Tag: USC UCLA Football

UCLA offensive line is not healthy heading into USC rivalry game

The UCLA offensive line and USC defensive line are both banged up heading into the Battle of Los Angeles. The Trojans should be able to contain UCLA’s offense.

The UCLA football team will likely need to lean on its defense in the Battle of Los Angeles on Saturday. USC football has a banged-up defense, but the UCLA Bruins have a banged-up offensive line. UCLA Wire’s preview of the big one in Pasadena includes this note about the Bruins’ wounded offensive front: 

Speaking of injuries, the Bruins lost senior tackle Jaylan Jeffers this week for the remainder of the season. UCLA’s offensive line has been shaky at times, presenting a potential problem for the Bruins as they take on a struggling USC pass-rush eager to get after the quarterback.

It figures to be difficult for UCLA to score, which means the Bruins will likely need to force turnovers from Jayden Maiava if they want to have a good chance to win. Flowing from that, if Maiava can play a clean game and not make a significant mistake, USC’s odds of winning will soar on Saturday night. The game starts just after 7:30 p.m. in Pasadena on NBC.

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USC and Lincoln Riley are humiliated by UCLA — will it create necessary changes?

Getting crushed by UCLA is bad. What would be worse is if Lincoln Riley doesn’t change methods and learn key lessons.

What a magnificent disaster it was for the USC Trojans in their regular-season finale against the UCLA Bruins. In what will likely be Caleb Williams’ last game as a Trojan and a college football player, USC showed no heart, no fight, no backbone and no toughness in a tissue-soft blowout loss to UCLA.

The Trojans bent the knee. They meekly submitted to UCLA’s physicality, aggression and toughness.

Time after time in this game, a UCLA player — it didn’t matter who — won a one-on-one matchup. Whether it was a lineman against another lineman, or a defensive back against a USC receiver, or a USC linebacker against a UCLA ball carrier, or a USC defensive back against a UCLA pass catcher, the Bruin won the battle. The Trojan lost the battle.

A full game of these accumulated one-on-one losses led to a decisive UCLA conquest of USC, sending the Trojans to a 7-5 record and an offseason filled with questions.

There is no shortage of talking points after a loss such as this one. Let’s deal with some of the fallout and some of the tough conversations Lincoln Riley needs to have. We will obviously have a lot more to say about this in the coming days … and weeks … and months, until the 2024 season opener.

Let’s examine this mess instead of ignoring it:

Strong chance USC-UCLA could be a late-night game, which would be awful

#USC – #UCLA was put on a 6-day hold by the TV networks. The outcome is bad for the #Pac12 and could get much worse for us and @Ducks_Wire

It is not a surprise — or a problem — that the upcoming USC-UCLA football game was placed on a six-day hold, meaning that the scheduled kickoff time and the assigned television network will not be disclosed until Sunday, Nov. 13 (or at least no later than the 13th). It was and is unlikely that a start time would be disclosed before Nov. 12, when another Saturday of games unfolds.

The problem is that the Pac-12, which is trying to return to the College Football Playoff for the first time since the 2016 season, will have reduced exposure in the pursuit of that playoff bid.

We have full reaction to the announcement of the six-day hold for the USC-UCLA and Utah-Oregon games, with an explanation of why this is such an embarrassment for the Pac-12: