USC Football: Can Kedon Slovis top off solid year with Holiday Bowl win?

Preview and prediction for the 2019 Holiday Bowl between USC football and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Key players and statistics you need to know before the game.

As the first bowl game between ranked teams, the Holiday Bowl should be a good matchup of teams with contrasting offensive styles.

USC out of the Pac-12 likes to throw the ball a lot in accordance with offensive coordinator Graham Harrell’s scheme. According to teamrankings.com, USC has thrown passes on nearly 57 percent of offensive snaps — 12th highest in the nation. The Trojans are sixth nationally with 336 passing yards per game.

Freshman quarterback Kedon Slovis is 20th in passing yards despite beginning the season as backup to J.T. Daniels. Despite coaching on a scorching hot seat throughout the whole season, Clay Helton will return as head coach next year — probably simply because Urban Meyer said no — and should have plenty of weapons returning, although the 78th best recruiting class for 2020 is extremely troubling.

As for Iowa, the Hawkeyes are more balanced, running the ball 49% of the time with much slower tempo than USC. Quarterback Nate Stanley has the size and arm power that NFL teams look for, but he often struggles with accuracy; Stanley ranks 84th of 116 eligible passers with a meager 59% completion. The Iowa defense is elite, giving up just over 13 points per game, good for 5th in the nation. The Hawkeye defender to watch is definitely defensive end A.J. Epenesa, a possible top 10 draft pick with nine sacks on the year.

The matchup to watch is the USC offense versus the Iowa defense, ranked ninth and fifth respectively in Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings, a measure of efficiency. The total SP+ for each team predicts a 1.6 point victory for the Hawkeyes. ESPN’s FPI Matchup Predictor has USC as a slight favorite, winning 50.6 percent of the time. This should be a great game that could go either way.

Iowa will try to keep the game low-scoring while USC will want to make the game a shootout. The result will be a game decided in the 20s. I’ll predict that Harrell’s offense lead by Slovis and star receiver Michael Pittman Jr. will prove too much for Iowa as the Trojans score a late touchdown to win the Holiday Bowl and build towards what looks to be a promising 2020.

Prediction: USC wins 27-20