The No. 5 USC Trojans moved to 4-0 on the 2023 season, but the 42-28 win against Arizona State in the desert felt a lot different than the first three. The Trojans struggled with the Sun Devils well into the fourth quarter before eventually escaping with a win. Here, the WeAreSC crew gives a quick postgame look at what matters from this one for the Trojans.<\/p>\n
MarShawn Lloyd was terrific in this one outside of a miscommunication with Caleb Williams that led to a costly early fumble. He rished for 154 yards on 14 carries and was a constant big-play provider whenever the Trojans went to him.<\/p>\n
Caleb Williams didn\u2019t play his prettiest game, but he finished 20-for-31 for 331 yards and three scores through the air, plus two rushing touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Brenden Rice caught seven passes for 133 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Erik McKinney<\/p>\n
For the most part, how badly the No. 5 Trojans played or were unprepared to play an inspired ASU team that had lost the week before at home to Fresno State 29-0. Whatever the case, the Trojans were ripe for an upset, and the Men of Troy lacked consistency in all phases of the game, Caleb Williams did not perform like the front runner for the Heisman for much of the game, the Trojans\u2019 offensive line was not dominating, and the defense had issues on all three levels until the end. Worse yet, it appeared the Trojans were out-coached for much of the game on both sides of the ball. The Trojans are running out of time to get better before the strength of schedule arrives sooner rather than later. Let\u2019s hope the ASU game is not foreshadowing the coming weeks and final two months. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2014 Greg Katz<\/p>\n
Caleb Williams connected on a 45-yard scoring pass to wide receiver Tahj Washington with 7:17 remaining. Up to this point, the Trojans were knee-deep in trying to survive a game in which ASU came to play. It seemed up to the Washington touchdown, the game was still in doubt. However, the Men of Troy finally got their act together late to win a game in which they were a heavy 34 \u00bd-point favorite. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2014 Greg Katz<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u201d USC team isn\u2019t beating many of the opponents left on the schedule. We learned the starting offense can get out of sorts in key situations as the Trojans struggles on third downs and came up empty on a trip to the red zone for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still tough to say we\u2019ve truly learned anything about this defense. There were some big plays from big players like the Bear Alexander sack and Calen Bullock interception. The tackling still isn\u2019t great and the defensive front got pushed around certainly more than they\u2019d like by a patchwork offensive line. <\/p>\n
And we learned the early bye week just might be as bad as we guessed early on. it certainly seemed to shake the Trojans out of the rhythm they were in and now USC heads into the meat of the schedule.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Erik McKinney<\/p>\n
USC next travels to Boulder to take on a Colorado Buffaloes team that was demolished by Oregon this weekend. But it\u2019s going to be another big-time road environment that will challenge the Trojans. USC is clearly a better team than Colorado, but they wont be able to sleep walk through many more of these.<\/p>\n
The post WeAreSC Wrap: USC outlasts Arizona State<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The No. 5 USC Trojans moved to 4-0 on the 2023 season, but the 42-28…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}