USC at Arizona State
As far as the Trojans go the only person who has come out on top this year is the guy that got fired, Clay Helton. With two years left on his contract and a buyout of over $10M from USC, along with the salary from his new head coaching job at Georgia Southern, Helton’s going to be making very close to $3M a year for the next five years. Wow!
This past Saturday his old team couldn’t seem to get out of their own way in a 31-10 loss to Arizona State in Tempe. The QB tag-team approach that USC Interim Head Coach Donte Williams has been trying to use between Junior QB Kedon Slovis and Freshman QB Jaxon Dart resulted in a combined 220 yards, zero TD’s, and 1 interception each, although Dart did pick up the Trojan’s only rushing TD of the game. Other than that, the ground game was equally anemic picking up just 92 yards on 27 carries.
The Sun Devils weren’t any better in the air with Junior QB Jayden Daniels connecting on just over half of his 20 attempts for 145 yards and matchig his counterparts with zero TD’s and 2 interceptions. But it’s on the ground where Arizona State made hay and the Trojan run defense fell flat as the Sun Devils picked up 282 yards on 42 attempts and 4 rushing TD’s, including 202 yards and three of those scores credited to Senior RB Rachaad White.
USC started slow and finished slow scoring neither in the first nor 4th Qtrs. As Ryan Kartje put it in his write-up for the LA Times; “It was a fitting finish for an offense that fell flat for most of the night, doomed by a run game that found no room and a rotation that found no rhythm through the air.” Through the air, it’s clear the absence of WR Drake London is huge and as Kartje noted in his headline; “Two Trojan quarterbacks are not better than one.” With London responsible for receiving close to 50% of USC’s yards in the air this year the Trojan’s passing offense no longer resembles Graham Harrell’s original version of an air-raid where the ball is distributed to multiple receivers. As a result, both Trojan QB’s are struggling.
The game started with a Kedon Slovis interception on USC’s first possession of the game and ended with a Jaxson Dart interception on their last possession. There were five turnovers in the game including a fumble early in the 2nd Qtr by Arizona State at their own 27 yard line, recovered by USC, that led to a TD seven plays later that would have stalled except for yet another Sun Devil miscue—a facemask penalty that gave the Trojans a 1st and 10 at the Arizona State 11 yard line. On the second play after the penalty QB Jaxson Dart ran into the end zone for USC’s only TD of the day as their nine other points came on field goals by Sophomore Place Kicker Parker Lewis who was 3-of-4 including a long of 52 yards.
Arizona State and Utah both have combined records of 6-3 with three games remaining. However, Utah has the lead in the South with a conference record of 5-1 compared to 4-2 for the Sun Devils and holds the tie-breaker after defeating Arizona State 35-21 on October 16th. With Utah scheduled to play Arizona, Oregon, and Colorado it’s pretty safe to say that they will pick up two more wins and maybe three while the fate of the Sun Devil’s isn’t as clear as they could easily lose two of their last three. Right now it looks pretty clear that Arizona State is out of it in the South and Utah will be facing Oregon twice, once on November 20th and again in the PAC-12 Conference Championship on Friday, December 3rd, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Regarding USC, they are 4-5 overall and will need to win two games against Cal, UCLA, or BYU to become bowl eligible. You can expect to see pretty much a complete purge of the major coaching staff of the Trojans at the end of the season.