Musings from Arledge: Now things get real for USC

The preseason is over. USC is 4-0, which is not a surprise. None of the first four teams on the schedule were any good.

Now things get real. The Trojans have two sure wins left on the schedule: Northwestern and UCLA. Both programs are terrible. Both programs should face relegation or euthanasia. That’s six wins. That means USC likely needs to win four of the remaining six games to make the playoffs. Based on what we’ve seen so far, is that realistic?

Maybe.

Jayden Maiava has surpassed expectations so far. He has made good decisions, has thrown the ball accurately, and has used his legs effectively. USC is much better at quarterback than last year, and if Maiava continues playing at this level, USC is going to be a difficult out for anybody on the schedule.

He is also surrounded by elite skill players. Makai Lemon was criminally underrated at the start of his USC career. Everybody wanted to talk about Branch and Duce. Makai is far better than either of them. In fact, Makai is starting to look like he belongs in the top tier of USC receivers over the last 30 years. I’m talking about the group that includes Keyshawn, BMW, Dwayne Jarrett, Robert Woods, Marqise Lee, Amon-Ra, and Drake London. He’s not the best in that group, but I think by the end of this year he will belong in that group. And that’s quite a place to belong.

Ja’Kobi Lane is not as consistent, but he does consistently turn in spectacular plays, and as we saw last week, he’s no longer just a jump-ball, red zone threat. He is becoming a dangerous all-around receiver.

Those two guys are elite, and they have some other good players in that room.

The one-two punch of Waymond Jordan and Eli Sanders is far better than I anticipated, and I thought they’d be good. This duo is not Thunder and Lightning or Marcus and Charles—we may never see combinations like those again—but it’s elite. The fact that they can keep King Miller and Bryan Jackson off the field is saying something, because I really like both of those guys also.

The tight ends are much improved and USC poses a legitimate threat at that position for the first time in years.

The bottom line is that USC has a top-five group of offensive skill position players. Nobody in the country is as good as Jeremiah Smith—I’ll concede that—but in terms of a collection of players, even Ohio State might have trouble matching this group. These guys are really good.

The question all offseason was whether the offensive line could hold up. So far they haven’t played a great defensive front, so it’s still responsible to say that we just don’t know how good this group is.

But that line is starting to look more and more like the group we needed them to be. Thought experiment: if we took one of USC’s very good offensive lines like, say, some of Pete Carroll’s groups, would it have looked any different over the first four games? Not dramatically so.

That doesn’t mean they’ll handle Michigan’s defensive front with ease in a couple of weeks. But it does mean they passed the early auditions with flying colors. You’re not seeing many mental errors, you’re not seeing many penalties, and these guys are opening up huge holes for the backs and keeping Maiava clean consistently. I don’t know if it’s a really good group yet; you have to see them tested by good players before making that determination. But it looks like the offensive line is at least above average. And an above-average line with this group of skill players is a problem for defenses.

Lincoln Riley is also a problem, because he looks like Lincoln Riley again. He’s committing to the run game, he’s setting up defenses with his play calling, and he’s offering misdirection and confusion. He’s calling plays like an elite offensive coordinator.

I don’t know that USC will put up big points every week. They have some major challenges coming up. They may still stumble. But this is a good offense, and it might prove better than just good. These guys are going to steal sleep from a lot of defensive coordinators going forward. It should be fun to watch.

So while we haven’t hit the heart of the schedule yet, I feel good about this offense. USC is a playoff team if the defense plays reasonably well.

And they certainly have some pieces in place. The defensive front is becoming the group we hoped to see. Yes, the run fits with the D line and the linebackers show occasional breakdowns. But the run defense stats are still solid overall, and it’s not easy for teams to commit to the run consistently when they have to keep pace with USC’s high-scoring offense.

Anthony Lucas is solid. Devan Thompkins is solid. Braylan Shelby is much improved and looks like the guy we expected when he signed out of high school. Kameryn Crawford (?) is becoming elite early in his second season. The other big bodies up front can make plays. Floyd Boucard will play many years in the NFL.

