USC’s loss to Michigan looks worse today, at the end of October, than it did at the time on Sept. 21. Michigan, by scoring just seven points at Illinois, exposed itself as a very limited team. However, while the loss to Michigan looks worse, the loss to Maryland on Oct. 19 now looks really bad. The only game which could give USC a loss even more damaging than the Maryland defeat is a potential loss to UCLA. That would be rock-bottom, but for now, the Maryland loss has the clubhouse lead as USC’s worst setback of 2024.
This is not a complicated conversation, folks. Maryland allowed 37 points to a not-very-good Northwestern team at home. It allowed 48 points at Minnesota. People will narrowly focus on USC’s defense allowing a touchdown late in the Maryland game to give the Trojans a 29-28 defeat, suggesting if not saying outright that the defense was primarily at fault for that loss. However, Miller Moss threw a pick-six, meaning that the USC defense allowed only 22 net points against Maryland. The USC offense scored only 28 points and then gave up seven for a net of plus-21 points.
USC scored an adjusted net of 21 points at Maryland (28 scored, 7 allowed by the offense). That’s well below Northwestern’s total, and it is even more distant from Minnesota’s total.
If Northwestern and Minnesota can score north of 35 against Maryland and USC can’t even reach 30, that is a very, very bad look for the Trojans.
The offense, much more than the defense, fell short against Maryland, in what is currently the worst loss of the year for USC.
Let’s hope the Men of Troy can take care of UCLA, so that USC doesn’t absorb an even worse loss on the gridiron before 2024 ends.
Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.