On Saturday evening, the USC football team suffered an embarrassing 24-7 road loss to Wisconsin. With the defeat, the Trojans dropped to 6-2 on the year and 3-2 in Big Ten play.
What went well for USC, and what went poorly? Here are some positives and negatives from the game:
Positive: The pass defense
It is a struggle to find any positives from this game. USC did, however, hold Wisconsin to just 58 passing yards! Of course, this only makes the fact that the Trojans lost by three scores even more embarrassing, but the secondary does deserve some credit for its performance.
Positive: Taniela Tupou
Another positive was redshirt freshman tight end Taniela Tupou, who led USC in receiving with six catches for 46 yards and a touchdown. It was more receptions, receiving yards, and scores than Tupou had
in his entire college football career prior to the game.
Negative: Lincoln Riley
Unfortunately, there were far more negatives than positives in this game for USC. The biggest negative of all was the head coach. The Trojans had two weeks to prepare for this game, and did not even look remotely ready. There is no one to blame for that but Lincoln Riley.
Negative: The offensive line
USC had negative 17 rushing yards in this game. In addition to being unable to run the ball, quarterback Jayden Maiava was under pressure all night. The offensive line had been one of the team’s strengths through the first seven games of the season, but against Wisconsin, the unit was an absolute disaster.
Negative: Jayden Maiava
While the offensive line certainly did not make Maiava’s life easier, the quarterback had one of his worst games in Cardinal and Gold. Maiava threw two interceptions, took five sacks, and committed several brutal intentional grounding penalties.
Negative: Special teams
The icing on the cake of the Trojans’ disastrous night was special teams. USC missed two field goals and had a fumbled kickoff that set up the offense with terrible field position.
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This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Positives and negatives from USC’s embarrassing 24-7 loss to Wisconsin