And now we’re seeing that the Jahkeem Stewart hype was real. Holy smokes! The quickness for such a big guy is astounding. And he’s just scratching the surface of what he can do. This is a very young guy who has barely played football — a true freshman who only played a season of varsity football, yet he’s already starting to show flashes of big-time ability. I’m talking first-round talent. He still needs to put in the work and stay healthy. But this is a guy who could become better than Leonard Williams, Shaun Cody, Mike Patterson, and Sedrick Ellis. If he wants it—if he really, truly wants it—this is a kid who could dominate games within the next couple of years.

I criticized this defensive front after the first two weeks. I thought these guys were better than they played. We’re starting to see them become the group we hoped they could be. I think they’ll continue to get better. I think they’ll cause a lot of problems for everybody on the schedule.

And Eric Gentry is doing what we thought he would do. This is a guy with great recognition skills and the quickness of a defensive back. He can rush the passer, defend the pass, slice through the line and hit running backs in the backfield. He is an elite player. If he stays healthy, he should be a first-time all-conference selection. He’s really good.

And he badly needs to stay healthy. Because now we have to address the reasons USC may still fall short of the playoffs. The first is that nobody else at linebacker is in the same universe as Eric Gentry. In fact—and I know this won’t be popular, but direct your complaints to Erik McKinney—I don’t think USC currently has another linebacker that is even an average Big Ten starter. I think the rest of the room is below replacement level to use baseball-nerd terminology.

There’s talent. Desman Stephens is an athlete. So is Elijah Newby. Jadyn Walker has flashed. Ta’Mere Robinson has the body of a good Big Ten linebacker. But none of those guys is there yet. Playing behind this defensive front and next to Eric Gentry, those guys are not exactly the focus of any offense. They are in a prime position to make plays. And they’re just not making very many. That group needs to grow up in a hurry. And if Eric Gentry goes down—please, please don’t let Eric Gentry go down—USC’s linebackers are just not ready to perform at the level USC needs.

And the secondary, oh the secondary. USC’s safeties haven’t been perfect; there have been some breakdowns. But I still trust Bishop Fitzgerald, Kamari Ramsey, and Christian Pierce. That’s a solid group. That’s a group that can do its part to get a team into the playoffs.

But the corners are a mess. I’d like to say it differently, but unless I use another synonym for “mess” in the sentence, I wouldn’t be telling the truth. We now see why USC went out and picked up Chasen Johnson in the transfer portal. I thought it was a strange move at the time. We can see why Alex Graham was being talked about as a guy who could play as a true freshman and even appeared on track to start at nickel during fall camp. The other young guys just aren’t ready. Losing Johnson, Graham, and Prophet Brown—who was turning heads during the offseason—has put USC in a bind. DeCarlos Nicholson has made some plays and has been the best of the group. But is this a guy who USC can trust to match up with the elite receivers in this conference? And apart from him, what do you have back there?

Maybe the biggest problem other than the injuries may be what increasingly appears to be a major transfer-portal miss in DJ Harvey. This was supposed to be an accomplished, experienced guy who could walk in and play one of the corner spots at a very high level. We haven’t seen that at all.

With average Big Ten corners, USC has a playoff roster. But USC doesn’t have average Big Ten corners right now. They have liabilities at corner. This is a group that allows too much space and doesn’t challenge receivers … and still lets plays get behind them. I’m deeply worried about the cornerbacks room, and USC is going to lose some games they should not lose in the coming weeks unless we either see a really big jump from some of the talented young guys who are not yet playing well or we get a return and solid play from Alex Graham and Prophet Brown.

Harsh? Maybe. But it’s true, and what’s the point of analyzing USC football in an article if we’re not going to tell the truth?

There is one other problem, and it’s growing every week. This team is undisciplined, especially defensively and on special teams. USC’s offense has turned the ball over a little but not a lot. But USC has effectively had three or four additional turnovers every week because of bad defensive and special teams penalties that have given extra possessions to the opponent.

In back-to-back weeks, USC’s punt return team has given the ball back to the opposing offense. I know both calls were tough and we might argue them. But in neither case was the player who committed the penalty close to making a play. I understand hitting the punter if you’re going for the block and you’re close. You hate to see it happen, but I understand. Same with leaping high in the air. If you have a chance to make the play, you do it. But two penalties on the punt return team when the player isn’t anywhere near being able to block the punt? What even is that?

