Still undefeated, Trojans escape Cougars

(News4usonline) – This was not an easy game for USC to play. Washington State came into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to make this Pac-12 Conference football game a drag-out dogfight. The Cougars were hard-pressed to give an inch to the Trojans, but in the end, USC managed to prevail with a stout defensive effort in the second half to come away with a 30-14 win.

“Really, really tough, hard-fought win,” USC head coach Riley said. “We had to win this one, again in a different way. We talked to the guys all week about how circumstances don’t make or break you whether they are positive or negative. They just reveal your training; they reveal what’s inside of a team, what’s inside of the person.”

“It was fitting because the way the game played out, some key guys for us were not able to play. Then, losing (Calen) Bullock on the tough play on targeting, a lot of guys had to step up in different ways. We had some guys banged up across the board, but we continually found a way,” Riley added. 

After allowing Washington State to score 14 points in the second quarter, the Trojans secured their sixth win of the season by keeping the Cougars off the scoreboard in the second half.

“We were just not playing smart football on our end,” Washington State quarterback Cameron Ward said. “There are things that I need to clean up here and there. You know, whether it’s the offensive line or receivers we all have things that we can clean up. We just have to learn from our mistakes and get ready for Oregon State next week.”

With their own passing game having struggles throughout the contest, the Trojans played good enough defense to keep Ward and the Washington State offense in check for most of the game. USC limited Ward to just 172 yards passing for the game. That’s not to mention that the Trojans got after the Cougars’ signal-caller pretty good, sacking Ward five times.

Tuli Tuipulotu was personally responsible for taking down Ward three times during the game.

“Tuli is a tough matchup, and our ability to move him around is a great tool,” Riley said. “We’ve got a creative defensive staff, and he’s a player that can handle that type of versatility. So it’s been good to get those guys back, and it not only allows us to move him around, but it allows us to keep fresh bodies and continually run them. As aggressive as we play on the defensive front, having fresh bodies is key.” 

For his part, Tuipulotu said his objective is not about himself, but helping the Trojans get another win.

“I’m just glad to be winning,” he remarked. “That’s all I care about. I’ll do whatever the team wants me to do — so we can get the job done. That’s what I love, just winning. It doesn’t matter how many plays I make as long as we win.”

Besides playing great defense, the Trojans won the old-fashioned way: they ran the football. With quarterback Caleb Williams being the center of attention of the Washington State defense, Travis Dye and the USC rushing attack took over. Williams threw for less than 200 yards (188 yards) against a rugged Washington State defense.

The Trojans relied on Dye and the run game to move the chains. Dye finished the game rushing for 151 yards on 28 carries. As a team, USC rushed for 201 yards. After the game, Dye would deflect what he did to the guys up front blocking for him. 

All credit goes to the O-line,” Dye said. “That defensive line is crazy good, and that defensive coordinator can really dial it up. The O-line was identifying everything and blocking it. It was wonderful tonight, all credit to them.”   

Washington State did win one area of the ballgame, and that was in the penalty department. The Cougars were tagged with 11 infractions for 106 yards, including picking up several penalties on a key drive in the red zone that allowed USC to go into halftime with a 17-14 lead. Washington State head coach Jake Dickert said the penalties affected his team’s performance on the field.  

“We just made some mistakes in key crucial situations that really hurt ourselves,” Dickert said. “The red zone opportunity, aligning offsides, jumping offsides on third down. I’ll take aggressive penalties, I’ll take them within the whistle; just cutting it loose, playing fast and aggressive. I’ll get a chance to look at a bunch of those and the operation of the game and the refs will get those things sorted out as we go.”