Early in the third quarter at Rutgers, Dylan Lonergan threw toward the end zone near the goal line and Prophet Brown cut in front of it, catching the ball and running 99 yards the other way for a touchdown. That play, plus a first-quarter Christian Pierce interception that set up King Miller's 11-yard scoring run, accounted for 14 of USC's points in a 42-35 win. Take those two throws away and the rest of the afternoon reads like a coin flip. USC gained 461 yards, Rutgers gained 460.
That is the Trojans' Big Ten opener in one line. USC never trailed, led 35-21 midway through the third quarter, and still won by seven as a reported 22.5-point favorite against a team that is 0-3 for the first time since 2008. Lincoln Riley did not dress it up afterward. "We gave up too many big plays defensively. Not pleased at all," he said, adding that USC "obviously had to play with a lot of different guys in the secondary" and that "I thought we were untimely as a defense."
The defense is the whole week
Gary Patterson was hired out of TCU in January to take a unit that had already climbed back to respectability and make it a championship defense. Four games in, that project is the season's loudest open question. At Rutgers his defense allowed five touchdowns. Desman Stephens II and Kameryn Crawford shared a sack of Lonergan, for a single yard.
The play Riley singled out was not even a defensive snap in the usual sense. Rutgers ran a fake punt in the second quarter, and Riley said it "really changed the momentum" and "kind of breathes life into them," conceding USC was "certainly out of position." A winless team stole a possession from the Trojans and then moved the ball at will with it.
Oregon is the opponent built to press exactly that. The Ducks beat USC 42-27 in Eugene last November, with Dante Moore throwing for 257 yards and two scores, Kenyon Sadiq catching two touchdowns and Noah Whittington running for 104 yards while Oregon's defense held USC to 52 rushing yards. That loss likely dashed USC's hopes of making the College Football Playoff that season.
So the thing to actually watch Saturday is a count, not a scoreboard. How many Oregon drives end without points is the question. Three-and-outs, a red-zone stop, a fourth down where USC is in position instead of out of it. This is also a matchup of two first-year coordinators, with Drew Mehringer having succeeded Will Stein at Oregon and Patterson having been hired away from TCU.
Why USC may not be able to just outscore them
The offense is the reason USC is 4-0, and it held up at Rutgers. Jayden Maiava went 20-of-32 for 277 yards and two touchdowns, Miller ran for 102 yards on 16 carries, and Riley Wormley added 52 rushing yards, a rushing score and a 2-yard touchdown catch. Rutgers' defense forced no turnovers and managed one sack, Zaire Angoy's for two yards. The caveat sits right next to it. That Rutgers defense had already allowed 37 points to UMass and 28 to Boston College before giving up 42 to USC. That also means Saturday is the first real test of USC's new center, Tobias Raymond, who has not yet blocked a front like Oregon's.
Trent Mosley sat out with the right knee injury he suffered against Louisiana. Riley said before the game not to expect it to be "extremely long term" but that it was "still a little inconclusive," and CBS Sports reported he is expected to miss multiple games. Without him, Maiava spread the ball across nine receivers, with freshman Kayden Dixon-Wyatt catching five for 77 yards and sophomore Corey Simms four for 72 including a 52-yard touchdown, the first of his career.
Nine receivers is a functional plan, not an explosive one. Compare it to the Fresno State game, when Maiava went 23-of-25 for 349 yards and three touchdowns and the offense had a genuine downfield element, Mosley's 68-yard score, Dixon-Wyatt's 31-yard fourth-down catch. That version of the passing game could win a track meet. The Rutgers version, spread thin and slow to start with a 3-for-8, 31-yard opening drive, probably cannot beat Oregon 45-42.
The game
Oregon at USC, Saturday, 4:30 p.m. Pacific on NBC. The simulation gives USC a 58% chance at home, which is about what it should be between two ranked teams that both scored at will last November.
The stakes are blunt. Win, and USC's playoff odds sit near 35%, with roughly a 12% shot at the Big Ten title game. Lose, and those fall to about 17% and 2%. Those are two alternative futures branching from one Saturday, not a number that moves twice.
Elsewhere
Wisconsin at Penn State: root for Wisconsin
Penn State is 13th and hosting, and Wisconsin's chance of winning is about 8%. It is a long shot worth checking in on anyway, because it is the only outside game this week with a direct effect on USC's conference standing. A Penn State loss thins out the field USC has to climb over in the Big Ten, and it comes two weeks before USC plays at Penn State. A Wisconsin upset puts USC's title-game odds near 9.7%, against about 7.3% if Penn State wins, a swing of roughly 2.4 percentage points. Kickoff is 5 p.m. ET on Peacock.
Central Michigan at Miami: root for Miami
Nothing in USC's conference math touches this one. Miami is sixth and should win about 98% of the time; the interest is purely national. Every additional strong résumé competing for playoff spots is a problem, but a Miami win here keeps the picture tidier for USC than a chaos result would. USC's playoff odds land near 27.4% if Miami wins and about 23.5% if Central Michigan pulls it off, worth roughly 3.9 percentage points. Kickoff is 6:30 p.m. ET on The CW Network.
Full numbers are in the interactive guide, and the simulation details are explained in the methodology.