Not much has gone according to plan for the 2024 USC football team. However, there is one thing that this year’s Trojans have actually been quite good at.
The 2024 USC Trojans are quite good at finding new ways to lose football games.
There was allowing a two-minute drill touchdown to a Michigan team with a running back at QB. There was the clock mismanagement at the end of regulation against Penn State and subsequently falling in overtime. There having a field goal that would have iced the game against Maryland blocked and the Terrapins instead driving down for the game-winning touchdown. There was the horrendous play calling on the goal line against Washington with a chance to take a late lead.
Saturday, there was throwing two pick sixes of 99 yards or more.
No, that is not a typo. With the Trojans trailing archrival Notre Dame by a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, quarterback Jayden Maiava was driving USC down the field for a potential tying score. However, a bad decision by Maiava led to his pass being picked off by Notre Dame’s Christian Gray, who ran it back 99 yards to give the Irish a 14-point lead.
With the Trojans in desperation mode, USC got the ball back, and Maiava drove them down the field once again. But the quarterback was pressured and forced into heaving up a bad throw, which was intercepted in the end zone by noted Trojan killer Xavier Watts. Sure enough, Watts ran the ball back more than 100 yards, icing a Notre Dame win and sending the Irish to the College Football Playoff.
For the Trojans, it was more of the same. Just when it was starting to look like USC might finally come through in a big moment, they found a new excruciating way to lose a football game.
The number of different ways that USC found to lose winnable games this season truly was remarkable. In an extremely disappointing season, you at least have to give the Trojans credit for that.
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