After marching up and down the field for two weeks and beating up on its first two opponents by an average margin of 50 points, USC was finally tested by a real, genuine football team on Saturday. And while it wasn’t perfect, it was certainly important, considering what awaits the Trojans during the next six weeks.

We do still have some reasons for concern as the conference competition ratchets up. The secondary, aside from two Bishop Fitzgerald picks, gave Purdue’s receivers too much space and gifted them too many busted coverages. The run game didn’t always find room and the passing attack wasn’t always consistent.

But just closing out a close game on the road in the fourth quarter was a critical step for USC this season. The manner in which it shut the door on Purdue was especially encouraging, given how similar circumstances were handled a season ago.

USC had just two fourth-quarter drives, which it turned into just three total points. On paper, without context, they might look entirely unremarkable. The Trojans averaged just 5.95 yards per play through that stretch, nearly a yard lower than they managed during the full game.

But those two drives, from a situational perspective, were precisely what USC needed in that moment.

And that’s a credit to USC coach Lincoln Riley, whose late-game management left a lot to be desired last season. On Saturday, he showed a much better grasp of how to close out a Big Ten game away from home.

Eli Sanders chewing up yardage … and the clock!

Through three quarters, USC’s run game was mostly stymied, with just 91 yards in 25 carries. Still, Riley kept with it. Knowing he needed to keep the clock running, the Trojans’ coach kept his team grounded for the majority of the fourth quarter. Out of 19 plays in that final quarter, USC ran the ball 15 times.

USC racked up 87 rushing yards during those two drives — almost double its previous output — but more important, it chewed away almost 11 minutes of clock. Eventually, Purdue just ran out of time to mount a comeback.

“We knew how much time we had to chew,” senior tight end Lake McRee (87) said. “We did what we needed to do to get the job done.”

It hadn’t always seemed so simple to USC and its coach. Last season, quarterback Miller Moss was asked to throw the ball at least 50 times in three of USC’s four road losses, all of which the Trojans led in the fourth quarter.

With that in mind, USC set out to make late-game management more of a focal point. So at practice, Riley would run the team through its “Trojan Period,” in which they’d run a sequence of plays focused on late-game situational awareness.

Most of the time, McRee said, that just meant grinding away with the run.

We saw the benefit of that work in West Lafayette. It wasn’t perfect — for instance, USC went 0 for 3 on third down — but Saturday felt, to me at least, like a sign that the Trojans and their coach may have learned the right lessons from last season and perhaps put their fourth-quarter woes in the rearview mirror.

Extra points

— USC’s pass rush progress feels legit. After its third consecutive game with four or more sacks, I think we can safely say that USC is much-improved in this area. USC not only had five sacks Saturday, but pressured Purdue quarterback Ryan Browne 31 times on 39 dropbacks, according to PFF. That’s an absurd mark. The Trojans actually lead the nation in sacks with 14 through three weeks, much of which they were able to collect without blitzing. Before this season, USC had just two games total with four or more sacks during the Riley era, both in 2023. That rate probably isn’t sustainable. But D’Anton Lynn finally has a collection of talent to rush the passer, and the results look a lot more like UCLA in 2023, when Lynn’s Bruins defense finished in the top-10 in sacks nationally, than USC in 2024.

— Penalties are becoming a real problem. Riley made clear that USC needed to cut down on discipline penalties after it drew eight penalties a week ago. But the Trojans ended up drawing their most penalties of the season Saturday (nine) and the most penalty yards of Riley’s tenure (103). They had two sideline interference calls, a roughing the passer call and a personal foul on a punt. “We know we’ve gotta do better,” Riley said.

— USC’s corner rotation narrowed, as promised. And Marcelles Williams was the main beneficiary. It wasn’t clear who would get the start opposite of DeCarlos Nicholson, and after an iffy showing from the cornerback room, there’s no guarantee that Williams will remain in the role. But Williams beat Braylon Conley, DJ Harvey and Chasen Johnson for the start Saturday, and he finished tied for second on the team in tackles (five). Williams played 45 snaps, while Harvey played 22, Johnson played 21 and Conley played 10. The problem is none of them were really up to par in coverage.

— It’s not often that USC finds itself in a weather delay. The last time was in 2012, when USC beat Syracuse at the Meadowlands in New Jersey. But before that, USC hadn’t had a football game affected by weather since 1990, when officials called the game with 2:36 left, handing a 35-26 win to #18 USC over #15 Ohio State. The Buckeyes were … umm … not happy about it at the time.

latimes.com

(By the way, I was personally at that 1990 game won by USC over John Cooper’s Buckeyes. Lightning had become a real hazard during the game as it seemed to be shooting dangerously near us spectators, sometimes seemingly horizontally. I learned two things. The weather in the midwest can be absolutely wild, and the vast Buckeye campus was the biggest I had ever been to.) — AW

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