I thought I had been paying attention. I knew the Trojan defense wasn’t great but with Caleb Williams only having thrown one interception the entire season and sacked an average of just two times a game coming into Notre Dame Stadium I didn’t think the offensive line would struggle so much against a Fighting Irish defense than ranked just 110th in sacks in the nation. But they did, big time, leading to Williams getting sacked six times and throwing up three interceptions in a game in which USC and the nation’s top offense coming in never seemed to get their hands around, trailing from start to finish. The Notre Dame defense forced five turnovers against none for the Trojans—a stat where USC normally dominates. As far as pressuring the other team’s QB, that didn’t happen either with the Trojan’s defense accounting for zero sacks and only one tackle for loss against six and eleven for the home team.
Trouble started right from the get-go as USC got the ball to start and Williams threw his first interception just four plays in on a 13 yard pass to mid-field that was run back to the Trojan 12 yard line. Three plays later Notre Dame was in the end zone on a Sam Hartman pass to Sophomore RB GI’Bran Payne to go up 7-0 with just over three minutes off the clock in the first quarter. Both teams punted after four plays on their next possessions with the Trojans finally getting on the board at the end of a 10 play, 59 yard drive, and 25 yard Denis Lynch field goal to make it 7-3 with just over a minute left in the 1st Qtr.
It got a lot worse for the Trojans in the 2nd Qtr where the game really got away from them. After holding Notre Dame to a field goal to make it 10-3 at the start of the period USC had to turn it back over on downs at the end of a 42 yard, 12 play, drive when they tried to convert a 4th and 1 at the ND 29 yard line and instead lost four yards. Holding ND to a three-and-out on their next possession, after the punt USC started their next drive at their own six yard where all the trouble really got started and less than four minutes later the Fighting Irish had scored back-to-back TD’s following back-to-back interceptions by Caleb Williams to go up 24-3 with just 1:30 left before the break. The Trojans would get another three on the board on a 48 yard field goal with time running out in the half to go into the locker room down 24-6.
The game seemed to settle down after the break with the first three possessions resulting in three-and-outs. On the Trojans 2nd possession of the 3rd Qtr Junior RB Marshawn Lloyd got loose at the end of a 6 play drive for a 31 yard TD run to make it 24-13. But the Fighting Irish came right back on a six play drive of their own and 46 yard TD pass from Hartman to Senior WR Chris Tyree to make it 31-13 with just under four minutes left in the third. After seven play drives that ended in punts by both teams USC would close back in on Caleb Williams’ only TD pass of the game, this one 7 yards to Brenden Rice to trail ND 31-20 with just over nine minutes left in the 4th Qtr. But that’s the last score the Trojans would put up on the board as Notre Dame would add to their total three more times by the end of the game, 2 TD’s–one the result of a USC fumble at their own 17 yard line—and a field goal, to give us a 48-20 final in what felt and looked like a blowout.
For the Trojans, Williams ended up completing 62% of his passes for 199 yards, 1 TD, and 3 interceptions while rushing 13 times for negative eight yards. On the ground USC rushed 37 times for 103 yards and the 1 TD by Lloyd who along with Austin Jones combined for 70% of their rushing total. For Notre Dame, Senior QB Sam Hartman connected on 13-of-20 for 126 yards, 2 TD’s and no picks while rushing once for 12 yards. On the ground the Fighting Irish rushed 29 times for 125 yards and two TD’s, both by Junior RB Auric Esteem who was also responsible for 95 of those total yards on 22 attempts, a 4.3 yard average. In what helps to reveal that it was the mistakes and five turnovers that had the biggest impact on this game the Trojans had ten more first downs, more total yards of offense, were way more effective on third down conversions, and had the ball for nine more minutes. In short, the Trojans are not this bad and conversely Notre Dame is not this good.
USC Head Coach Lincoln Riley had this to say afterward; “We kind of just took our turns making mistakes, and that’s what it look like. A couple of times in pass pro[tection] again, we got beat in one-on-one situations that we have to win and so, I mean, listen, everyone takes ownership in it. And that’s just part of it. There wasn’t one positive group offensively that was good enough tonight.” The Trojan schedule only gets worse from here on out as they’ll be hosting Utah this next weekend, who probably cannot score enough points to beat USC unless they finally get their starting QB Cam Rising back, and then Washington, Oregon in Eugene, and UCLA in three of their final four.