Musings from Arledge: A big win for USC, a bigger test ahead

“Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

As a kid, I loved the TV series The Incredible Hulk. Mild-mannered nerd Bruce Banner would get pushed and pushed, forced to suffer injustice after injustice, until the inevitable transformation occurred. His eyes would change colors, he’d outgrow his clothes, his skin would change colors, and finally—fully Ferrignified—he would appear as a green, angry Mr. Universe, growling and throwing things and breaking stuff. I loved it.

But I’ve gotta say, this Hulk re-boot they launched this year with the USC defense is a pretty mixed bag. The endings are great, but I hate the first part of the show every single week. It’s not Bruce Banner who is getting angry. It’s me. 

There is a process to re-building a program. You have to rebuild the talent level, obviously, but you also have to rebuild the culture. That usually happens in stages. The team plays competitively against better teams. Then it starts to win a lot of close games. It starts to overcome the obstacles that always tripped it up in the past. It starts to expect to win. And, eventually, when the transformation is complete, it does win. Consistently.

The USC program’s fundamental problem for some years now has been a lack of physical and mental toughness. USC was soft. They frequently had athletes, especially on offense. They often had a quarterback who could throw the ball. But they couldn’t stand toe-to-toe with a bully and punch back. And even if they sometimes managed to play tough at home, they couldn’t take the act on the road. 

And everybody noticed—everybody from the national pundits to fans of other programs to Kirk Ferentz, may his smugness rest in peace. USC had become something that was a betrayal to the bullies who can come before, guys like Ronnie and Junior and Troy.

The transformation is not complete. This is not John McKay’s or Pete Carroll’s USC yet. But they have hit some milestones. Thrashing Michigan, a fellow blue blood that thought it could bully USC all over the field, was a major step. Winning on the road at Nebraska under adverse conditions was a major step. Yesterday was another major step. That Iowa team plays Bully Ball and they play it well. They held Indiana’s elite offense to 20 points and barely lost the game. They held Oregon’s high-powered attack to 18 and almost upset the Ducks. That is a tough, disciplined football team that knows how to force elite offenses to play ugly. They know how to keep games close.  They know how to push people around.

Winning that game in that fashion was a big deal. That soggy track was a major advantage for Iowa. And when the Hawkeyes get up two scores, they almost never lose. To shut them down and run off 19 straight points was impressive. USC had a gut-check yesterday, and unlike most every gut-check for the last ten years, they passed. It was a great win.

Now it’s time to take the next step. USC’s first-quarter defense might the worst in the country. They’ve given up a touchdown on the opening drive in four straight games and in six of the last seven. That’s hideous. Statistically, USC has one of the worst run defenses in the country—not in terms of total yards given up, but in terms of the advanced metric called run success rate. When teams want to run the ball against USC, they generally do.

And the reality is that for long stretches, USC’s defense is just embarrassing. The coaches went into the transfer portal and nabbed Keeshawn Silver because he was huge and could control an “A” gap. The USC coaches talked all offseason about how great Devan Thompkins had become. And I’ve seen both of those guys repeatedly get driven into the defensive backfield. USC chose not to get a starting inside linebacker out of the transfer portal, and Rob Ryan talked about how great his linebacker room was. And for big stretches of this season, that room hasn’t even pretended to be interested in stopping the run. I’m not sure I’ve seen a group of USC linebackers worse at defending the running game. 

Yes, the defense has turned things around in the second half three weeks in a row. Fortunately, they were able to get away with disastrous early defense when playing against three offensively challenged football teams. If they show up in Autzen playing like this, there will be no comeback. Oregon will put 45 on the board.

The bottom line is that USC has improved in many areas. The Trojans don’t have the nation’s best offensive line, but they might have the most resilient. The fact that these guys get reshuffled every week because of injuries and still manage to open holes for King Miller and protect Jayden Maiava has been the story of the season. Zach Hanson has done an incredible job. The ability of guys like Tobias Raymond to move position-to-position and consistently play well no matter where he’s forced to play has been remarkable. The ability of guys like Kaylon Miller, an undersized walk-on, to come in and match up with elite defensive fronts like Iowa’s has been equally remarkable. Makai Lemon is the best player on this team; but the most valuable unit has been the offensive line, and I don’t think it’s particularly close. The future looks really bright upfront on the offensive side.

