This wasn’t worse than Alex Grinch, but it still wasn’t nearly good enough. USC gave up only 36 points to Oregon late Saturday night, which is certainly better than the 52 points it allowed to Washington. The USC defensive line wasn’t gashed in the running game. The Trojans were actually okay in that department against Bucky Irving and the rest of the Ducks’ rushing attack in Autzen Stadium. However, the overall defensive result still wasn’t very good.
Oregon quarterback Bo Nix threw for over 400 yards. Oregon did move the ball up and down the field against the Trojans. The Ducks would have scored more than 36 points if they had made a field goal, and if they had not committed stacks of penalties. Oregon committed over 110 yards worth of penalties, some of them cutting short promising drives deep in USC territory.
The USC secondary gave up huge plays in this game and allowed a lot of third-down conversions.
This wasn’t worse than Grinch, but it wasn’t dramatically better. It certainly wasn’t good enough to win.
USC fans and outside observers were not impressed. It was another night to forget for the Trojans in a failed season, as you can see for yourself in the social media reactions below: