College Football 2018: Worst Losses from Week 2, ranked
3. USC Offensive Struggles Continue
In Week 2, we witnessed a rematch of last year’s Pac-12 championship game between No. 17 USC and No. 10 Stanford. Where USC won the previous meeting, such was not the case this time. The Stanford Cardinal dominated the Trojans in a 17-3 win. Now you say, that doesn’t sound like a “dominating” win.
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The Trojans inability to score more than three points was reflective of the Stanford defensive line’s harassment of JT Daniels. Daniels, the USC true freshman quarterback, turned over the ball three times. He threw two interceptions and fumbled once. The Trojan offensive line had no answer to the Cardinal rush and left Daniels to scramble outside of the pocket, over and over again.
The Cardinal defense also limited the USC rushing attack to 3.1 yards per carry. USC showed that they cannot protect their quarterback, nor run the football effectively. Stanford established themselves as the top team in the Pac-12 this weekend and planted a seed in the Trojans’ minds for the good chance they meet again in this year’s conference championship.