ceyair Wright (6-1, 180) at corner with sophomore Jaylin Smith (5-11, 180) at nickelback. Sophomore Calen Bullock (6-3, 180) and redshirt junior Max Williams (5-9, 180) patrol things at safety with Ohio State transfer Bryson Shaw (6-0, 195), Oklahoma transfer Latrell McCutchin (6-1, 185), and Washington transfer Jacobe Covington (6-2, 195) all featuring heavily in the defensive backfield.
A major story of the season for USC is their national leading 18 interceptions with 12 coming from their secondary. Without this, they’re probably 9-2 right now. On the season, the Trojans are giving up 6.05 yards per play on defense, good for 110th nationally.
Prediction
The progress for USC has largely worked out the way most believed it would. Riley has improved USC and they’ve jumped up 59 spots in the FEI rankings from 2021 and that is some truly impressive work. Technically, even the defense has improved a little bit but it’s the legendary (this seems crazy to say but accurate for such a young coach with the track record to back it up) coordinating abilities of Riley’s offense that have transformed the Trojans from above average to one of the nation’s best.
Yet, we’re still not really sure if this USC team is that good, especially for a No. 5 AP team in its last regular season game. Grinch recently stated he has to do more than have a front row seat to watch the offense carry the team and that’s about as accurate and self-aware as you can be. With even an above average defense this could be a year where USC was the team to beat for the National Championship, and instead, it’s possible their defense will let them down once or twice more in 2022.
The 3 keys to this weekend’s matchup:
| STAT | ND | USC |
|---|---|---|
| FEI Offense | 44 | 3 |
| FEI Defense | 29 | 91 |
1) Don’t Turn the Ball Over
USC is +20 in turnover differential, tops in the country by miles and miles. Their turnover luck early in the season was off the charts (+14 through 4 games WTF!??) and they only lost the ball once in their first 8 games, unbelievably. This has turned around a little bit where they’ve had 1 lost turnover in each of their last 3 games but are still +4 overall in that time frame anyway.
2) Force Field Goals
The kicker for the Trojans is a frumpy 5’8″ left-footed walk-on named Denis Lynch who isn’t particularly impressive. The USC offense is tied for the 2nd most red zone opportunities nationally, 2nd most in overall red zone touchdowns, and they have the 6th best red zone touchdown percentage among Power 5 programs.
Getting a couple stops and forcing field goal attempts is a massive priority.
3) Find Any Way to Score
Lincoln Riley has lost 11 games in nearly 6 full seasons of being a head coach. He carries an impressive .855 winning percentage into the weekend and is rightfully considered one of the best offensive minds in college football. While there is room to quibble about USC’s strength of schedule (they’ve avoided Oregon and Washington the other highest ranked Pac-12 teams, and lost to the third highest ranked team in the league Utah) Riley has won two-thirds of the matchups against ranked teams in his career.
Simply put, if you are going to beat Riley’s teams you have to score. A lot of points.
In those 11 losses for Riley, his opponents have scored an average of 43.4 points per game. The only one of those games where a winning opponent was under 37 points was last year against Baylor in the Bears’ 27-14 win over Oklahoma. That was, not surprisingly, the worst game of Caleb Williams’ career to date.
The Travis Dye injury opens the door to an Irish upset, as would someone like Mario Williams still not being 100% ready to play. Notre Dame needs their defensive pressure to slow down both the USC running game and harass Caleb Williams in the backfield, the latter who has proven to struggle (at times given his talent) against blitzing and let’s his emotions get the best of him when under duress. I think USC will be frustrated with how much they’ll struggle against Notre Dame’s defense but slowing the Trojans down for 4 quarters is a big ask.
Can the Irish make this more of a low-scoring (let’s say a total of 50 points) affair?
I’ll argue Notre Dame will have to get to 40 points to win this game. The times they’ve scored 40 in the Coliseum include:
1966: 51-0 Win
1953: 48-14 Win
That was a long time ago, and neither USC ended up being ranked at season’s end.
I like history. And the history suggests Notre Dame doesn’t win shootout-y games on the road in Los Angeles. The Irish haven’t scored 30 in the Coliseum since 2000–and while they are 6-0 while scoring at least 30 in L.A.–only 1 of those USC teams finished ranked (1947). When Notre Dame faces top 20 season-ending USC teams on the road who score at least 30 in this game, the Trojans are undefeated at 10-0 and average 44.1 points per game.
