might be whistling past the graveyard

by Jay , San Diego, Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 09:09 (7 hours, 19 minutes ago) @ HumanRobot
edited by Jay, Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 09:15

but I am not overly concerned about their offense. They scored 18 touchdowns in their first two weeks against Missouri State and Georgia Southern, but since then have scored

* 3 vs Purdue (#78 total defense)

* 6 vs Michigan State (#71 total defense) (USC scored a late one on a short field after MSU went for the desperation heave)

* 4 vs Illinois (#74 total defense)

* 4 vs Michigan (#35 total defense)

I think we can hold them to 4 touchdowns with a decent to good performance by our defense, without having to play lights-out.

So then it becomes, can we score more than 28? We can, easily, if we stop killing our own drives. If we merely do what Illinois did to them, we'll win 35-28 (mistakes and all, Illinois fumbled twice in the red zone). But I think at our best we're a better offense than Illinois.