USC vs. Utah Prediction: 6-0 Trojans Roll into SLC to Face the Defending Pac-12 Champs
Utes looking to bounce back at home following last week’s loss to UCLA.
John Coon (Athlon Sports) — USC can make a huge statement about its Pac-12 title chances when the Trojans visit Utah on Saturday.
The No. 7 Trojans (6-0, 4-0 Pac-12) have flourished in Lincoln Riley’s first season. USC is as electric as advertised on offense. Defensively, the Trojans are proving they also have teeth. A 30-14 victory over Washington State marked the second time in three weeks — and third time this season — that USC held an opponent to 14 points. The Trojans have opened a season with six straight wins for the first time since 2006.
The No. 20 Utes (4-2, 2-1) got blindsided by a potent UCLA offense in their 38-24 loss to the Bruins last weekend. Utah’s normally stout run defense got gashed for 203 yards and a pair of touchdowns. The Bruins averaged 5.3 yards per carry — the most the Utes surrendered since yielding 7.3 in the season opener against Florida. It helped UCLA score on its first four drives of the second half and pull away from Utah.
SC leads Utah 13-7 in the all-time series. The Utes won last year, prevailing 42-26 in Los Angeles, and have won three of their last four games in Salt Lake City against the Trojans.
No. 7 USC at No. 20 Utah
Kickoff: Saturday, Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. ET TV: FOX Live Stream: fuboTV (Start your free trial) Spread: Utah -3.5 Tickets: As low as $85 on SITickets.com*
When USC Has the Ball
Utah’s struggles at stopping the run come at a terrible time. USC running back Travis Dye is fresh off his best performance of the season: a season-high 149 yards and a touchdown on a season-high 28 carries against Washington State. It was his fourth 100-yard game of the season and the 11th of his career. Dye has scored a rushing touchdown in five consecutive games and currently ranks second in the Pac-12 in total rushing yards (571) and rushing yards per game (95.2).
Quarterback Caleb Williams had a quiet game by his standards against Washington State, throwing for 188 yards and two touchdowns. Still, Williams is quite capable of slinging the ball around and making big plays through the air. He had 300-yard games against Stanford and Arizona State earlier this season and has passed for 1,590 yards and 14 touchdowns through six games. Williams has completed 65 percent of his pass attempts this season, although he had a 44 percent rate against Oregon State and only 52 percent against Washington State.
Williams isn’t lacking for reliable targets downfield. Jordan Addison has a team-high 479 yards and six touchdowns on 32 catches midway through the season. Mario Williams is not far behind with 348 yards and four scores. Brenden Rice and Tahj Washington (16) have both had shining moments as well. Shutting down all four receivers is nearly impossible for any defense.
When Utah Has the Ball
The Utes are starting to adjust to tight end Brant Kuithe’s absence, but progress remains to be made. Cameron Rising threw for 287 yards against UCLA and completed 72 percent of his passes. He did a good job spreading the ball around. Eight different receivers caught at least one pass. But Rising also threw an interception and had a fourth-down fumble. Both turnovers set up critical touchdowns by the Bruins.
Utah will do better if it can get a full game out of Tavion Thomas in the backfield. Thomas started strong against UCLA, but his carries diminished as the game progressed because his fitness level wasn’t where it needed to be. He finished with 91 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries. While Rising and Micah Bernard are both solid running threats, Utah’s offense works best when Thomas is churning out 100-yard games.
Devaughn Vele (17) has emerged as Rising’s top target over the past three games. In that stretch, he has piled up 244 yards and a touchdown on 19 catches. Makai Cope, Money Parks, and Jaylen Dixon have all shown flashes. Utah needs one or more to step up and become a consistent threat to complement Vele — especially with defenses focusing more attention on tight end Dalton Kincaid these days.
Final Analysis
USC is a top-10 team midway through the season largely because the Trojans are so balanced. Defensively, they lead the Pac-12 with 4.0 sacks per game. Offensively, they are willing and able to run to complement their potent passing attack. Utah is a deeply talented team on both sides of the ball as well. But the Utes have serious defensive flaws that were exposed by UCLA. USC has an equal ability to exploit those flaws and snag a valuable road win over the defending Pac-12 champion.
TrojanDailyBlog members — Always feel free to add information or new topics to the TDBwhich don’t necessarily pertain to any particular moderator post or member comment.
