USC Utah – Syndication Server

It’s official: USC vs Utah in 2022 Pac-12 Championship Game

#Utah joins #USC in Las Vegas for the first #Pac12 title game in a division-free setup. Two teams from the old Pac-12 South will meet in a rematch.

There are three College Wire sites representing Pac-12 schools: Trojans Wire, Ducks Wire, and Colorado Buffaloes Wire. One of the three schools had a bad year in football. Another will be in the Pac-12 Championship Game.

The third school should have been in the Pac-12 title game, but it coughed up a 31-10 lead with four minutes left in the third quarter.

Oregon’s remarkable implosion opened the door for the Utah Utes — losers to Oregon just one week ago — to find a way to Las Vegas for the 2022 Pac-12 Championship Game.

It’s a remarkable turn of events — not that Oregon State won, but HOW the Beavers won. It opened the door for Utah to face USC in a rematch of an epic 43-42 game from Oct. 15 in Salt Lake City.

Much more on this matchup during the coming week, but let’s start with a few initial notes about Trojans-Utes, Part II:

Trojans Wire goes on YouTube show to talk Pac-12 officiating controversy and UCLA-Oregon showdown

Our #USC show at the @VoiceOfCFB featured a chat with @ZacharyCNeel of @Ducks_Wire and @TonyBruin of @LastWordOnCFB before the Oregon-UCLA clash.

There is certainly a lot to talk about in USC football and Pac-12 football during a week in which the Trojans will not play. While USC takes a breather and tries to get its top players healthy for the stretch run, there is no shortage of interesting material to kick around in the Pac-12.

USC-Utah was a thrilling and controversial game with a lot of intense emotions during and after the contest. People are still talking about that game and all the big plot twists which unfolded in Salt Lake City.

Now, though, the scene shifts to Eugene for the big Oregon-UCLA game. It’s a clash of two top-10 teams. It’s a battle between Chip Kelly’s current employer, the UCLA Bruins, and his former employer, the University of Oregon.

Trojans Wire went on Mark Rogers’ show at The Voice of College Football to discuss USC-Utah. We asked two guests — Tony Siracusa of The Last Word on College Football, and Ducks Wire editor Zachary Neel — about the big battle between UCLA and Oregon. It’s a loaded show:

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Pac-12 refs made themselves the center of another firestorm in USC’s loss to Utah

The debate surrounding two atrocious roughing-the-passer calls on #USC is a separate issue. Everyone agrees on this: #Pac12 refs were horrible in Trojans-Utah.

We have discussed the two brutal roughing-the-passer calls which went against USC on Saturday night against Utah. We’re not going to relitigate them here. However, there is a larger point to make about the Pac-12 officiating crew in Salt Lake City, and about Pac-12 refs in general:

They were really bad in Week 7. Really bad … and not just from a USC perspective.

Journalists who were on site at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City were laughing in the press box at how bad the officiating crew was. Time-clock problems, administrative problems, and other matters beyond getting calls right (which the crew obviously struggled to do) were all part of a giant mess.

Here’s how journalists and analysts reacted to the unfolding trainwreck in Salt Lake City:

October 15 is the greatest college football day — not in 2022, not in 2005, but of all time

Over the past several decades of college football, no date has provided better, more memorable games than October 15. Right, @IrishWireND?

What is it about October 15 which brings out the very best in college football?

We commemorated the 17th anniversary of USC’s 2005 win over Notre Dame this weekend. We noted that in 2022, October 15 fell on a Saturday, just as it did in 2005. We gathered some notes on October 15, 2005, trying to express how great a day it was beyond the USC-Notre Dame classic itself.

Fighting Irish Wire spent some time documenting how great October 15, 2022 proved to be. USC-Utah was part of a remarkable day in the sport, but Tennessee’s 52-49 win over Alabama took center stage.

If you think 2005 and 2022 are the only memorable October 15s in college football history, however, you would be wrong. There’s even more to the story of how October 15 is, for inexplicable reasons, the best date on the college football calendar … ever.

Pac-12 football rankings after Week 7: Utah stays alive, USC still has everything to play for

2021 Cam Rising emerged against USC after underperforming in Utah’s previous 6 games. A 4-team Pac-12 title chase is still alive after Week 7.

So that was quite a weekend of football. USC and Utah played a Pac-12 thriller which followed the Alabama-Tennessee epic. The Trojans finally played the shootout we expected to see more often in 2022. They came up just short for numerous reasons, one being that Utah’s Cam Rising bounced back from an underwhelming first half of the 2022 season to play at the level he attained for much of 2021.

This was the Cam Rising we saw last year. This was the second-half Utah offense we saw last year. Utah put 44 points on the board at home against UCLA in 2021, and was similarly potent in other second halves throughout the 2021 season. Rising rose up when his team needed him most.

