Luca Evans (OC Register) — LOS ANGELES — The calendar has rolled into December, and little has quite changed from last December, with USC regrouping in wait for a postseason that is really more of a preseason. After a frustrating season of setbacks and wrong turns, USC will finish right back where it started: In Las Vegas, up against a team from the SEC.
At the end of 2023, the prospect of playing in the Holiday Bowl seemed a lose-lose situation: another loss further damning a trying season, a win still falling significantly short of season-long hopes. But USC’s performance, in San Diego against Louisville, served a springboard for an offseason of hope and good vibrations: new quarterback, new defensive philosophy, new culture.
Little came to tangible fruition, in a 6-6 season this fall. But the opportunity to win back the same surge of faith in the program’s direction, still, awaits. But at 6-6, the Las Vegas Bowl isn’t much of a consolation considering where the 2024 season began. Now the Trojans will need a Dec. 27 bowl victory against Texas A&M (8-4/5-3) just to salvage a winning season.
It’s a poetic bookend dating to September, when a new-look USC team came away with the first true signature win of Lincoln Riley’s tenure with a 27-20 victory over LSU – before his third year in Southern California devolved into a mess of frustrating late-game collapses.
Much has changed, since that Sept. 1 win, suddenly vaulting USC for weeks into the upper half of Top 25 rankings. Miller Moss, who lit up LSU in his first regular-season start as USC’s quarterback, is transferring after being benched late in the season for Jayden Maiava. Receiver Kyron Hudson, who came away the star with two miraculous one-handed grabs, followed Moss to the portal. Running back Woody Marks, who ran in the eventual go-ahead touchdown over those Tigers, might have played his last game in a Trojans jersey after exiting with an injury in last weekend’s loss to Notre Dame.
Still, there will be plenty to watch for in Las Vegas.
Maiava will finish out a four-game bid for USC’s starting job in 2025, as Riley made clear on last week’s signing day that the Trojans would look for a quarterback in the transfer portal. The stage could be set, too, for a true breakout for redshirt freshman back Quinten Joyner, who ran for 478 yards on 7.6 yards per carry in backing up Marks in 2024. And linebacker Eric Gentry, far and away USC’s best defensive player through four games, appears set to return after concussions shut him down for much of USC’s regular season.
With the Las Vegas Bowl slated for a matchup between current or former Pac-12 programs and an SEC opponent, it seemed possible USC could draw Oklahoma (6-6), the narratives blooming after Riley’s departure from Norman three years ago.
Instead, USC lands A&M as an unmistakably stronger opponent that presents a challenge that is not unlike Notre Dame a week ago. Quarterback Marcel Reed is a dual-threat nightmare, and A&M’s secondary has limited opposing programs to a 53% completion rate.
In the days and weeks to come, USC will see a number of key players make decisions as to their bowl-game futures: chief among them is Kamari Ramsey, as a source told the Southern California News Group the safety is currently planning to play in USC’s bowl game despite a bright draft future. By the 27th, however, the Trojans might be auditioning a wide range of backups and youngsters against the Aggies – the same makeup that yielded such a positive bowl result in 2023.
Texas A&M had its own high hopes in the SEC this season, its first under coach Mike Elko. The Aggies opened the season 7-1, with a win over LSU and their only loss coming to Notre Dame. Like USC, they weathered a midseason change at quarterback, replacing former five-star Conner Weigman (who has since entered the transfer portal) with the dangerous Reed, a freshman.
But the season fell apart in the final month, as Texas A&M lost star running back Le’Veon Moss against South Carolina. The Aggies lost their last three SEC games to fall out of the conference race.
USC has played in the Las Vegas Bowl twice before, in 2013 and 2001. The last trip came under especially tumultuous circumstances. Lane Kiffin had been fired as USC’s coach midway through the 2013 season and replaced by interim coach Ed Orgeron, who left the team before the bowl after USC hired Steve Sarkisian instead of promoting Orgeron. Clay Helton ultimately led the Trojans to a win in the bowl game.
The previous trip, in 2001, was Pete Carroll’s first bowl game as coach. And it did not go as planned. Distracted by the trip to Vegas, the Trojans put up just six points in a loss to Utah.
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