When sportswriters or television analysts say, “They could not have played any better,” they’re often exaggerating.
A team might score 24 points in the first half of a football game, or three runs in the first inning of a baseball game, or 75 points in the first half of a basketball game. All of those totals are really good, but if one drive failed to score a touchdown, or two men were left on base, or a basketball team committed 10 turnovers, that’s not a perfect half.
Literal perfection is a perfect game in baseball, or making every shot in basketball. In football, perfection on offense means scoring a touchdown every single time they had a full possession in normal game conditions. (In other words, this excludes getting the ball near one’s own 10-yard line with one minute left in the half. That’s a truncated possession whose goal is not to score, but to merely drain clock.)
On each of its five normal in-game possessions in the first half of Saturday’s game against Stanford, the USC offense scored a touchdown.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Five possessions, five sevens.
What makes the 35-point explosion even more special: USC did not face a single third down on any of those five possessions. Pure dominance. Pure firepower. Pure perfection.
The first third down of the game didn’t come until USC’s last possession of the half, which — again — was not a normal game possession. USC did convert that third down, however, which was the one goal of that possession. It prevented Stanford from getting the ball back before halftime with the Trojans leading, 35-14.
This 75-yard pass from Caleb Williams to Jordan Addison was the ultimate highlight in a half filled with USC fireworks:
Jordan Addison to the house 🔥
(via @USC_FB) pic.twitter.com/TPx4LsY30P
— SI College Football (@si_ncaafb) September 11, 2022
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