Marcus Freeman winning this game would be a big, big deal. At some point, USC will get their comeuppance for having such a lousy defense and lose again. I just don’t think Notre Dame quite gets it across the line and has the offense to keep pace.
At a couple different points this season, first half Cal and maybe even as recent as early syracuse I complained about nd not being well coached. Obviously that was in game venting but I think last week it clicked while I was watching usc. USC does a lot of things of a not great coaches team, came back from a. first down trying to break a big play, kick return accidentally knelt at their own 6, etc. But really ND issue is they have a bunch of 19-22 like everyone else without a qb to solve all their issues. If ND had a top 20 qb I would rarely think they’re poorly coached since they have a get out of jail free card.
2 weeks ago I really liked ND and thought usc was begging to get their ass kicked by a physical team (they still are) but like Eric said I don’t think ND will be able to be the ones. I just hadn’t watched a full Caleb game and he is incredible. The qb discrepancy is just too great to overcome. and hopefully marcus takes that lesson to heart.
I am irrationally confident about this game. Irish 35-31.
Well now you’ve doomed it.
Whatever the opposite of chagrin is, that’s how I feel about this comment and you making it 🙂
These honest assessments are valid, but, I’m going to daydream a tad:
I’m putting a lot of stock into our defense geling into al golden’s system down the stretch = everyone knows the play and the adjustments, therefore faster more aggressive football. USC will win some battles but i think if we make them go 10+ play drives and have to grind out redzone trips, that will wear on them.
I hypothesize USC has “big play syndrome” where prolific offenses get frazzled even at 5 yard gains if they have to consistently grind out drives. Think paul Johnson at georgia tech when they were decent, Lamar Jackson’s MVP year at baltimore when they lost in the playoffs to Tennessee, and I can personally vouch for this from high school football. Explosive teams get anxious on long drives, and it causes them to press. I think notre dame’s defense will turn this into a dog fight, and USCs own big play syndrome success will work against their psyche.
The other side of that coin, our offense is more a giant stone wheel of inertia, it doesnt move fast, but it crushes whatever is underneath methodically (unless its navy… tryhards).
In my heart I want this to look like the old harbaugh/chip kelly stanford oregon games of the 2010s, foot to foot, phone booth football, and hit the living shit out of them on the defense side.
31-28, irish. If we approach 40 min in TOP and have 0 turnovers, I think we can shorten this game and grind their defense into paste. Go irish!
From what I’ve seen, SC’s offense is very boom and bust. Like, they’ll get sacked for a loss of 9, then gain 23 on a throw into triple coverage, then get stuffed for a loss of one.
I think ND’s defense is going to have a lot of TFLs tomorrow. The question is whether SC’s positive plays will go for 8 yards or 28 yards.
Excellent write-up and your prediction is about where I’m at too. This is a really hard matchup to prognosticate, both teams should feel really good about exploiting the other’s weaknesses. For ND, the gameplan will probably be Ohio State v 2.0 (this time with offensive line included), make USC drive the length of the field every time and grind the opposing defense with the run game. For some reason I get the feeling we will know who will win within the first 20 minutes of play just in terms of game tempo and how the offenses are playing.
What concerns me the most is that while I think CJ Stroud is probably a better overall QB, Williams will be harder to defend because of his toughness and mobility. We’ve shown that you can slow down Ohio State’s offense by not letting anything get behind you and dropping a lot of guys into coverage because Stroud won’t take off and burn you. Williams presents the opposite problem, you have to play everything super tight which is far more labor-intensive. IMO this is the secondary’s biggest test this year, even greater than OSU.
Whatever cosmic forces are out there need to transfer elite game-manager powers to Drew Pyne for this game. He doesn’t need to lead the offense, just be smart and make good decisions. Make the open throws and chuck it out of bounds if there are guys bearing down. If he turns the ball over there’s a 0% chance we win. If he plays within himself I think our offensive line and tight ends can handle their front seven which will eventually open up easy passes off play-action.
Best case scenario we jump on them early something like 21-3 and force Williams to play from behind the whole way. Make them abandon the running game and hold Addison to a Zay Flowers/Josh Downs-like performance. Unfortunately I think too many things have to go right for ND to win the game right now but like I said, ask me again after the first 20 minutes.
