USC Football: 3 takeaways from dramatic win over UCLA in Week 15

In one of the most thrilling games of the season, USC football staged a last minute comeback to top arch-rival UCLA on the road.

They clinched a spot in the Pac-12 championship earlier in the day by virtue of Colorado losing, but USC football needed to get a victory over UCLA if head coach Clay Helton wants some of the hot seat talk to go away (at least for a week).

It appeared that UCLA got a victory after they took a two-point lead with less than 40 seconds to go, but a big kick return by Gary Bryant set up the Trojans to make a move and then quarterback Kedon Slovis made a huge throw to Tyler Vaughns to put the Trojans in the redzone. Slovis then found his favorite target Amon-Ra St. Brown for the go ahead touchdown to put the Trojans ahead for good.

USC’s offense took until the second half to find a serious rhythm, but they were clicking through the air and on the ground and that allowed them to make up an 18-point second half deficit vs the UCLA Bruins. Wide receivers Drake London and Tyler Vaughns made some big plays in the second half, but it was the tough running of running back Vavae Malepeai that helped guide the Trojans in the second half.

USC has had a hard time running the ball so far this season and seeing Malepeai breaking through tackles and running physically as he was has to be a promising sigh for USC heading into the Pac-12 championship against Washington on Friday.

It was not pretty, but USC will head into Friday’s Pac-12 title game undefeated thanks to some more late game heroics.

Here are three takeaways from USC’s thrilling victory over UCLA.