All Ball Sports: USC Football, Meet the new boss

by Paul Teetor     

Who needs Caleb Williams?

Who needs the Heisman Trophy winner from two years ago and the first overall pick in the NFL draft last spring?

And who needs a quarterback who constantly improvised, trying to – and often succeeding at – making something out of nothing, but in the process disrupting his coach’s intricate offensive system.

Not the USC football team, which survived a season-opening must-win test against LSU with a thrilling 27-20 victory Sunday night in Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium that wasn’t decided until there were eight seconds left in the game.

That was when Woody Marks ran for a 13-yard touchdown when the Trojans really only needed a field goal for a win, but Marks saw the opening for a TD and went for it.

But as good as Marks was, and as spectacular as wide receiver Kyron Hudson was – he made two have-to-see-it-to-believe it, one-handed catches that kept USC drives alive – the story of this game was quarterback Miller Moss, the junior who sat and watched and learned for three years, waiting patiently for his turn to drive the Trojan offense.

And drive it he did, completing 27 of 36 passes for 378 yards. He produced 27 points and the last-second score that gave number 23 USC a stunning win over number 13 LSU, a national power SEC program that marks Coach Lincoln Riley’s first signature win at USC.

This victory canceled —at least for the moment – all the sports talk radio chatter about the looming divorce between Riley and USC that was set into motion by last season’s abject collapse over the second half of the season.

The growing perception was clear – the most valuable thing that Riley brought with him from Oklahoma was Caleb Williams, the star quarterback who transferred from Oklahoma at the same time that Riley stunned the Sooner fans by signing on to coach USC.

Williams went on to win the Heisman Trophy in his first USC season with Riley, but the season ended with deep disappointment as the Trojans fell short in their drive for a national championship.

Then, in their second USC season together, Williams was equally spectacular but the team got worse as the defense was dreadful, unable to stop anybody and nullifying most of Williams’ improvisational heroics.

Riley’s growing legion of critics charged Riley was just another run-of-the mill coach without his star quarterbacks,Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, both of whom won Heisman Trophies while at Oklahoma,  and Williams.

Riley’s supporters, however, argued just the opposite: that it was Riley and his innovative offensive system that made the two Oklahoma quarterbacks – neither of whom has had great success in the NFL – so productive. And Williams has yet to play in an NFL game, although Chicago Bears fans are looking to him as an instant savior in the NFL season that starts next week.

This season was to be a litmus test of those two theories, with Moss slated to take over for Williams at USC. Moss was a four-star quarterback coming out of high school, with power schools like USC usually only interested in five-star quarterbacks. Moss doesn’t even look like the typical USC quarterback: He’s barely 6-foot-1, doesn’t have a cannon for an arm and has the persona of a grad student in the engineering program.

So, this was the test set up for him Sunday night: could a four-star quarterback succeed in a five-star offense?

The answer (so far): is an emphatic yes.

After a cautious start, Miller began heating up in the second quarter, hitting on a variety of screen looks and pretty route concepts. He got some help, too, on a toss up the seam to junior Hudson.

Somehow, twisting in midair across his body, Hudson reached over his head and in full-extension mode  plucked the football out of thin air, bobbling it slightly in both hands before cradling it as he crashed to the turf. 

It seemed to be an impossible catch, so much so that the play went under review because there was no physical explanation for how Hudson was able to not only palm-cradle Moss’ toss but also tuck it in while crashing down to earth. The 64,000 mostly USC fans who packed Allegiant roared, then paused, then erupted once more after the 24-yard catch was upheld.

It was the kind of catch that can lift up an entire team and convince them they are a team of destiny. USC sophomore defensive end Braylan Shelby positively freaked out along with the rest of USC’s sideline.

“I said ESPN Top 10, right away,” Shelby said postgame, beaming from ear to ear. “Like, he was – I mean, that catch was in-sane, man.”

Knotted at 10-10 after a touchdown run from Marks finished off that drive, USC lost offensive momentum in the third quarter after questionable time-management decisions and a missed 29-yard field goal by kicker Michael Lantz at the end of the first half.

But at 10-10 the Trojans were at least in the game. Last year the defense was so awful that it didn’t seem to matter how many points Williams produced – the Trojans usually trailed at halftime.

That was the other half of the indictment against Riley: he didn’t seem to know or care about his team’s defense, a pattern that went all the way back to his Oklahoma teams.

But it’s a new day under new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn. With almost all new starters brought in from the transfer portal, for the first time since the glory days of Pete Carroll the defense was swarming to the ball, fighting for every inch of turf and often in the LSU backfield before the play that had been called could unfold. 

It was a sight Trojan fans had longed to see from the day Riley arrived with his all-offense, no-defense reputation.

The emergence of Miller as a solid, reliable, productive quarterback and the development of a solid defense were both key to this victory.

But the other revelation was that USC also has one of the most dynamic, exciting players in college football: Zacharia Branch. The sophomore wide receiver/kick returner out of Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas has the speed and the shifty moves to be the most elusive USC player since Reggie Bush was running wild nearly 20 years ago. He had several long kick returns in this game and also caught some key passes. If they go onto a successful season in the Big Ten, he will be one of the key reasons for it.

So begins the real work of the three-year Riley rebuild at USC. Turns out the Caleb Williams era was the dessert before the main course.

“This was kind of, our day here, on one of the biggest stages,” Riley said, to a post game question about the win’s impact on the program’s recruiting. “So, yeah, to show up like that, I know there were a lot of people watching that.

Riley talked like a man temporarily vindicated through a tortuous offseason of talk-show blather about his imminent firing and the need for a clean-the-house defensive overhaul.

“Regardless of what happened today,” Riley said postgame, “it’s still not going to change what we’re building, the thing we’re doing. We’re just so committed to it. And nothing’s going to change it.”

Let’s wait and see if Riley is talking tough that way in two weeks when they start Big Ten play against defending national champion Michigan.

But for this one night at least, he was entitled to fight on.

Cadence Turner celebrates an end zone catch of a pass from Nico London for the Sea Hawks second touchdown of the first half.

Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER