We all remember the last time Iowa and USC faced off, though I’m pretty sure not many of us expected that game to go the way that it did, I will admit that I didn’t. Having watched Iowa lose nearly every
game they played west of God’s time, I fully expected them to do almost every other time they’d gone west, lose kind of badly. USC was a pretty good team in 2019 and it was a ranked matchup, so when Iowa left San Diego with a blowout win, I think pretty much everyone was at least a little surprised. Since the year of my birth, 1980, Iowa is 8-16-1 in games west of the Central time zone, and under Kirk Ferentz they are 2-6, let’s hope the trend doesn’t repeat tomorrow.
This year’s USC team is probably better than that team was, entering the game ranked 17th and bringing the #2 offense in all the land into the Coliseum to face a top 5 Iowa defense. USC’s defense is not great, but neither is Iowa’s offense, though they are quite bad at defending the run, which is something Iowa has been quite good at this year. I watched quite a few highlights of USC’s B18 games this year and I can confidently say that Iowa should be able to move the ball against this defense, the real question is whether or not the defense can stop King Miller, Makai Lemon, Ja’Kobi Lane, and Jayden Maiava from ripping off big plays and quick scores.
THE OFFENSE
Iowa’s offense struggled against a very, very good Oregon defense, but actually, somehow, managed to score more TD’s than the Ducks. Gronowski did not start well, but he led Iowa on two scoring drives in the 4th quarter and gave them the lead with just under 2 minutes left in the game. Disastrous 1st and 3rd quarters (punt, safety, punt, fumble at the end of a 11 play ~7 minute drive) made the difference against Oregon. Kamari Moulton had a decent day, but Oregon managed to hold him to just 3.8 ypc on their way to holding Iowa to just 101 total rushing yards (including sacks and the 20 yards lost on the safety). Gron looked hesitant in the 1st quarter missing on a couple of really easy passes, but he figured it out and did have two passes go for 35+ yards, including on Iowa’s final drive, where they actually scored too quickly (a sentence I’ve rarely uttered in regards to an Iowa offense).
Against the Trojans they need to establish the run early with heavy doses of Moulton, Xavier Williams, and hopefully some Jaziun Patterson in addition to Gronowski. Based on what I saw of the USC defense in the hours worth of clips I watched earlier, they are vulnerable on the ground and struggle with RPOs and mobile QBs (Luke Altmeyer looked like a Heisman contender against them). Intermediate crossing routes should be open underneath and if Gron can get the ball into the hands of his playmakers in space and on the move, there’s a lot of ground to pick up.
THE DEFENSE
This will be the best offense Iowa has seen this year, at least on paper, better even than Indiana and Oregon. Jayden Maiava can make every throw, elude tacklers, and finishes runs in a way that is not dissimilar from Mark Gronowski. He does, however, throw a lot of floaters and he can absolutely be goaded into making mistakes (watch the Notre Dame game, 2 really bad picks). The issue is, his receivers are very, very, very good and they make him look a lot better than he may actually be. Makai Lemon, in particular, makes him look like good every time he touches the ball, and he and Ja’Kobi Lane may be the two best receivers Iowa has seen this year.
They also have to pay an awful lot of attention to true freshman King Miller who is averaging 8.0 ypc since moving into the starting role after Waymond Jordan and Eli Sanders went down with injuries. He’s not the fastest guy I’ve ever seen, nor the most graceful, but he is powerful and has the kind of upright running style that makes him hard to bring down. The front 7 will need to shutdown his running lanes and keep him inside or things could get ugly. If they let USC run loose the way Oregon did, his could be a very long game.
USC’s OLine can struggle in pass pro (they’ve allowed 9 sacks this season), but this is generally mitigated by Maiava getting the ball out quickly, lots of tunnel screens to Lemon, and a fair number to Miller as well. Lincoln Riley knows how to handle aggressive defenses, so Iowa’s trademark “fundamental” defense needs to show up big in LA. Hurkett and Llewellyn need to set the edge aggressively and we’ll need the Linebackers to pull their weight in coverage or we could be seeing USC put up YACs on YACs on YACs.
SPECIAL TEAMS
USC does not struggle in this phase, their placekicker has missed only 1 FG all year, though his longest fg made is (I believe) 48 yards, so he doesn’t have quite the same leg as Drew Stevens, but then, USC is very good at getting in the redzone, so he hasn’t needed to kick any 55+ yard FGs. As noted in BTN, their punter is serviceable, and they don’t have much going on in the return game, mainly because they aren’t putting their best WRs and RBs on the return squad.
Kaden Wetjen should have some chances against this USC squad, and they’ve given up at least one kickoff return TD to someone who is definitely not as fast as the 2024 Jet Award Winner. If he can find some lanes against USC’s coverage unit (which he should be able to) he could have a huge impact on this game.
Iowa’s playoff chances evaporated in the rain last Saturday evening, but they’ve still got plenty to play for. Winning out likely gets them to a very good bowl location and back toward the top 15, which would be Iowa’s strongest finish since, well, 2019 when they ended the season at #15, after whooping USC in what was, basically, a home game for the Trojans.
The line on this one opened with USC at -6.5 moved up to 7, but has settled back at -6.5 and doesn’t seem like it’s going to move and more. The O/U has pretty much been stuck at 49.5, which gives us an implied score of USC 28, Iowa 21.5. The forecast at present is a high of 64 and a 98% chance of rain, which could turn this into a replay of last week’s game, and certainly makes it a lot less likely that we see a high-scoring game, I’m honestly a little surprised that the sharps haven’t brought that O/U down, but they know what they’re doing. If I were a betting man I’d be hammering the under and likely taking Iowa and the points (Iowa is 6-1 ATS in their last 7).
As Always, GO HAWKS!!!
