Maybe the problem with the USC defense (or rather, one of the biggest problems out of several) is that the Trojans overvalued what they did in the first three weeks of the season.
The Trojans made few defensive mistakes against Nevada and Stanford. They dominated. They didn’t allow a touchdown to Stanford in the first 56 minutes of that game. It’s easy to think the situation is good when a defense does that.
However, with the benefit of hindsight, maybe USC put too much stock into drilling very bad teams in those early weeks.
Colorado brought a far higher skill level to the table in Week 5. The Buffaloes had a lot more skill-position talent than Stanford or Nevada. USC wasn’t able to contain that talent for the full duration of the game. Maybe this is the wakeup call which jolts this defense into an improved state of urgency and focus for the rest of the season.
We can only hope.
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