Last week, Utah and Oregon did not play particularly well, but they still won road games in Texas against Big 12 opponents.
Utah rallied late to beat Baylor, while Oregon struggled but made key plays in the fourth quarter to fend off Texas Tech. The performances weren’t good, but the results were great. Both teams overcame a lot of mistakes and limitations to win.
USC will likely have to do that at least once if it expects to make the Pac-12 Championship Game and compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Recall the game at Oregon State last year? That was pure survival.
We wrote this about Caleb Williams after a game in which he generally did not play well:
“Caleb was at a D-plus or C-minus for the first 58 minutes of this game. However: A game-winning drive when everything was on the table is worth a full grade higher than the 60-minute body of work. Winning matters. Caleb Williams is a winner. He made the game-winning throw when his team needed it. We value winning at USC. Obviously, Williams needs to get a lot better and learn from this experience in Corvallis.”
Take note that Caleb has learned from that experience and grown as a quarterback. The Trojans will need that same growth point in 2023. When it occurs, we don’t know, but that kind of scenario — having a bad day but needing to fight through it — will probably emerge once. USC needs to be ready, much as Utah and Oregon were ready to fight this past weekend.
Survival skills matter in the Pac-12 forest.
Check out our Pac-12 football predictions roundtable for the 2023 season.