Tag: Las Vegas Bowl

Ja’Kobi Lane named to AP All-Bowl Team

Ja’Kobi Lane gets recognized for his dominant Las Vegas Bowl performance.

Ja’Kobi Lane’s Las Vegas Bowl performance did not go unrecognized. This week, Lane was officially named to the AP All-Bowl Team for his performance for USC football against Texas A&M. Lane caught seven passes for 127 yards and a career-high three touchdowns in the game. He was named the bowl’s MVP.

As we wrote at the time, Lane’s performance “was the type of performance that the Trojans had been looking for all year. After losing top 2023 wideouts Tahj Washington and and Brenden Rice to the NFL, USC turned its wide receiver room over to a relatively young core. While each of those players showed flashes at moments in 2024, none of them truly took over a game.

“That was, until Friday night.”

Lane finished his 2024 sophomore season with 43 receptions for 525 yards and 12 touchdowns. He enters 2025 with the potential to be one of the top wide receivers in the Big Ten Conference.

Behind Lane’s performance, USC defeated Texas A&M 35-31 in the Las Vegas Bowl to finish the 2024 season at 7-6.

College football commentator roasts Jayden Maiava’s bowl performance

Jayden Maiava’s bowl effort certainly failed to give USC fans confidence that the Trojans have a clear-cut QB1 for 2025. This will remain a talking point.

To say USC quarterback Jayden Maiava had a rocky performance in the Las Vegas Bowl would be a massive understatement.

The Trojans’ signal-caller completed 56.4% of his passes, and he made numerous really bad mistakes, including three costly interceptions. However, he stepped up his game late, leading multiple clutch touchdown drives, including the game-winner in the final minutes.

Despite his late improvements, however, Maiava’s performance drew criticism nationally, raising doubt whether he will be USC’s starting QB in 2025. One commentator offered harsh words about the performance on social media.

“Maiava experiment at USC been a massive failure,” said Liam Blutman of Barstool Sports, who also runs the popular “No Context College Football” Twitter account.

“Wish he stuck at UNLV. Instead he went to the school of Caleb Williams Cosplaying and it’s completely neutered his development. Way to go Lincoln!”

It should be noted that this was tweeted during the game, before Maiava led the fourth-quarter comeback. Even factoring that in, there was enough ugliness from his performance to give USC fans concern.

While it is possible that Lincoln Riley pursues a transfer QB this offseason to compete for the job, the most likely scenario is Maiava is USC’s starting QB heading into 2025. Given how his 2024 season ended, it is understandable how that might cause unease among the USC fan base.

Texas A&M coach Mike Elko could not stand losing to USC

Texas A&M coach Mike Elko completely roasted his team’s defense after USC shredded it in the second half of the Las Vegas Bowl. Ouch!

USC’s 35-31 victory over Texas A&M in the Las Vegas Bowl Friday night offered a comforting conclusion to what was otherwise a massively disappointing season for the Trojans. For Texas A&M, on the other hand, it marked a disappointing end to a season that once held a ton of promise. The Aggies entered the month of November at 7-1 and squarely in playoff contention. However, they dropped four of their final five games to finish the year 8-5. Following the game, A&M head coach Mike Elko vented his frustrations.

“The story of the game is the story of our season,” Elko said in his postgame press conference. “We can’t cover the forward pass well enough to be a good football team.”

Elko also said this when asked about why he is optimistic about the 2025 season: “I won’t have to watch this defense play like this ever again.”

The Aggies certainly struggled to keep the Trojans’ passing game in check. While A&M’s secondary did intercept USC quarterback Jayden Maiava three times, they also allowed him to throw for 295 yards and four touchdowns.

“I have a lot of apprehension when the other team’s gonna drop back and throw the ball,” Elko said.

Like USC, Texas A&M will now enter the offseason with several major questions. Both teams will look to improve on their 2024 campaigns and contend for conference titles in 2025.

D’Anton Lynn and USC defense never quit on the season or themselves

D’Anton Lynn had a shorthanded USC defense this season. He did the best he could with what he had. It’s up to Lincoln Riley to improve the offense in 2025.

