Retour
Are the USC Trojans playing college football today? No they are not. The Trojans get another weekend off in the Big Ten. USC won't play again until next weekend, when the Trojans face Indiana at 3:30 p.m. Eastern and 12:30 p.m. Pacific on CBS.
The last time USC had a week off, the Trojans didn't use their break very well. They did not play on Saturday, October 17 after their October 10 win at Penn State. They came back to the gridiron on Saturday, October 24 at Wisconsin and were pancake-flat on offense in a brutal 24-7 loss. Wisconsin threw for only 58 yards in that game and still dominated the Trojans. With Indiana not having a settled or ideal quarterback situation, the Hoosiers might not throw for a lot of yards in their own right against USC, but IU - like Wisconsin - has a strong and very capable defense.
The key to USC-Indiana is likely to be USC's offensive line, which no-showed at Wisconsin but then turned around and played a very strong game against Ohio State, helping the Trojans win by a double-digit margin (30-18) on a night when quarterback Jayden Maiava was not especially impressive. Maiava was fine, but he wasn't special. USC won because of the offensive line and because Trent Mosley and Mark Bowman made amazing runs after catching short Maiava passes. USC also won because the defense got multiple red-zone stops and forced a lot of Buckeye field goals.
USC isn't playing today, but this time, the Trojans need to use their week off much better than they did in October.