No. 11 USC at No. 18 Michigan: Who has the edge, and why?
What’s at stake, injuries, who’s better, top matchup, TV info and prediction for the Trojans’ Big Ten Conference debut Saturday at the Big House
Luca Evans (OC Register)
No. 11 USC at No. 18 Michigan
When: Saturday, 12:30 p.m. PT
Where: Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, Mich.
TV/radio: CBS (Ch. 2)/710 AM
Records: USC 2-0 (0-0 Big Ten), Michigan 2-1 (0-0 Big Ten)
Line: USC by 5½ points
Notable injuries
USC: PROBABLE: LB Mason Cobb (undisclosed), LB Eric Gentry (undisclosed), CB Jaylin Smith (undisclosed)
Michigan: QUESTIONABLE: TE Colston Loveland (undisclosed), DB Jaden Mangham (undisclosed), WR Tyler Morris (undisclosed); OUT: DB Rod Moore (torn ACL, season)
What’s at stake? For USC, there might not be a more important game on the regular-season schedule. Suddenly, if the Trojans can waltz across the country into the Big House and shut down the defending national champions en route to a 3-0 start, their schedule provides a direct pathway to an expanded 12-team College Football Playoff – and introduces whispers of a national championship.
USC would return home to face Wisconsin (2-1), which just lost starting quarterback Tyler Van Dyke to a season-ending injury, and would be heavily favored in a subsequent matchup against Minnesota. The remaining current top 25 opponents on USC’s schedule are No. 10 Penn State (2-0), No. 22 Nebraska (3-0) and No. 17 Notre Dame (2-1).
With Michigan’s rough offensive start under new head coach Sherrone Moore, too, the matchup’s perception has completely flipped in the last couple of weeks, with USC suddenly the odds-on favorites. That’s a dangerous prospect for the Trojans, though, and they know it, emphasizing for weeks that they aren’t taking the Wolverines lightly.
“They are the defending national champions, like – you gotta go in there with that type of respect,” USC defensive end Jamil Muhammad (10) said Wednesday.
Who’s better? Entering Week 1, this answer would have been Michigan. And the Wolverines have still fielded an elite defense, with the core of a top-ranked 2023 unit returning in defensive tackle Mason Graham, cornerback Will Johnson and dynamic edge Josaiah Stewart. But Michigan’s offense has endured a mighty public struggle through three weeks, necessitating a quarterback change from Loyola High product Davis Warren to the intriguing run-first Alex Orji.
The Wolverines’ ground game is still solid, with senior Kalel Mullings in the midst of a 7.5 yards-per-carry-breakout, and will be relied upon heavily Saturday.
But Michigan wields nowhere near the bevy of offensive weapons the Trojans present, and USC’s Miller Moss has already proven himself as one of the better quarterbacks across college football. There’s a reason USC enters as the favorite.
Matchup to watch: USC’s secondary vs. Michigan’s tight ends. The obvious answer here is the lines of scrimmage, where a young USC offensive line will have to contend with Graham and a mean Big Ten front. But a deeper key: The Wolverines have, thus far, mined an overwhelmingly large percentage of their passing attack through the tight end position, particularly top NFL prospect Colston Loveland.
Loveland is questionable with injury, though, putting the onus on backup Marlin Klein – who had a strong showing last week against Arkansas State – to step up. If Loveland is out and USC’s secondary can shadow Klein, it could turn an already-crippled Michigan attack completely one-dimensional.
USC wins if: The offense commits a maximum of one turnover … the defense can hold Orji to sub-5 yards per carry … if USC’s offensive line can limit Michigan’s defensive line to a handful of pressures against Moss and set up time for an expanded Trojans passing game.
Prediction: USC 24, Michigan 20. It will be a close game, and could swing either way in a road contest, but it’s easy to see Moss leading crucial fourth-quarter drives similar to USC’s Week 1 victory over LSU.
ocregister.com
___________
TrojanDailyBlog members — We always encourage you to add factual information, insight, divergent opinions, or new topics to the TDB that don’t necessarily pertain to any particular moderator post or member comment.
USC’s O-Line didn’t show up today. I hope LR doesn’t pull another Alev Gench and keep Henson because Henson is his good buddy. We need another O-Line coach. They didn’t pass block or run block today. Moss didn’t have a good game. But he was getting hit on every play. We’ve played 2 good teams this year and our running game hasn’t gained 100 yards in either game. That line has enough talent to be really good. That’s one of LR’s big fault. He keeps people around because they are his good buddies. Saban used to get rid of coaches… Read more »
Unreal. We played the first half so conservatively and was losing…. then the coaches made great adjustments in the 2nd half and you could totally see we were the better team…24 to 20 and in control of the ball…why on our second to last possession did we slide back to our conservative losing play calls? All we needed was to keep the clock moving , stay aggressive and pick up a first down. Instead, we made 3 of the most ridiculous calls I’ve ever seen. Michigan got to preserve their time outs and as you know ultimately win. I hope… Read more »
I see what you are saying, to bad hindsight is always 20/20.
Here’s how WeAreSC’s Erik McKinney summed it up: The USC Trojans (2-1) seemed to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat against Michigan (3-1) and then handed it right back to the Wolverines in a 27-24 loss on the road. USC’s penultimate drive was on Lincoln Riley. Riley on USC’s penultimate drive, a three-and-out that took only 59 seconds off the clock: “Yeah, I thought I could have been better. I don’t think I called a very good drive there.” USC got the ball with 5:01 remaining in the game at its own 38-yard line leading 24-20 with a chance to end the game.… Read more »
About right … looked like an embarrassing loss, then a gutty road win, then a Grinch like D bad joke. 90 yd drive, set up by a miss tackle 65 yd gash play , oh the memories, all on the ground. Really. 1st half was terrible … not 1 play made, not 1, until late pass run by Branch and then can’t put into EZ 1st and goal (Branch has to score some TDs). SC couldn’t block #78 #0 or #8, Moss was hit and not hit but falls down a lot between making great plays … TD to Lane… Read more »
I would say that Zach Branch has been a disappointment so far this season. I keep waiting for him to take it to the house or blow us all away, and it’s not happening. He seems to be lost in space on punt returns, often fair catches with a bunch of room to run or too close to the end zone, or jitterbugs around like he’s not headed north/south enough. Seems weirdly unsure of himself. I’m not a special teams expert by any means, but so far Branch doesn’t seem very special for a guy with such ungodly speed and… Read more »
Meanwhile in basketball, James Madison beats North Carolina 70-50.
USC has itself to blame for this loss Antonio Morales (The Athletic) — The Trojans displayed some toughness but will be kicking themselves for losing this one. USC tackled well for most of the second half, but crucial misses by John Humphrey and Kamari Ramsey led to the big run by Kalel Mullings, which set up Michigan for the game-winning score. The Trojans did little on offense when they got the ball back with the lead with five minutes remaining. The pick-six by Miller Moss loomed large in the grand scheme of the outcome, and the offense’s inability to do anything in the first… Read more »
On the interception Moss was definitely locked in on the receiver so that the defender new where the ball was going but the receiver was partially to blame as well on that type of stop route, the receiver should not be backpedaling after turning around, in fact he should have moved forward towards the ball to make the reception, if he does that there is no way for the defender to intercept.
Plenty of player mistakes, but LR was outcoached.
We need another O-Line coach
I think every upcoming team is going to defend USC just like MI did. Deep zone and blitz, stress the O line as much as possible. Lots of ways USC could have won the game, and there are regrets for some calls, but overall this is still a better team than we had last year. Maybe this loss will bring a little more fire for the next game. I am totally confused now, is it okay to hold and grab the face mask if you are a home team from Michigan? Why no penalty on the blind side on Lemon.
No other team we will play has that D-Line though. They could play that way because they could get home with 4 guys. Thats a crazy good football team with a terrible QB.
So I guess 12-0 is out the window, I will have to settle for 11-1 and hope these guys continue to get better each week.
I have us a two losses, I now know who loss #1 is to.
I still think we win 10. Split with Penn St, Notre Dame. We will win the rest.
A crazy good football team that played like crap the first 3 games. The change in QB for Michigan did not, in my opinion, impact the game. Michigan simply got ‘up’ for this game and played better than they had previously.
Lastly, Michigan was called for only 3 penalties for 25 yards.
Agreed. Even with our mistakes, we had multiple chances to salt game away. We have turned a corner.
They were holding a lot. The officials were wearing glasses with yellow and blue lenses.
There were a lot of penalty calls that were missed. I am curious if this is the norm for the B1G just as calling too many penalties was the norm for the PAC12.
At least one thing is for sure, they officials were not consistent. Not that it had an effect on the outcome. I sure hope Lemon knows what day it is.
If I were Riley I’d be asking the same question along with why was defensive holding waved off as PI the holding was down before the ball was thrown. How does one get a call for roughing the QB in theB1G?
Not surprised being the new team in the conference we will not get the calls. There were at least 5 times the announcers mentioned a call was missed against MI.
What hurts is we came back to take the lead with just minutes left and couldn’t prevent another TD. They passed for what? 32 yards? Whatever adjustments the coaches tried to make throughout the game still didn’t matter at the end. At the end, it would have helped a few of Mosses’ passes be held? And then get down to where a FG was attempted.
Well that’s time I’ll never get back. Michigan managed to cheat literally to a win and if Riley the B1G will say that’ll be smash mouth football.
Very disappointed.
Well, we didn’t deserve it today. They could only do one thing and we couldn’t stop it. Bad loss.
2 big runs were the difference.
3 big runs and a pick six
True, but we would have beaten them even with the pick-6 and one of those runs. The 2 runs that killed us were the first half TD run, and the late long run on their last scoring drive. Without those 2, we win, and actually, just without that last one and we win.
Margins were thin today.
whyndoes call three pass plays for no yards when he could have kept is on the ground and run clock
damn, riley
Damn
poor clocmk mgmt by lr is going to cost us this game.
Noooooo
gosh this game is nervewracking!
dumb series by lr
chris—i think lr and dan lynn heard you during halftime. sell out on mich run and throw the ball on offense
What! A! Throw!
wow!
Double wow! Wow wow!!
offense regressed here
too many penalties
alright turnover!
Gentry is an all American.
The Stork strikes again! ✌
Everything else looks good.
Our O Line F***king SUCKS!!!!! Miller has no time to throw the ball.
Ya Riley has to square his shoulders to focus on our lines. Back up the brinks truck D’antons driveway btw
flipthe field here
I don’t recall seeing LR call a more conservative game than this one.
I think he knows he has a defense. Maybe? Doesn’t need to put up huge number to win.
As a crazy change up, wouldn’t be interesting if we brought in our running QB….who has a cannon arm !
lets go D!
4th quarter already!
the halftime adjustments helped on offense. defense has been good. only two big plays and the pick six.
If not for the pick-6….😒
But the Marks fumble switcheroo was a thing of beauty!
So true!
Strange, but we will take it.
Still plenty of time
Moss is off a bit today.
Don’t mean to pile on but we gotta get passes vertical. Bubble screens, swing passes and outs are redundant.
Yeah, what you said!
Gotta push it down the field more, they’re sitting on the short game.
crap!
That hurt, we were just getting some momentum.
Love Gentry! Our Stork!
Now the defense needs to get a stop to complete momentum shift.
Done
Paige came out and our protection was significantly better.
nice result to open the 2nd half. long drive with mostly passing. this could work.
Defense should be well rested now. Hopefully they can hold them to a 3 and out.
Our team has a lot of grit. No quit in these tough guys. Very resilient. Only behind by four now. I’ll take it. Let’s win it!
Moss protection much better. Great drive. That’s the ticket.
sc changed the two OTs. seems to have helped in pass protection
mccree took a hard hit to his thigh. hope its just a dead leg and no damage to his repaired knee
mc cree is gone. poor kid
Bummer. He’s a real fighter. Terrific Trojan.
The offense needs to give the defense a rest. If it can’t sustain a drive coming out of halftime with immobile Moss, it’s hard to imagine improvement from there.
Poor Moss must feel like he’s been in a fight with Mike Tyson.
UCLA tied with LSU 17-17 at half.
this day is getting worse
This first drive out of half will tell the story. Michigan is going to do the same thing, run it and shorten the game. We don’t need huge points to win. Score a TD and the first half is almost moot. Also, Texas is really really good.
We haven’t had a single possession with a decent field position.
Are dline and oline got too much credit after the LSU game. Ucla is playing LSU real close and Ucla sucks…
Yep. Didn’t see that coming. Still think we can win this, but not like first half. We will not out physical them. We have to make it a skill position game. We have to make them throw it. We have no choice but to throw it. We do not match up physically. Sad truth.
So the B1G cheat doesn’t call targeting or offensive holding or holding on the defense on a pass play or facemask or roughing the quarterback? Riley’s mistake was not asking for a check on the 4th down the refs gave Michigan a free first down spot
yeah—that spot was brutal.
our o line is like boys against men. we will need the d to get turnovers and have short fields to catch up in the second half