If we run the ball like we did against Clemson, and we keep the turnover battle at even, then what would people predict (keeping in mind that USC has been feasting on turnovers this year and our win against Clemson we were +2 with TO I believe)?
Oh if we run the ball like we did against Clemson against that defense we are putting up 350 yards on the ground. That was a top-10 rushing defense that stacked the box knowing we were going to run yet still couldn’t stop us. With an even turnover margin that’s an Irish victory 99 times out of 100.
What reason would we have to think that we won’t run the ball like we did against Clemson given that USC’s defense is significantly inferior?
Hopefully so, but even that game was 14-0 at the start of the 4th quarter with a punt block TD in the mix. The ND run game was effective but the yards total looks better when combined with all the turnovers forced too (and a very impotent Clemson offense that couldn’t do anything right).
I do think that is the most important battle, if ND offense can win the line of scrimmage and stay on the field and chew up clock, they might have a shot. But that is no secret and USC defense has to be expected to sell out and stop the run, which they probably can limit with numbers.
That’s why I initially asked what would happen in that scenario. I don’t think it’s an automatic W if we can run all over USC.
In that case I think we’re looking at something close to the 2017 SC game, which would be delightful.
USC is a team of contradictions. Bad defense, but their DL position coach is a Broyles semifinalist (and Brian Mason didn’t make the cut, so booooo). Impressive at times, but look like more than the sum of the parts.
It’s hard to tell if *they’re* good or if they just have good coaching and a great QB.
I suppose they could score 38, but that would be a very bad sign. I don’t think it’ll be a secret or surprise the ND gameplan will be to run, eat clock, limit as much as they can. Probably need some havoc to pull the upset.
I’ll go USC 31, ND 23. Falling short of what they need, but I think the first 11 games have shown a path to victory that the Irish can follow. Hoping they keep it in the 20’s and it’s like a 27-23 win with a few plays swinging the game.
My Aunt asked me about the game today at dinner, and I hemmed and hawed, starting to say a condensed version of the above… and then, struck by irrational exuberance, paused and said “F it, Notre Dame by 20”. Go Irish
The USC defense does not match up well against our offense. Clemson had a better front 4 and 7. A 4-2-5 scheme is not ideal to play against a dominant rushing attack especially if your secondary is the strongest D unit. Still Cal put up 406 pass yds against them (against ND – 184) and 35 points. They also missed a lot of tackles. Opponent third down conversions rank 100th nationally, allowing almost 42% conversions. The implication for rushing offense and sustaining drives is apparent. I expect they will try some blitz packages including some delayed. Playing calling and Pyne will need to take this into account and get the ball out of his hands. A two back set with Tyree motioning into the flat for quick passes, dragging Mayer across the middle behind the LBs and play action could pay benefits.
The Pac 12 is as deep and competitive in recent memory with four teams ranked in the top fourteen and half of the conference ranked in the top 21. Nationally, conference teams have four of the top six in total offense. I would not be surprised if Oregon St beats Oregon or Wash St beats Washington. As EM pointed out, USC (#2) has not played Oregon (#4) nor Washington (#6) or their defensive stats would look worse. In four of their last five games, USC has allowed 35 or more points (two of those >42 points). Two of those opponents were in the bottom half of the conference, Arizona (3-6) and Cal (2-7). They beat Arizona 45-37 and Cal 41-35. Is the conference that competitive? Or is it their defense?
The Irish have a string of scoring 35 points or more in their last five games (three over forty points).
I like our chances.
Sneaky keys to the game:
(1) Clarence Lewis playing ok. Would feel a lot better about this game if Cam Hart were 100%.
(2) Estime’s fumbling being truly behind him. If he can pound it all game, that’s great.
(3) Blitzes getting home. Travis Dye was a great blocker, but not sure Austin Jones is. Kiser around the edge with a strip sack would be swell.
I think USC wins 38-28 because I don’t have a ton of faith in (1) given their passing attack. Would love to be wrong.
I really think we can go in there and smash em in the damn mouth USC’s defense is soft and they’re weak at OL
This is probably the 8th or 9th best defense we’ve faced while we are far and away the best defense Southern Cal has played
I think we jump on them early with a big turnover/special teams play a la clemson game but unlike clemson they fight back into it and take the lead before we dominate the second half with our ground game
ND 37
SC 34