And the defensive penalties are just unacceptable at this point. Prime Muhammad Ali had his hands in his opponent’s face less frequently than USC’s defenders do.

Every. Single. Week.

This has to stop. I don’t know if it will, but if USC wants to make the playoff, it has to stop. You can get away with giving bad teams extra possessions. You cannot give the next four teams on the schedule multiple extra possessions and expect to win. You cannot give Oregon multiple extra possessions in Autzen without getting blown out. The penalties are unacceptable, and if they don’t stop, they’re about to become back-breaking.

So where does that leave us? USC should be favored against everybody but Notre Dame and Oregon. USC is better than Illinois and Nebraska. USC is clearly better than Iowa. USC at home is better than Michigan. But USC could also lose to all of those teams if they play poorly in the secondary and continue with the lack of discipline and the penalties.

USC is capable of winning in South Bend and Autzen. I’m not saying they will. Both of those games are major challenges. Those are extremely difficult venues, you can be sure the Trojans will not get a fair shake from the officials, Oregon is playing as well as anybody right now, and while I think USC will have plenty of success against that Notre Dame defense, that Irish running game is a problem. It will take a much cleaner effort to win those games. And if USC doesn’t bring its “A” game those weeks, they could get embarrassed.

As for this coming week, don’t sleep on Illinois. I was saying all offseason that Illinois was overrated. The Illini played a bunch of very close games last year and won almost all of them. But look behind the record and the statistics show only an above average team in 2024, almost equivalent to USC according to most indicators.

Great quarterbacks will win more than their share of close games. But generally speaking, because college football has small sample sizes, getting fortunate in a few games can be the difference between 7-5 and 10-2, and teams that win a bunch of close games one year tend not to have the same luck the next year. Vegas always takes this into account in their preseason predictions for college football and the NFL. Pollsters often don’t because most of them are (1) too busy to watch all of the games and (2) too dumb to know what they’re seeing anyway.

Illinois is not and never was a top-ten team. They proved it by getting embarrassed this past week. But let’s not swing too far the other direction. They’re still a solid team. They have a ton of experience, a competent quarterback, they’ll be playing at home in front of a raucous crowd, and they will be playing with a chip on their shoulders after suffering such a humiliation. This game is far from a gimme. USC should be the favorite, but the Trojans will have to play their best game of the year to win Saturday.

Let’s close with a few random thoughts from around the country:

Does anybody think DJ Lagway might regret turning down Lincoln Riley to join that dumpster fire in Gainesville? Geez. Florida might have given him a big check, but he’s losing more money than that check every single week that NFL scouts watch him driving the Gators’ clown car.

When things turn, they sometimes turn quickly. Clemson looks awful, and Dabo doesn’t seem to have any answers. With his track record, Clemson shouldn’t be too quick to can him. You’re talking about a guy who took a program that is second-rate historically and put them on the same level as Saban’s Bama squads for a while. That’s no joke. But Clemson looks like a joke right now, and fans and donors are always quick to turn on a struggling coach, even at non-football powerhouses much less at a place like Clemson. Remember, Cal fired Jeff Tedford after he took Cal from 0-11 to the second-best team in the Pac-12 and even challenged Pete Carroll. And Cal doesn’t even care about football! Dabo is in a lot of trouble.

Texas still has a ton of talent and only one close loss. They should be a lock for the playoff, right? But let me ask you this: do any of you trust Arch Manning, and do any of you really trust Sark? I sure don’t. Manning was living off his last name more than Bronny James, and Sark is still a chalkboard X’s and O’s guy, not a leader. Talent may still carry them through, but I’m not so sure.

Mr. “I’m a man! I’m 40!” is the only coach in the country who has fallen as hard as Dabo. Oklahoma State might be the worst Power Four team in the country.

I think Texas Tech’s spending spree this offseason was still a little gross. But I’ll admit that I enjoyed watching Utah get embarrassed at home. Kyle Whittingham is an excellent coach, and he and his staff do a lot of things right. Maybe I shouldn’t enjoy their humiliation. But I do. Sue me.

UCLA … ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha.