Tag: USC Arizona State

Fans have pitchforks out for Alex Grinch after bumpy ride vs Sun Devils

A Devil has a pitchfork, but USC fans also had pitchforks out for Alex Grinch on a night when his defense had a lot of tough moments.

The USC defense came up with several fourth-quarter sacks and multiple second-half turnovers which prevented Arizona State from winning Saturday night’s game.

When the score was 27-21 USC, the Trojans led ASU by just one score. The Sun Devils had the ball with a chance to take the lead. The USC defense needed to stand tall. It did. Consecutive stops, some of them concluding with takeaways, enabled USC to gain a 35-21 lead. The Trojans allowed a touchdown to let their lead dwindle to 35-28, but they restored a two-score advantage shortly thereafter and won 42-28. USC’s defense made timely plays in the fourth quarter. That’s good.

What about the first three quarters, however? Those 45 minutes (minutes the last few minutes of the third quarter) were bad. Alex Grinch rightly and reasonably caught a lot of criticism.

Let’s see what that criticism looked like:

USC – Arizona State photo gallery: Trojans didn’t thrive, but they survived

USC’s first road game of the season was a bumpy ride. What did it look like? Check out our USA TODAY photo gallery:

The USC Trojans were fortunate that their trip to suburban Phoenix was not suffocatingly hot. Conditions were cloudy in Phoenix and surrounding areas on Saturday, with occasional sunbreaks but moderate temperatures. It was so mild in Tempe on Saturday night that Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham wore a sweatshirt. This was not an overpoweringly hot day in the desert. By playing at night and not in the middle of the day, USC avoided extreme heat. It would have been easy to think the Trojans would be comfortable for this game and would play smoothly, without hiccups.

That did not happen. USC had a lot of rough edges in its 42-28 win over Arizona State. However, the action shots from the USA TODAY photo library (including contributions from the Arizona Republic) were certainly impressive to look at.

Let’s check out some of these vivid images from Saturday night in the desert:

Arizona State game shows USC can’t coast on its immense talent

USC has elite players who can convert 3rd and 20 and overcome mistakes, but better teams won’t allow USC to get away with this.

One of the themes of USC’s 42-28 win over Arizona State was that with Caleb Williams, the Trojans’ mistakes don’t matter.

Commit a few penalties on the opening drive, face 3rd and 20. It doesn’t matter. Caleb Williams will hit Zachariah Branch with a 23-yard pass and keep the chains moving.

Commit a holding or illegal block penalty to slow down a drive? It doesn’t matter. Caleb Williams will throw a long touchdown pass to Brenden Rice on 4th and 7.

Dropped Mario Williams passes? They don’t matter. Caleb will scramble and hit a receiver for a huge play.

False starts and blown assignments by the offensive line? They don’t matter. Caleb can rescue the offense, and maybe MarShawn Lloyd can, too.

There is so much skill and talent on this offense that it can overcome a lot of mistakes and bad down-and-distance situations. It’s true. This team can overcome a lot of mistakes.

However: That doesn’t mean players should acquire the mindset which says mistakes don’t matter.

Against Arizona State, they didn’t matter enough to lose a game, but if these same mistakes recur against Utah or Notre Dame, chances are the Trojans will lose.

Yes, there were some great plays and great moments from this game, but underneath the highlights lies the reality that USC won’t always overcome its mistakes.

The Trojans have to commit fewer blunders. That’s the right mindset to have. That’s the mindset of a championship team.

Let’s look at some of USC’s game highlights below:

USC defense hits familiar problems, makes some big plays, and leaves behind many questions

Yes, USC’s defense forced a few key turnovers, but most of the night was marked by bad tackling and positioning. This was rough.

It was a weird night for the USC defense in the Trojans’ 42-28 win over Arizona State. Alex Grinch’s group performed poorly over the course of 60 minutes, and that central reality shouldn’t be ignored. However, for several minutes late in the third quarter and early in the fourth quarter, when the USC offense stalled and couldn’t push the Trojans’ lead to a two-score margin, the defense created multiple takeaways. The second of those takeaways, a fumble on a sack, set up a touchdown which enabled USC to gain a 35-21 lead and some much-needed breathing room.

When ASU was down 27-21 and had the ball with a chance to take the lead on multiple possessions, USC’s defense got a stop. The defense did make a significant contribution to the win.

That has to be noted.

Yet, as a full 60-minute body of work, this was clearly subpar, and that should be the main point of emphasis from Saturday night.

Let’s go into the plays — many of them bad — and the reactions to them from an ugly night for USC in the desert:

Sloppy, unfocused, unprepared, inconsistent: USC looks bad in win over ASU

Is a win better than a loss? Sure. No one, however, should be happy about this performance. It should be very concerning.

USC won a ballgame on Saturday. That was good. Just about everything else about this performance by the Trojans was bad.

Is that an undue overemphasis on the negative in the wake of a victory which pushed this team’s record to 4-0? Is that an unfair placement of primacy and centrality on what this team did wrong, instead of celebrating what this team did right?

