USC football makes a statement in routing Rutgers – Daily News

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LOS ANGELES — Lengthy after the shockwaves settled within the Coliseum from Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam 6 miles up the freeway in Chavez Ravine, lengthy after a primary half with zero mercy spared to Rutgers, USC discovered itself again dangling in the identical place it all the time had.

The group on the Coliseum, pocketed because it was with the truth of a jam-packed night time in Los Angeles sports activities, was used to this script. Maybe that’s why it by no means fairly felt joyous, in that first half, whilst USC took a two-score lead. The cardinal-and-gold loyalists have been used to being sucked in, and spat proper again out in incomprehensible endings – at Michigan, in Minnesota, towards Penn State, at Maryland.

It performed out, once more Friday night time, as Rutgers quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis launched a 45-yard bomb after which hit on a 25-yard landing move to shave what had been an 18-point USC result in eight with 8:11 left within the third quarter. Momentum crashed, once more. Basis crumbled, once more.

After which within the span of 1 play, the Trojans (4-4 general, 2-4 Large Ten) and Coach Lincoln Riley turned proper again round and set their season straight, bludgeoning Rutgers and emphatically closing out a 42-20 win.

“Yeah, we actually wanted that unhealthy,” working again Woody Marks stated afterward, “simply to come back out and play dominant all 4 quarters.”

These Trojans had returned dwelling wounded, each bodily and in ego, after a handful of debilitating cross-country journeys. Riley, accepting blame with nowhere else to place it, wanted a shining second as a play-caller. Quarterback Miller Moss, calling Monday for critics to “hold that very same vitality,” wanted a mistake-free night time. And this system, most of all, wanted to complete a soccer sport, bungling away 4 shut video games.

“We’ve had some alternatives to separate in some video games, and we haven’t,” Riley stated Monday.

They discovered these alternatives, usually Friday, within the positive fingers of sophomore receiver Makai Lemon.

For weeks, since getting back from an damage suffered on a particular groups play towards Michigan, Lemon had been slowly creeping his method up in USC’s gamut of wideouts. The sophomore caught six passes towards Penn State. Then eight towards Maryland. In opposition to Rutgers, he was tabbed – with fellow sophomore Zachariah Department seeming embroiled in his personal head on returns – with kickoff duties, and promptly responded within the first quarter with an explosive 80-yard return that arrange a Marks landing.

And Lemon stamped his breakout on Friday, careening over the center on the identical crossing sample that had baffled Rutgers (4-4, 1-4) all night time.

Precisely zero seconds of game-clock after Kaliakmanis’ landing toss received Rutgers inside 28-20, Lemon caught a drag from Moss, shed a tackler, and zipped. Vanished away, into skinny air on thick turf, skidding 70 yards earlier than he was lastly knocked out of bounds. Moss tied a bow on the drive, strolling into the tip zone on a 7-yard keeper a couple of performs later.

With momentum swung, Lemon put the sport out of attain on a subsequent drive, snaring one other move over the center from Moss and turning it right into a 40-yard landing.

“There actually hasn’t been panic with this group in any of those video games, and there wasn’t tonight,” Riley stated. “And I assumed it was simply – we had an ideal mindset, and we did an ideal job closing it out.”

The Trojans bludgeoned Rutgers from the primary kick Friday night time, turning swaths of open turf into one other victory for the West Coast on a momentous sports activities night time for Los Angeles. Regular-as-ever Marks offered the primary punch, scoring three first-half touchdowns. Moss threw a relentless flurry of jabs from kickoff to buzzer, ending 20-of-28 for 308 yards. Lemon was the knockout, ending with 256 all-purpose yards (134 receiving on 4 catches with the TD) in a real breakout.

The toughest these Trojans needed to pressure on Friday night time, in the end, got here by the hands of defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn, put in an unenviable place with a rash of accidents that depleted his unit, particularly within the secondary. Security Kamari Ramsey, cornerbacks Jaylin Smith and Jacobe Covington, and nickel again Grasping Vance Jr. all have been scratched Friday, leaving USC down 4 erstwhile starters – and shortly 5, as defensive deal with Nate Clifton exited within the first quarter on an already-thin defensive position.

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