USC continues to showcase its playmakers. King Miller had another productive day despite the quality of the opposition and the slow track. Ja’Kobi was Ja’Kobi. A locked-in Ja’Kobi Lane is frightening. He moves well, he’s so long, and he makes circus catches look routine. He’s a matchup problem for anybody. But you don’t always get locked-in Ja’Kobi. And not-locked-in Ja’Kobi is frightening for other reasons. That guy doesn’t make even the routine plays. The good news for USC is that locked-in Ja’Kobi has been around more than the other guy this year, especially in recent weeks after he got healthy.

The really good news is that USC also has a legendary player in that wide receiver room. We can say it now: Makai Lemon is one of the all-time great USC receivers. He belongs in the discussion with Lynn Swann, Keyshawn Johnson, and Mike Williams. I’m not saying he’s better than those guys; but I am saying he has earned a seat at their table. Makai should be a first-team All-American this year. He should walk away with the Biletnikoff Trophy. 

Even casual fans can see his production and the regularity with which he makes tough catches in traffic. Anybody can see how difficult he is to tackle. But many people might have missed another aspect of what makes Makai great. There was a huge pass interference play late yesterday against the guys trying to cover Ja’Kobi Lane. It’s often hard to cover Ja’Kobi without tackling him. So Iowa did what teams often do and wrestled him to the ground like a rodeo cowboy wrestling a young calf. 

What you might have missed was Makai before the snap. He was lined up in the slot and, very late, a young USC wide receiver ran onto the field and lined up outside the numbers on Makai’s side. You can’t come off the sideline and line up outside the numbers without first coming inside the numbers. Makai saw the problem, knew it would be a penalty, signaled to the young guy to come inside (which he did), then sent him back outside the numbers to line up properly. That was Makai being a team leader. More, it was Makai being a guy who is mentally alert and fully aware of his surroundings. He’s not focused only on his assignment; he is a master of his craft at this point. He sees it all. Makai Lemon is the man.

Jayden Maiava had another fantastic performance. Maiava has really improved the mental side of the game. He’s not yet Peyton Manning or Tom Brady, obviously; he still doesn’t see the field as well as he needs to, and he still makes some bad decisions. But under Lincoln Riley’s direction, he has improved dramatically in his decision-making. The Jayden Maiava who sometimes melted down mentally doesn’t appear very often this year. 

And, man, can that guy throw a football. His touch and ball placement on some of those throws yesterday with a wet ball were spectacular. Unlike Makai Lemon, Jayden Maiava is not yet ready to take his place at the table with the best USC players ever to play his position. But if he comes back for another year and continues to learn from the best quarterback developer in college football, we might see him complete a Carson Palmer-type transformation next year. Good player. I’m glad we have him.

More good play from the secondary yesterday. Yes, the first drive was shaky. But USC played just about that entire second half without its two starting safeties, and Christian Pierce (who has played a lot this year) and Kennedy Urlacher (who hasn’t), played really well. 

We’re close enough to the end that we can draw some conclusions about this season and the state of the program. USC is a much better team and a much better program right now than they were a year ago. This is a legitimate top-20 program, and if they can continue to build and continue to add to the talent base—holding this recruiting class together has been one of the keys to the future—this is a program that can be a routine playoff participant.

But there’s still a lot of ground to cover. The overall run defense is unacceptable. The defensive line has to play lower and has to be more physical—not just sometimes, but all the time. And USC needs to bring in a lot of experienced help at linebacker. The decision not to bring in a starting linebacker or two from the portal last year was a costly mistake. They can’t repeat that mistake this year.

As long as USC beats the Bruins, this has been a successful season. No, if USC finishes with three losses, it would not have achieved a great year by traditional USC standards. But 9-3 would show substantial growth. 

