USC did little to quiet the old doubts last week, and that leaves Saturday’s game against Oregon hanging over the Trojans like a test they have not passed yet.
What happened against Rutgers looked a lot like the USC people have seen before under Lincoln Riley: sloppy stretches, road problems, too many mistakes, and a defense that could not hold up. The Trojans did not look like a different team in Week 3, and that is why the Oregon matchup feels so important.
The road issues are still there. USC’s play away from home once again fell short against Rutgers, and that is becoming a real pattern since the Trojans joined the Big Ten.
A strong team can show up the same way at home and on the road. USC has not done that, and games at Penn State and Wisconsin now look even more troubling after what happened Saturday.
The offense still has enough talent to make plays, even with Trent Mosley out during this stretch. Corey Simms came through with a big moment, Kayden Dixon-Wyatt continues to look like the No. 1 receiver on the team, and Tanook Hines can still create problems for a defense. USC has the pieces to score against Oregon.
But the mistakes keep piling up. The Trojans were penalized six times in the first half alone, and Rutgers never really took full advantage of it.
USC ended with eight penalties, which is the kind of undisciplined football that drags a team down. That has to get cleaned up, because it is not a winning formula and it will not become one until the penalties stop.
The bigger issue is on defense, where the warning signs were loud. Rutgers put up more offense against USC than it did against UMASS, which is a major problem no matter how you slice it.
Rutgers does have two NFL players on offense, but this was still not an attack on Oregon’s level, or on the level of other top Big Ten offenses. USC let them look that way anyway.
The pass rush was thin beyond Luke Wafle, and that is another problem that could get exposed fast. If Dante Moore gets the kind of time the Rutgers quarterback had, Oregon’s offense could make this game ugly in a hurry. The Ducks’ rushing game could also force USC’s defense to chase the action all night, and that is a bad place for the Trojans to be.
Against Rutgers, USC got the kind of offensive outing that should have been enough to control the game. Instead, it still looked vulnerable.
If Rutgers were a better team, the Trojans might have been staring at an upset. Oregon is not a team USC can afford to treat that way.
Maybe the Trojans can flip the script this week. Maybe they can come out looking sharper, cleaner, and tougher. But after what happened against Rutgers, the burden is on USC to prove it is not just another Lincoln Riley team carrying the same old problems.
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