It’s a legitimate debate, but we think it’s important to put the mistakes front and center in our immediate reaction to this Arizona State win. The fact that USC won the game should be secondary to the pervasiveness of mistakes and flaws in this contest.

This is not a playoff team. This is not a national championship contender. We can talk all we want about a “lookahead game” before Colorado next week, and how this was the first road game of the season, and how Arizona State did put forth a great effort — all of that is true — but USC is supposed to take care of its own business and be consistent.

The Trojans did not handle their business cleanly and reliably. They did enough to win … in a game in which they were favored by 35 points versus an opponent missing over 10 starters and four starting offensive linemen.

Arizona State had the ball early in the fourth quarter with a chance to take the lead. The game was that tenuous until the Trojans created a two-score lead (and lost it, and got it back).

Let’s go through the moments and reactions which were part of a very ugly night in Tempe, a night which raises lots of uncomfortable questions about this team:

Arizona State enters USC game under the worst possible set of circumstances

It truly could not be any worse for ASU as the Sun Devils prepare to face a rested USC team in Week 4. Let’s lay out the details.

Human beings, including people who write about sports, can slide into exaggeration very easily. A specific event or occurrence can easily become “the worst” or “the best” or “the most important” thing in a heartbeat, when of course that’s not even close to being true. However, when we say Arizona State is in the worst possible shape heading into its game against USC on September 23, that’s no exaggeration. Not at all. The Sun Devils truly could not be in a worse set of circumstances than what they’re facing right now.

Unconvinced? We will make sure to spell it all out for you:

USC has to play late-night game at Arizona State on Sept. 23 — which is great news

#USC and #Pac12 fans normally hate late-night games, but playing late is great news for the Trojans here. We’ll explain.

The Pac-12’s television selections have been announced for Week 4 of the season on September 23. USC plays at Arizona State, the Trojans’ first road game of their 2023 season.

We know that USC fans and Pac-12 fans hate the late-night kickoffs at 7:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, Seattle, Corvallis, Berkeley, and all other Pacific time zone locations. The Trojans will have to wait until 7:30 p.m. in Tempe, Arizona, for the Week 4 battle against the Arizona State Sun Devils. USC was placed in the late-night slot on Fox Sports.

USC fans might groan and grumble about the late-game placement for September 23, but we are here to tell you this is a good thing for the Trojans.

A night game being good? On the road? In this economy? This is actually one instance in which a night-game kickoff for USC is beneficial to the Trojans. The explanation is not complicated at all.

Let’s go through the details and give you other Pac-12 football information for Week 4 on September 23:

USC vs Arizona State Prediction, Game Preview

USC Trojans vs Arizona State Sun Devils prediction and game preview.

USC vs Arizona State prediction and game preview.

USC vs Arizona State Broadcast

Date: Saturday, November 7
Game Time: 12:00
Venue: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA
Network: FOX

[jwplayer YwP6Usyx]

– All of the CFN Fearless Predictions

USC (0-0) vs Arizona State (0-0) Game Preview

For latest lines and to bet on college football, go to BetMGM

Why Arizona State Will Win

The Sun Devils will have the passing game.

It stinks to lose Brandon Aiyuk to the 49ers, and the running game will likely rely on untested freshmen, but Jayden Daniels is the type of passer who can bomb away and keep pressing in what should be an offensive shootout.

Daniels didn’t play against USC last year. Now he gets his shot.

Can the secondary hold on after getting hit for 477 yards in last year’s loss? It was great late in the season with a slew of interceptions, the line is good enough to hold on against whatever the USC running game will be, and the takeaways should be there. But …

Why USC Will Win

The offense really is going to be unstoppable.

Kedon Slovis is the cemented star now with JT Daniels at Georgia, the receiving corps is loaded, and the running game that was underutilized is good enough to balance things out if needed.

It’s the defensive side, though, that should be the difference this year.

The O is going to be the O – it’s going to work. The D that allowed the most points in the history of USC football – but actually wasn’t that bad – gets back almost everyone with 12 of the top 13 tacklers returning. All this group has to be is not be miserable while Slovis and company do their thing.

What’s Going To Happen

Is USC really just that good? It’s got the experience, it has the offensive scheme, and it has the hype. This is the year the program has been building for over the last few seasons, but it’s still going to be a battle against an Arizona State team that should be able to ing around for a full four quarters.

The USC offense will come up with a late first half burst, Arizona State will push back in the second half, and just when this gets close, Slovis will come up with a good scoring drive to stay ahead.

Both teams will look strong, but USC will show what it’s just that dangerous.

USC vs Arizona State Prediction, Line

USC 37, Arizona State 30
Bet on USC vs Arizona State with BetMGM
USC -11, o/u: 58
ATS Confidence out of 5: 2

Must See Rating: 4

5: ANYTHING to take your mind off of …
1: EVERYTHING in the real world

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