Combine a win over the Powders with a win next week in Autzen, and the season becomes a grand slam. Win out and USC is in the playoff. There is no way that a 10-2 team that finishes 8-1 and third in the Big 10 with a win in Autzen and a blowout over Michigan gets left out of the playoff. No chance. You can list all of the scenarios under which that is possible and I’ll tell you again: no. It won’t happen.

But winning next week in Autzen is an enormous challenge. I know this is when fans like to start talking about how the next opponent is actually pretty overrated and isn’t as good as everybody thinks and…. Don’t even start. Oregon is really good. It is excellent in the trenches on both sides of the ball, the running backs are skilled and run very hard, they have athletes all over, the quarterback has elite skills, and they absolutely hate USC. In terms of atmosphere and the skill level of the opponent, this is every bit the challenge that USC faced in South Bend last month. It may be a bigger challenge.

To win, USC will have to do some things that it hasn’t done in a very long time. It will have to play a great game on the road. We haven’t seen that in four score and seven years. It will have to play four quarters of physical and inspired defense. We’ve only seen that once all year. And it will have to play dramatically better against the run. Notre Dame ran for 300 yards against USC. Oregon could easily do the same if the Trojans don’t play much better than they’ve played against the run all year.

Can USC beat Oregon? Of course. Oregon is a seven-point favorite; bigger upsets happen virtually every week in college football. But it will probably take some breaks. Another Thanos pick off a deflection wouldn’t be a terrible thing. A key fumble. Things like that. 

And most importantly, winning in Autzen will happen only if USC takes that next step in its development. Can it play four quarters of composed, inspired football in one of the most hostile environments in college football, surrounded by a mob of kooks and criminals that make Mad Max extras seem sane and reasonable? Can the offensive line avoid the critical mistakes that often come when playing a very good defensive front seven in a loud environment? Can Jayden Maiava stay composed when it’s loud and wet and he has guys in his face? Can USC avoid more offensive line injuries? Can Good Ja’Kobi appear for all 60 minutes? And, most importantly, can USC’s front seven actually man up from the opening snap and refuse to get pushed around by a very good offensive line?

It won’t take a miracle to win in Autzen. Oregon isn’t that good. But they’ve very good, and for USC to win, the Trojans will have to do things that we haven’t seen them do in years. I wouldn’t exactly bet the mortgage payment on this game. 

But I saw the 1987 Trojans knock off a superior Troy Aikman-led UCLA team to win the Pac-10 and earn a trip to the Rose Bowl. I saw Matt, Dwayne, and Reggie pull off the impossible in South Bend on 3rd and 19 and 4th in 9 in the loudest stadium I’ve ever witnessed. I saw USC hold Aaron Rodgers and Marshawn Lynch out of the end zone from 1st and goal at the 9 yard line to set up a national title run. I saw USC steamroll and humiliate an Oklahoma team with a Heisman winner at quarterback and Adrian Peterson at running back in a way nobody thought possible. I saw Ed O’s flawed team shut down a top-five Stanford team and take them down with a last-second field goal. I saw USC completely dismantle Oklahoma’s powerful wishbone at the Coliseum and blow out the Sooners when they were at the height of their powers. I saw USC shut out UCLA at the Coliseum when everybody thought UCLA was the better program as the Trojans announced that they were back. And I saw Lane Kiffin take a sanctions-depleted USC team into Autzen to beat Chip Kelly and a high-powered Oregon team.

I hate Oregon. Hate ‘em. If you’ve ever read anything I’ve written or any video I’ve done for WeAreSC—maybe if you’ve ever even been in the same county as me—you know that. Oregon is everything that’s wrong with college football. I wish them only pain, pestilence, and fear. Gout. I also wish them gout. I want this one really, really badly.

Do I actually expect USC to beat Oregon next week? Not really. But I didn’t expect most of that other stuff we just talked about to happen either. So what the hell, might as well roll up to Autzen, tee up the ball and see what happens, right? This is a major challenge.  But win or lose, if USC plays hard, physical, and focused for 60 minutes next week, I’ll be proud of the effort and persuaded that we’re seeing real growth and that the transformation—while not completed—is underway. We haven’t seen USC do that on the road against an elite opponent in a very long time. This ain’t a bad time to try it.