On Friday night, USC wrapped up its 2024 season with a 35-31 victory over Texas A&M in the Las Vegas Bowl. In addition to the fact that it marked the last game of USC’s 2024 season, it marked the final game of D’Anton Lynn’s first year as the Trojans’ defensive coordinator. By all accounts, Lynn’s debut campaign was a major success.

After fielding the worst defense in school history in 2023, the Trojans made major progress on that front in 2024. USC held 10 of its 13 opponents to under 30 points, and seven of them to 24 or fewer. By comparison, last season, the Trojans allowed at least 34 points in their final eight regular season games, and only held one Power Five opponent to fewer than 28.

Friday was actually one of the less impressive performances by USC’s defense on the season. But the unit still did enough to keep the Trojans in the game, something that could certainly not be said about last year’s group.

Coming out of halftime, USC struggled defensively, allowing A&M to score 17 points on its first three drives of the second half. But the Trojans locked in after that, forcing two punts and holding the Aggies to a field goal, giving the offense a chance to get the team back in the game.

It should be noted, however, that the USC defense did allow a seven-play, 75-yard TD drive to give A&M the lead with under two minutes left. If not for Kyle Ford’s heroics, we would be having a very different conversation today.

Overall, though, the bowl game performance encapsulated USC’s 2024 season defensively. By no means were the Trojans elite, but for the most part, the unit did enough to keep the team in every game. After where USC was this time a year ago, that’s a major step in the right direction.

USC freshmen running backs answer the call in Las Vegas Bowl

USC got something out of its younger running backs, who made the most of their opportunity in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Heading into USC football’s Las Vegas Bowl matchup with Texas A&M Friday night, we knew the Trojans’ running back room would be significantly depleted.

Top running back Woody Marks, who is headed to the NFL, opted out of the game. No. 2 back Quinten Joyner also entered the transfer portal, leaving the Trojans with just two scholarship backs—both freshmen—left on the roster.

Those two running backs were true freshman Bryan Jackson and redshirt freshman A’Marion Peterson. Both young players stepped up when their name was called, combining for 28 carries, 109 yards, and a touchdown.

It was exactly the type of performance that USC needed from the two players. Given that they trailed for nearly the entire game, the Trojans were forced to throw the ball more than they ran it. But they were able to get enough production in the ground out of their two young backs to make A&M’s defense respect their run game, in turn opening things up for quarterback Jayden Maiava and the passing game.

With Eli Sanders transferring in from New Mexico, the Trojans will get a big boost in their running back room heading into to next season. After their impressive performance Friday night, however, Jackson and Peterson put themselves in prime position to compete for significant playing time in 2025.

Bowl season gives USC fans bragging rights over Oklahoma in 2024

USC definitely handled its bowl business better than Oklahoma did. At least there’s that.

Ever since Lincoln Riley made the stunning decision to leave Oklahoma for USC football three years ago, Trojan and Sooner fans have been in a constant online war regarding which program is better off. For the majority of this season, it looked like the answer was neither. Both USC and Oklahoma struggled to compete in their respective new conferences, with each finishing 6-6 and barely earning bowl eligibility.

With both teams playing in bowl games on Friday, however, that finally changed. While the Trojans took down Texas A&M 35-21 in the Las Vegas Bowl, the Sooners made way too many mistakes vs. Navy in the Armed Forces Bowl, ultimately falling by a score of 21-20.

With their bowl victory, USC was able to finish with a 7-6 record and avoid a dreaded losing season. Oklahoma, on the other hand, was not so lucky. With their loss, the Sooners finished 6-7 for the second time in three years under Brent Venables, whom they hired to replace Riley shortly following his departure.

To further add on to Oklahoma’s misery, one of the key talking points that their fans have used against Riley over the past few years is his record in bowl games. On Friday, Riley improved to 2-1 in bowls at USC, while Venables fell to 0-3 in bowls as a head coach.

Despite Friday night’s result, it was an incredibly disappointing season for the Trojans. Plain and simple, going 7-6 is nowhere near good enough for this program.

But at the very least, USC fans got the last laugh on Oklahoma in 2024. If nothing else, that is something they can hold their hat on throughout the offseason.

Coach Mike Elko proclaims that the loss against USC summarizes the ‘story of our season’

“The story of the game is the story of our season. We can’t cover the forward pass well enough to be a good football team, that’s my fault.”

