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Opponent View/Scouting USC

On3 imageby: Tom Dienhart09/09/25TomDienhart1
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(Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA Today)

How good is Purdue (2-0)? We are about to find out with USC coming to West Lafayette for the first time since 1976 in the Big Ten opener for both schools.

Like the Boilermakers, USC (2-0) isn’t sure how good it is after beating two overmatched foes in Missouri State and Georgia Southern. SC coach Lincoln Riley has a lot to prove as he begins his fourth season in Los Angeles.

GoldandBlack.com spoke to the voice of USC football, Pete Arbogast, to learn more about the Trojans. Kickoff on Saturday is at 3:30 p.m. ET (CBS).

GoldandBlack.com: What can we expect from the USC offense?

Arbogast: Well, they’ve been pretty good. But it’s hard to tell, because the two teams they played aren’t very good at all. Missouri State was playing its first ever FBS game, and Georgia Southern was OK, but that’s all you can say about them. So, SC has really dominated its first two games and only had starters play about half the game, so it’s really hard to tell how good the Trojans are.

Purdue will be a better opponent, and then our next opponents after that, Michigan State and Illinois, will be better than that, maybe. So, we’re expecting a better game.

It’s our first road game. We stunk it up on the road in the Big Ten last year in our first go round (in the conference). So, we’ve learned some lessons from that.

USC has a lot of good players on the offensive side. We’re still not sure about how good the offensive line is. We’ll find out more about that, but they’ve been opening big holes for the running backs. And (RBs) Waymond Jordan and Eli Sanders have been very good. Jayden Maiava is one of the passing leaders in the country. He has 700 yards and six touchdowns in like five quarters of football so far. The receivers, Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane, are very, very good, maybe one of the best tandems in the country. So, if the offensive line can hold up, they should score a lot of points.

GoldandBlack.com: What can we expect from the USC defense?

Arbogast: They’re better than they were, which isn’t saying much. That’s a kind of low bar over the last few years, but they look like they’ve got bigger, sturdier bodies up front and a lot of guys that they can rotate around up front, as well. Linebackers are good. The secondary has been burned a couple of times. That’s a bit of a concern for fans. They look better than they have in the last couple of years, and they have to look better, because they couldn’t look much worse.

GoldandBlack.com: How do you see this game unfolding?

Arbogast: I would suspect that SC would win the game. They’re favored by a lot. They look like they have much more team speed and maybe better skill players. It all comes down, really, to whether or not Purdue can get any pressure on the quarterback and stop the SC running game. And that means the SC offensive line has to hold up. I think they will well enough to win this football game and probably be close to the point spread (-21, per BetMGM).

But, you know what? We went to Maryland last year, and that was a bad Maryland team, and we lost. We went to Minnesota, and we lost. So, anything could happen in this league, as we can see.

And it’s the (Big Ten) opener. Everybody’s undefeated in conference play, so it’s going to be fun to get started.

MORE: From UNLV to Big Ten: Purdue’s Barry Odom, USC’s Jayden Maiava set for reunion | First Look: USC | First and 10: Purdue-USC | Three Thoughts From The Weekend: Devin Mockobee, Purdue vs. USC and more | 25 years later, Purdue to honor 2000 Rose Bowl team | The 3-2-1: Talking Mockobee workload, football IQ, summer of George and more

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