Say what you want about the Pac-12 refs — we have said plenty about that — but Rising really delivered the goods.

Let’s rank the Pac-12 teams after a crazy Week 7:

Scenes from an unforgettable (and painful) USC loss to Utah

USC fans endured a painful defeat, but it sure was an entertaining night of football with numerous richly dramatic moments. Here’s what they looked like:

Saturday in college football was thrilling, exciting, emotional, and special. If you watched any of the Alabama-Tennessee game, you saw the craziness, athleticism, action, and upheaval which make college football such an attractive, compelling, infuriating sport.

USC and Utah fans climbed aboard for their own roller-coaster ride in prime time.

Caleb Williams, Travis Dye, and the rest of the USC offense were terrific, but Cam Rising and Dalton Kincaid had the final say. Rising’s 2-point conversion won the game for Utah in the final minute. USC and Lincoln Riley walked away with a gut-punch loss.

The action was incredible, though. Here are the images captured by USA TODAY Sports photographer Rob Gray in Salt Lake City:

Caleb Williams, USC offense thrive vs Utah, filling highlight reel in painful 43-42 loss

42 points wasn’t enough. It’s really hard to say that anyone on the #USC offense failed to do his job. Clutch drives and splash plays marked a great performance.

Let’s be honest: If you had been told that USC’s offense would score 42 points against Utah, and that the Trojans would break two separate ties in the second half in Salt Lake City with a roaring crowd begging them to fail, you would have felt really good about the Men of Troy’s chances against the Utes.

USC wasn’t perfect, but it was very, very good.

Caleb Williams was superb. So was Travis Dye. So was Mario Williams. So was Jordan Addison.

The offensive line allowed a few sacks and had a few creaky moments, but on balance, it protected Caleb Williams and allowed him to do what he is able to do. Sure, Caleb escaped pressure a few times, but the O-line facilitated the offense and held up well against Utah’s front seven.

Here’s how the night went for the USC offense:

USC defense exposed by Utah’s dynamic duo of Cam Rising and Dalton Kincaid

The plain truth about this game is that Utah’s best offensive players played great. USC played the shootout we expected to see more often this year. The Utes were clutch.

In the first quarter of Saturday’s memorable game in Salt Lake City, Cam Rising didn’t look very good. He threw an interception which was wiped away by a roughing-the-passer penalty. Later, he badly air-mailed a wide-open receiver on 3rd and 4. It was not the start Rising or Utah needed.

Apparently, what Rising needed was to fall behind by 14 points and develop a level of urgency which had been missing in previous games this season. Utah had to win this game to stay in the Pac-12 race. After falling behind 14-0, Rising and his teammates knew there was zero margin for error.

Scoring 43 points and winning on a 2-point try in the final minute? Rising and teammate Dalton Kincaid certainly answered the bell.

Here’s how the night unfolded for the USC defense:

Social media reaction to USC’s gut-wrenching loss at Utah

That was a gut punch. It was also a wild thrill ride and a soap-operatic theater of pure craziness and mayhem. Twitter had a field day. #USC #Utah

So that was a kick in the groin. USC led for most of Saturday night’s game against Utah. The Trojans didn’t trail until the final minute … but that’s the only minute which ultimately mattered.

We’re obviously going to talk a lot about everything which happened in this game over the next 48 hours. The officiating was horrible, key USC players got hurt, the defense’s limitations were exposed, Caleb Williams was the truth, Travis Dye did his usual thing, Mario Williams and Jordan Addison made brilliant plays, and oh, did we tell you the officiating was bad?

Here’s how Twitter reacted to some of the big events during a crazy college football game:

Peyton Manning is guest picker on ESPN College GameDay, weighs in on USC-Utah showdown

ESPN selected Peyton Manning as its guest picker for the College GameDay show. @VolsWire collected Peyton’s picks on #USC – Utah and other big games.

So this is interesting: ESPN College GameDay aired live from the University of Tennessee’s campus ahead of the Volunteers’ huge game against the Alabama Crimson Tide. Former Tennessee Vol Peyton Manning served as a guest picker before the Tennessee-Alabama top-eight showdown.

It was a natural decision to have Peyton Manning join in on the fun before the Saturday afternoon kickoff.

Peyton also picked the USC-Utah battle and a slew of other big games on what is a packed slate in Week 7. There’s Oklahoma State-TCU, Clemson-Florida State, Penn State-Michigan, and a lot of other quality matchups in addition to Bama-Vols and USC-Utah.

Our friends at Vols Wire collected all of Peyton Manning’s picks on ESPN College GameDay. Here they are: