RB Quinten Joyner runs for a first down against Utah State in the first half at the L. A. Memorial Coliseum last night. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Orange County Register/ SCNG)
Luca Evans (OC Register) — LOS ANGELES – The massive beams overhead suddenly flickered off, and the turf was thrust into a half-eclipse, still 10 minutes of a college football game to be played.
And for the few thousands still straggled around the Coliseum late Saturday night, one of the stranger situations in recent USC memory dawned.
As the game clock froze in the fourth quarter Saturday night in USC’s home opener against Utah State, a partial power outage signaling potential doom, Trojans and Aggies alike simply began … wandering. Chatting with each other. Chatting with refs. There was nothing else to do. In the middle of what should have been ongoing play, Lincoln Riley began conferring with athletic director Jen Cohen at midfield, a host of administrators gathered nearby. The conversation was simple: Do we keep playing?
“And so,” Riley recalled postgame, “right as we were considering not playing anymore, they came on.”
Flickering to life, full-blast, and 10 more minutes of football were played, 10 minutes ultimately entirely meaningless to the final outcome of a 48-0 USC steamrolling but 10 minutes entirely important to the program’s foundation. Nobody wanted to stop, on this night where the 13th-ranked Trojans (2-0, 0-0 Big Ten) continued to insist D’Anton Lynn’s defensive upheaval has been very much real, blanking unranked Utah State through three-and-a-quarter frames with a front continuing to play with reckless abandon.
And when the Aggies missed a late field goal with a minute left, a host of USC youngsters and second-stringers came away bounding off the field in glee. They’d preserved USC’s first shutout since a 50-0 win over UCLA in 2011, a truly dominant effort at all levels for Lynn’s unit, the 34-year-old coordinator beaming and hitting a wipe-your-nose handshake with freshman Kameryn Fountain.
USC held Utah State to just 190 yards, its fewest allowed since 2014. It gave up just two third-down conversions. And only once did USC’s defense allow Utah State to pass the 40-yard line into Trojan territory.
“To be on this defense is a blessing, man,” said linebacker Easton Mascarenas-Arnold, who finished with seven tackles. “It’s definitely the most fun I’ve had playing football in a very long time. It’s a blessing to be on this team.”
It served a sliver of revenge for ghosts of 2023 past. In many ways, Utah State transfer quarterback Bryson Barnes represented the downfall from expectations that crushed USC last fall, the anointed pig farmer who’d dragged an entire defense through the muck.
He came marching back into the Coliseum Saturday, a year after gashing USC’s defensive line for a 26-yard keeper that sealed a 34-32 Utah win, a loss at the hands of a kid that grew up on a pig farm in Milford, Utah, that all but killed USC’s College Football Playoff hopes. The loss sent the Trojans spiraling, as they lost three of their final four to end the regular season.
A year later, those hopes looked soundly renewed, USC reloading with a secondary that didn’t cede an inch to Barnes over the top and a front that kept a spy on his every move from the pocket.
“It was all about keeping him bottled in, keeping constant pressure, but also maintaining disciplined rush lanes,” USC defensive end Jamil Muhammad said.
Lynn pressed the issue all night, dialing up a safety blitz for Kamari Ramsey on a third down on Utah State’s first drive that forced a quick hit from Barnes short of the sticks; in the third quarter, Ramsey shot again off the edge on a fourth down and blew up Barnes for a force-fumble sack.
“It shows how much he believes in us – the different looks that he puts us in to get the quarterback to think a lot, or to get the OC to be off-balance a little bit too,” Ramsey said, of Lynn’s late-down aggressiveness.
Wyoming transfer Gavin Meyer forced USC’s first turnover of the season, tipping a Barnes pass in the second quarter that floated gently into the waiting arms of linebacker Easton Mascarenas-Arnold.
And USC senior Eric Gentry, starting at middle linebacker in place of an injured Mason Cobb, looked for a second straight week like USC’s most impactful playmaker, stuffing the stat sheet with seven tackles, a sack and 1.5 tackles-for-loss.
“I got it in the first play, of the first quarter,” Gentry said, asked if there was a point in the second half he thought a shutout would be possible.
“(Expletive), I got it before the game,” he continued, beaming. “(Expletive), I’m already imagining a shutout, so,” proclaimed Gentry.
By the fourth quarter, with the game well in hand, the Trojans brought in a host of backups. And still, they managed to uphold the shutout, allowing just 89 yards in the second half.
The defense’s legs stayed fresh, in large part, due to much-praised complementary football. After an uneven effort at times in a 69-yard performance against LSU, Riley affirmed establishing the ground game was a point of emphasis against Utah State. It showed early: 10 of USC’s first plays were runs, punctuated by a 32-yard twist-and-dash from redshirt freshman Quinten Joyner and a following punch that served as USC’s first touchdown.
“Lincoln Riley’s the best offensive coach in college football, if not coach,” quarterback Miller Moss said postgame, asked about his success through his first three starts of college football. “But, we’ll leave that up for debate a little bit more.”
Veteran Mississippi State transfer Woody Marks rang the bell in a 103-yard first-half performance, Joyner added 84 yards and two touchdowns, and Moss played largely clean in finishing 21-of-30 for 229 yards and a touchdown. It didn’t hurt that both had massive holes to run through, thanks to a strong performance from USC’s offensive line.
Tight end Lake McRee continued to impress in the season’s early going, leading USC with 81 receiving yards.
It added to a complete effort that – on a day where a number of national powers stumbled in trap games against mid-major schools – cemented USC is finding true cohesion in Riley’s third year.
Michigan, the defending champs and USC’s next opponent, was run out of the Big House by Texas, as it struggled to move the ball with a new quarterback. Notre Dame lost on a game-winning kick to Northern Illinois, a team it paid $1.4 million to play in South Bend, Ind. Penn State needed a late comeback to overcome its defensive woes and beat Bowling Green, while Oregon barely slipped past Boise State.
“They have a chance, not only to be one of the best offenses in the country, but possibly one of the best defenses,” Utah State coach Nate Dreiling said postgame.
“So that is a complete football team right there that’s going to play a long, long time.”
After USC’s most dominant performance in years, the prevailing feeling Saturday was this brand of beatdown is just beginning to take hold. “We’re still not even close to as good as we can be,” Mascarenas-Arnold said.
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