Head coach Mike Elko did not hold back after the Texas A&M football team fumbled a 17-point second half advantage against USC in the Las Vegas Bowl.

The Aggies lost to the Trojans 35-31 on Friday night at Allegiant Stadium in Sin City. After the game, Elko spoke to the media.

“I think the story of the game is the story of our season. We can’t cover the forward pass well enough to be a good football team, and so that’s my fault,” Elko proclaimed. “We’ve got to be able to stop the run and pressure the quarterback. We didn’t do that.”

“I won’t watch the defense play like this ever again.”

Ja’Kobi Lane exposed Texas A&M’s defensive flaws in a big way. The USC sophomore wide receiver tallied seven receptions for 127 yards and three touchdowns.

A season that once started with so much hope concludes with a three-game losing streak.

Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Shaun on Twitter: @Shaun_Holkko.

Here are the best photos from Texas A&M’s 35-31 loss to USC in the Las Vegas Bowl

Here are some of the best photos from Texas A&M’s 35-31 loss to USC

Friday night was an exhilarating experience for Texas A&M and USC fans at the Las Vegas Bowl held in Allegiant Stadium. Despite being slight underdogs, the Trojans managed to secure a 35-31 victory over an Aggie team that had faced difficulties in the last month of the regular season.

The game’s most frustrating moment was the final drive, during which the A&M defense, after pressuring the USC offense throughout the first half, couldn’t manage to stop them. Additionally, several critical penalties across all three phases allowed USC too many opportunities to escape trouble.

A forgettable game evolved into an exciting yet chaotic back-and-forth contest between two teams seeking momentum as they head into the 2025 season.

Here are the best photos from Texas A&M’s 35-31 loss to USC.

 

 

Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Jarrett Johnson on X: @whosnextsports1.

Ja’Kobi Lane steps up, becomes the elite receiver USC needs

Ja’Kobi Lane stepped up with Duce Robinson no longer on the team. Lane and Makai Lemon should give USC two elite receivers in 2025.

During the 2024 season, USC’s wide receiver room was largely a mixed bag. The Trojans had a bunch of good players at the position, but no one player truly stepped up as a go-to option. During the Las Vegas Bowl Friday night, however, that finally changed. With three of USC’s top five wide receivers in the transfer portal, that left more targets for the guys who stayed. One player in particular took advantage of those extra reps for USC football: sophomore Ja’Kobi Lane.

Against Texas A&M, Lane caught seven passes for 127 yards and three touchdowns. For his performance, he was named the game’s MVP.

It was the type of performance that the Trojans had been looking for all year. After losing top 2023 wideouts Tahj Washington and and Brenden Rice to the NFL, USC turned its wide receiver room over to a relatively young core. While each of those players showed flashes at moments in 2024, none of them truly took over a game.

That was, until Friday night.

Now, USC heads into 2025 with a clear and strong 1-2 punch at wide receiver in Lane and Makai Lemon. While there are still questions regarding who will be throwing them the ball, the Trojans should not lack for weapons next season.

USC ended its 2024 season the same way it started

The bookends of USC’s 2024 football season were wins over SEC opponents in Vegas. Everything in between went wrong, but 2-0 vs the SEC is a fun fact.

Way back on September 1, USC football scored a last-second touchdown to complete a come-from-behind victory over an SEC opponent in Las Vegas. On Friday night, USC scored a last-second touchdown to complete a come-from-behind victory over an SEC opponent in Las Vegas.

In a rather ironic twist, the Trojans concluded the 2024 season in the same place that they opened it, against an opponent from the same conference. Both times, they scored the game-winning touchdown with exactly 8 seconds left on the clock to prevail in thrilling fashion.

What happened in the 11 games in between the Trojans defeating LSU in the season opener and taking down Texas A&M in the Las Vegas Bowl Friday night was a complete different story. USC finished the 2024 season a disappointing 7-6, including a 4-5 mark in Big Ten play. They consistently struggled to close out games, having led in the fourth quarter of five of their six losses.

But under the bright lights of Vegas, the Trojans were at their best. USC bookended its 2024 season with a result stunningly similar to the seaon opener.

USC may have had a losing record against Big Ten opponents in 2024, but the Trojans did go 2-0 against the SEC. In a season full of frustrations, that is at least something to hang your hat on.