The 2023 Holiday Bowl between USC and Louisville is a matchup of teams which had so much to offer but couldn’t quite put all the pieces together. To be sure, USC’s 7-5 season is a million times more disappointing than Louisville’s very good 10-3 season. Yet, both teams will look back on this year as a season of missed opportunities.
USC crumbled and wasted Caleb Williams’ talents. Louisville could have made a New Year’s Six bowl and won the ACC championship. It is a story of what might have been for both teams.
Let’s look at the USC side in this article.
USC’s offense wasn’t great in 2023, but it was good. The Trojans still did score 42 points against Washington, 32 against Utah, and 27 against Oregon. With a significantly better defense, USC probably wins two of those three games. While USC’s offense didn’t play well against UCLA, the Trojans — if they had a strong defense — might have been able to smother the Bruins’ usually anemic offense. With Alex Grinch’s defense — coached by interim coordinators — USC couldn’t stop UCLA.
Imagine a world in which USC had Louisville’s defense, not Alex Grinch’s defense, in 2023. This 2023 Louisville defense shut out opponents in the first quarter in 11 of 13 games. If USC’s defense had shut out UCLA’s offense in the first quarter on November 18, the Trojans very likely would have won that game against the Bruins.
Louisville’s defense was similarly strong in fourth quarters this year as well as first quarters. The Cardinals allowed more than seven fourth-quarter points in only one game this season, to Kentucky. If USC had that kind of a defense in 2023, the Trojans would have a 10-2 record, not a 7-5 record. They wouldn’t have beaten Notre Dame, given how bad the USC offense was. They probably wouldn’t have beaten Oregon, given that they trailed 29-7 before scoring a few cosmetic touchdowns.
They probably would have won all their other games.
It’s a story of what might have been for USC.
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