SUBSCRIBE HERE TO RECEIVE NOTICE OF NEW COMMENTS OR REPLIES.
At this point in time it probably will be quite a ways down, probably around 15-20 just because of bias and being Pac12. But consider it a wake up call, the hype will be over in regard to the playoffs and now they can settle down and concentrate on just being a team that works to get better each week. It was fun while it lasted and I hope there is no hangover, that they come out of the bye week fired up to play the second half of the schedule.
QB should have been a B+ (overall great game by CW but he made some major errors in judgment throughout the game and continues to show he can be flustered). Offensive coaching should have been no better than a B. ( at times great calls although mostly in the first quarter. Continues to go away from the run when we should be running).
The way the defense got shredded and the offense sputtered the idea that the officials cost USC the game doesn’t hold water. But I have never seen such idiotic officiating, and to think this was the Prime Time game, and the Pac12 put those guys out there to embarrass not only themselves but the entire conference speaks volumes about the basic quality of leadership in the Pac12. Get us out of here now, why wait till 2024.
We have all said it, but with how horrific they did you have to wonder are they that bad or do they just not care if it is obviously throwing USC under the bus.
Lincoln Riley addressed the blatant penalty imbalance problem with the refs very well I thought. He said the officiating was “really poor tonight, but we still should have won the game.”
“Does it make the job harder? Sure it does,” Riley added. “Yeah, you’d love to get every call every time, that’s not football though. … We’re a no-excuse program. Wish we wouldn’t have to overcome it, but it is what it is. It’s still out there to go get.”
I like this. It had to be addressed even though he knows it will do not good. The PAC has decided this is how they will address USC leaving the conference. Like a two year old that just lost its toy
Riley also said — “We were one inch away on a lot of different occasions from winning this game. And several times very close to running away with it.”
take a step back: officiating is over reacting to the “roughing the passer”; they officiate it as “touching the passer”: the remedy is to make the play reviewable. But there is very stiff resistance from the referee unions; after all, we don’t want to hurt their feelings as to a refs judgement…”the refs don’t want to be “looking over their shoulder” after every judgement call..*uck that *hit [NFL and NCAA]
I’m right there with you Chris. I’ve lived in San Diego since 1985, and I’ll root for the Padres the rest of the way, but I’m a lifelong Dodger fan, and to see both the Trojans and Dodgers blow late leads in heartbreaking fashion, is really tough. I feel your pain
Me too. I am not surprised we lost, I rationally was thinking that it was a good chance we would lose all week. Yet, when we were doing so well early in the game, we took their crowd out of it. But we couldn’t maintain that first quarter edge…. Close but no cigar, at the end of the day.🙁
You know, it’s hard to win a game when you give up 43 points in regulation time, but we had our hands on the ball to try to win it. This isn’t a blow out loss like what we used to suffer through until this season.😕
Reality is that we just don’t have the horses yet in the trenches. Once the turnover flood dried up, close shootouts has become the norm.
Really need to draft big uglies, and get sharp for those two looming rivals.
When I see what TN has done in year 2 of a rebuild, I know we can do it at SC with LR. Tonight is tough to take, but we are still trending up as a program.
Is USC out of the playoff now yes but (and if this happens it will shock/HURT me a lot !!!!!) the Pac-12 is Still Alive for the playoff (maybe) ………Sorry but I can not bring myself to type the name of the Pac-12 team that could still represent the PAC-12 in the playoffs.
Our loss means UCLA will be the highest ranked team in the conference. Hard to swallow, I’m glad the bye week comes now so we can heal, regroup and aspire to win the rest of our games. I think we drop down no farther than 12-15. I really hope Oregon takes care of UCLA next week because I can’t stand to think of the program momentum that Chip and his team will have if they are undefeated and make the playoffs before we do
Very interested in seeing how this team responds. That will tell me more than anything we have seen this year. Even with the officiating this game was very winnable.
I think that overall, Grinch and his staff has gotten the most out of a defense that, last year , was arguably the worst in SC history. Extremely disappointed, but I think all of us pointed to this game as the toughest of the year, and we will surely be 9-1 going into our rival games.
Good effort. If USC wins at UCLA, all will be forgiven. Tough away game loss against a good team, but USC couldn’t stop UTAH when it mattered, and they showed guts and went for two. Tough to beat that combo. Worried about injuries.
The Pac12 doesn’t want to succeed. They don’t put their best officials on this game to call a fair game. Shamefull. Glad we are leaving the Conference of Loosers!
PAC championship is still on the table and attainable. Remember it is the two best team. Utah now holds the tiebreaker with us, but they have two loses. We win out and we are in. I would love to win the last two PAC championships before we leave.
Well said DDS. The PAC 12 does every thing half ass, and that ref crew tonight may have been the worst I have seen. Yes, we couldn’t stop Utah, but they couldn’t stop us. Those roughing calls were beyond bad!
The defense is a major problem. Lincoln Riley needs to recruit HARD. He has a long way to go to get this program on the level of the Championship contending teams.
Well, the lipstick finally wore off of the pig that is our defense. No magic turnover or opportunity tonight. It was there for the taking, and hopefully between the portal and recruiting, we can have a playoff caliber defense to go with the offense. Just a shame that we fired out of the gate, had them on the ropes, and the bogus first half roughing call, the penalties, and the lack of penetration on defense, kept us from stealing a game no one thought we would win.
I think Utah played a much better game against SC than they did against ucla. Then there is the refs and without question their inability to call a fair game without hours spent in total confusion.
The biggest theft since the CA gas tax just happened before my eyes. Two not roughing the passer calls were enough to to give Utah points. Utah couldn’t win it by themselves they weren’t even in it until the refs started tilting the field. The PAC 12 doesn’t want USC in the championship game and that game was the result.
The way we played tonight, we are not going to be ucla. We are not nearly good enough to complete. We failed the 1st real challenge of the season. This program has a lot of work to do.
I cannot remember when the officiating effected the outcome of a USC football game more than it did tonight. Without the gift of a touch down for Utah, USC would have won. USC did beat the spread though.
Riley needs to recruit defense and this program needs to adjust its expectations. They aren’t going to compete with the true heavyweights until they can play defense. They are AT LEAST one more year away from being ready. The defense needs talent added. Get out there and recruit.
The No. 7 Trojans (6-0, 4-0 Pac-12) have flourished in Lincoln Riley’s first season. USC is as electric as advertised on offense. Defensively, the Trojans are proving they also have teeth. A 30-14 victory over Washington State marked the second time in three weeks — and third time this season — that USC held an opponent to 14 points. The Trojans have opened a season with six straight wins for the first time since 2006.
Williams isn’t lacking for reliable targets downfield. Jordan Addison has a team-high 479 yards and six touchdowns on 32 catches midway through the season. Mario Williams is not far behind with 348 yards and four scores. Brenden Rice and Tahj Washington (16) have both had shining moments as well. Shutting down all four receivers is nearly impossible for any defense.
Devaughn Vele (17) has emerged as Rising’s top target over the past three games. In that stretch, he has piled up 244 yards and a touchdown on 19 catches. Makai Cope, Money Parks, and Jaylen Dixon have all shown flashes. Utah needs one or more to step up and become a consistent threat to complement Vele — especially with defenses focusing more attention on tight end Dalton Kincaid these days.
https://www.si.com/college/usc/.amp/football/usc-loses-to-utah-as-pac-12-football-officiating-rears-its-ugly-head
While USC may not have deserved to win last night because of poor tackling, I think USC deserves a 10-12 rank after that performance.
Hard to argue, but we also know how USC/PAC teams are generally regarded concerning the rankings.
Evidently the PAC commissioner was at the game.
How far do people think USC will drop in the rankings?
14-15
At this point in time it probably will be quite a ways down, probably around 15-20 just because of bias and being Pac12. But consider it a wake up call, the hype will be over in regard to the playoffs and now they can settle down and concentrate on just being a team that works to get better each week. It was fun while it lasted and I hope there is no hangover, that they come out of the bye week fired up to play the second half of the schedule.
https://trojanswire.usatoday.com/lists/report-card-handing-out-grades-to-usc-after-bitter-defeat-vs-utah/
QB should have been a B+ (overall great game by CW but he made some major errors in judgment throughout the game and continues to show he can be flustered). Offensive coaching should have been no better than a B. ( at times great calls although mostly in the first quarter. Continues to go away from the run when we should be running).
The way the defense got shredded and the offense sputtered the idea that the officials cost USC the game doesn’t hold water. But I have never seen such idiotic officiating, and to think this was the Prime Time game, and the Pac12 put those guys out there to embarrass not only themselves but the entire conference speaks volumes about the basic quality of leadership in the Pac12. Get us out of here now, why wait till 2024.
We have all said it, but with how horrific they did you have to wonder are they that bad or do they just not care if it is obviously throwing USC under the bus.
Lincoln Riley addressed the blatant penalty imbalance problem with the refs very well I thought. He said the officiating was “really poor tonight, but we still should have won the game.”
“Does it make the job harder? Sure it does,” Riley added. “Yeah, you’d love to get every call every time, that’s not football though. … We’re a no-excuse program. Wish we wouldn’t have to overcome it, but it is what it is. It’s still out there to go get.”
I like this. It had to be addressed even though he knows it will do not good. The PAC has decided this is how they will address USC leaving the conference. Like a two year old that just lost its toy
Riley also said — “We were one inch away on a lot of different occasions from winning this game. And several times very close to running away with it.”
First quarter we could have run away with it, but we went away from what was working.
take a step back: officiating is over reacting to the “roughing the passer”; they officiate it as “touching the passer”: the remedy is to make the play reviewable. But there is very stiff resistance from the referee unions; after all, we don’t want to hurt their feelings as to a refs judgement…”the refs don’t want to be “looking over their shoulder” after every judgement call..*uck that *hit [NFL and NCAA]
GOOOOOOO PADRES!!!!!!!!!! BEAT LA Dodgers! All about the Goose!
Shaping up to be the worst sports day I can remember. Dodgers are blowing it vs Padres.
I’m right there with you Chris. I’ve lived in San Diego since 1985, and I’ll root for the Padres the rest of the way, but I’m a lifelong Dodger fan, and to see both the Trojans and Dodgers blow late leads in heartbreaking fashion, is really tough. I feel your pain
Ut oh (Got some people I know I am gonna avoid in the morning ) The Yankees LOST ????? ….Cleve scored 3 runs in Bot 9th in a walkoff !
Hey ………….(Just looking for something take a small edge of pain away ) Stanford beat Notre Dame ……..at Notre Dame .
Shotgun Spratling
@ShotgunSpr
·
11m
#USC HC Lincoln Riley said this is probably the game that the Trojans have tackled the worst.
Can’t disagree.
Fun watching the game with you guys, I’m out.
Me too. I am not surprised we lost, I rationally was thinking that it was a good chance we would lose all week. Yet, when we were doing so well early in the game, we took their crowd out of it. But we couldn’t maintain that first quarter edge…. Close but no cigar, at the end of the day.🙁
You know, it’s hard to win a game when you give up 43 points in regulation time, but we had our hands on the ball to try to win it. This isn’t a blow out loss like what we used to suffer through until this season.😕
Reality is that we just don’t have the horses yet in the trenches. Once the turnover flood dried up, close shootouts has become the norm.
Really need to draft big uglies, and get sharp for those two looming rivals.
When I see what TN has done in year 2 of a rebuild, I know we can do it at SC with LR. Tonight is tough to take, but we are still trending up as a program.
We had a turnover that was stolen by the officials. Certainly didn’t help ourselves tonight. But hard to beat the refs too.
Is USC out of the playoff now yes but (and if this happens it will shock/HURT me a lot !!!!!) the Pac-12 is Still Alive for the playoff (maybe) ………Sorry but I can not bring myself to type the name of the Pac-12 team that could still represent the PAC-12 in the playoffs.
Never happens
Nope. We win out and we are on the PAC championship. Screw everyone else in the PAC.
Our loss means UCLA will be the highest ranked team in the conference. Hard to swallow, I’m glad the bye week comes now so we can heal, regroup and aspire to win the rest of our games. I think we drop down no farther than 12-15. I really hope Oregon takes care of UCLA next week because I can’t stand to think of the program momentum that Chip and his team will have if they are undefeated and make the playoffs before we do
Top 25 will be interesting. How far does USC drop for losing in the final minutes on the road to a team that was favored to win?
Very interested in seeing how this team responds. That will tell me more than anything we have seen this year. Even with the officiating this game was very winnable.
I think that overall, Grinch and his staff has gotten the most out of a defense that, last year , was arguably the worst in SC history. Extremely disappointed, but I think all of us pointed to this game as the toughest of the year, and we will surely be 9-1 going into our rival games.
Agree, should be 9-1 when we go to the Rose Bowl.
Good effort. If USC wins at UCLA, all will be forgiven. Tough away game loss against a good team, but USC couldn’t stop UTAH when it mattered, and they showed guts and went for two. Tough to beat that combo. Worried about injuries.
So true. We didn’t really have one, big stop, on defense, entire game, when it mattered.
We had a big stop. Interception in the endzone with a non call roughing the passer. That was the game changer.
The Pac12 doesn’t want to succeed. They don’t put their best officials on this game to call a fair game. Shamefull. Glad we are leaving the Conference of Loosers!
A loss is a loss, but now they don’t have to worry about NC’s this season and can work on just getting better and letting more guys play.
PAC championship is still on the table and attainable. Remember it is the two best team. Utah now holds the tiebreaker with us, but they have two loses. We win out and we are in. I would love to win the last two PAC championships before we leave.
I wish we could join the B1G now–right now. I can’t wait to get away from this silly conference.
It is because of this blatantly uneven officiating that I want USC to win the conference championship
Well said DDS. The PAC 12 does every thing half ass, and that ref crew tonight may have been the worst I have seen. Yes, we couldn’t stop Utah, but they couldn’t stop us. Those roughing calls were beyond bad!
Good game. Boss move by Utah to go for 2 at home. Team played hard; continue to grow…
The defense is a major problem. Lincoln Riley needs to recruit HARD. He has a long way to go to get this program on the level of the Championship contending teams.
XXX
Me too. Glad we are off next week even though it will be tough to get this taste out of my mouth. Our team needs some rest.
Well, the lipstick finally wore off of the pig that is our defense. No magic turnover or opportunity tonight. It was there for the taking, and hopefully between the portal and recruiting, we can have a playoff caliber defense to go with the offense. Just a shame that we fired out of the gate, had them on the ropes, and the bogus first half roughing call, the penalties, and the lack of penetration on defense, kept us from stealing a game no one thought we would win.
Sadly the bogus officiating took away an interception and gifted Utah 7 points. Game over.
this loss shows me more than any of our wins. It took everything Utah had to win at home. Including some seriously poor officiating that cost us huge!
I think Utah played a much better game against SC than they did against ucla. Then there is the refs and without question their inability to call a fair game without hours spent in total confusion.
Utah has been night and day when they are home and away. This year they can not play to save their lives when they are on the road.
Playoff are out of the question. If they want to go to PAC championship they can not lose again.
The biggest theft since the CA gas tax just happened before my eyes. Two not roughing the passer calls were enough to to give Utah points. Utah couldn’t win it by themselves they weren’t even in it until the refs started tilting the field. The PAC 12 doesn’t want USC in the championship game and that game was the result.
The way we played tonight, we are not going to be ucla. We are not nearly good enough to complete. We failed the 1st real challenge of the season. This program has a lot of work to do.
Yup. More than most people realize. It’s a long way before they are truly “back”.
Who is your favorite team?
I cannot remember when the officiating effected the outcome of a USC football game more than it did tonight. Without the gift of a touch down for Utah, USC would have won. USC did beat the spread though.
Riley had bad clock management
Echo Utah Trojan, refs gave Utah at least 7 points. Victory to the Pac12 that refuses to have a winner on the national stage.
Fans rushing the field on a win they were favored for?
Screw it! You knew our defense was going to cost us sometime this season. Damn Damn Damn!
Well I guess some of our Hype will go away now.
This one is on a lot of our players and our coaches.
Our kicker has a good leg. But do we have the time?
Not this year.
I don’t even wanna know how many pts UCLA is gonna put up against this defense. It’s gonna get ugly.
lighten up a little
93 yards in penalties for SC is just like the old days.
fifth year sr. there
Makes up for the gift TO UT got in the first half
Not really. Utah was gifted 7 points.
The officials don’t need all the help we are giving them.
False Start ……I mean do we deserve to win ?
No. Too many mental errors.
Riley needs to recruit defense and this program needs to adjust its expectations. They aren’t going to compete with the true heavyweights until they can play defense. They are AT LEAST one more year away from being ready. The defense needs talent added. Get out there and recruit.
We need a decent D Coordinator. Grinch is not the answer.
Not ready to go there. Don’t forget what our D looked like last year.
Should have used a time out when utah had the ball😡
No time back on the clock?
That has to be on utah!
D pass interference
Now they need to figure out the amount of time to put back on the clock.
He is ALWAYS running for his life .
The Pac12 officials want Utah to win so now they’re just calling everything.