No. 16 USC hosts Arizona State Sun Devils

Another Saturday brings another tough conference matchup for the USC football team. The No. 16 Trojans (3-1, 2-0 Pac-12) will host Arizona State, a dangerous squad even without starting quarterback Taylor Kelly, who is out with a foot injury for the next few weeks.

 

The Sun Devils (3-1, 1-1) take their second straight crack at a Los Angeles team, just over a week after a 62-27 drubbing at the hands of UCLA. Backup quarterback Mike Bercovici looked strong against the Bruins in his first career start but struggled to protect the football as the game went on. The Los Angeles-area native threw for 488 yards and three touchdowns, but two key interceptions denied ASU a chance at an upset win. Still, USC head coach Steve Sarkisian has been impressed by the work that Sun Devils’ head coach Todd Graham has done over the past few seasons.

“He’s done it with discipline,” Sarkisian said of Graham’s success. “There was a time there when people thought of Arizona State as an undisciplined team. [Now] they’re the fewest penalized team in the league. [Graham]’s got his system in place now, and they’ve recruited to those systems. They’re a really talented team.”

Bercovici will face a Trojan secondary that effectively shut down Oregon State’s Sean Mannion last week, holding the Beavers’ highly touted NFL prospect to 123 yards on just 15 completions. But the passing game is not all the USC defense will have to worry about; ASU running back D.J. Foster, thus far the Pac-12’s leading rusher, has racked up 540 yards on an impressive 8.6 yards per carry in four games. The junior also has 207 receiving yards and six total touchdowns on the season. Sarkisian noted the challenge that Foster presents to opposing defenses.

“What I admire about D.J. [Foster] and their system, is that not only do they hand him the ball, they throw him the ball,” Sarkisian said. “They do it a lot of different ways, with a variety of schemes. D.J. [Foster] is a really versatile player, and he’s a tough matchup.”

After giving up 580 total yards to the Bruins, ASU’s defense has had extra time to prepare for USC’s balanced attack. The Trojans will have to get used to this; each of their remaining Pac-12 South opponents will have more than a week to ready themselves. That notwithstanding, USC redshirt junior quarterback Cody Kessler is focused on football.

“I just focus on what I can control,” Kessler told Trojans Live. “I just block all that out. These guys come out and come ready to work, and I think that showed in the Oregon State game.”

Though ASU has struggled to maintain a viable pass rush without former Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year Will Sutton, Kessler still has to stare down safety Damarious Randall, who leads the team with 38 total tackles. Randall has been a bright spot for a young Sun Devil unit that ranks 90th out of 125 FBS teams in scoring defense. Even after last week’s poor effort, Sarkisian feels that the ASU defense is formidable.

“They’re a prideful group,” Sarkisian said. “Coach Graham is a heck of a coach, and he’s a defensive coach. It’s like anything — when you have things to fix, and you have a good coach, you fix them. They’ll be ready to play.”

USC sophomore tailback Justin Davis, who picked up 82 yards on the ground and two total touchdowns last week, aims to exploit this weakness for the second time in his career. Davis broke out for three touchdowns and his first career 100-yard game in last season’s loss to ASU.

“[Last year’s game] is one of those memories that’s going to be in my head for a long time,” Davis told the Los Angeles Times. “Hopefully I can build off of that on Saturday.”

If USC had one area to improve upon after last week’s 35-10 win over Oregon State, it was reducing the 14 penalties the team received over the course of the game. Though acknowledging the issue, Sarkisian downplayed the effect of penalties on the outcome of the game.

“I’ve said this all along, and I don’t mean this in a negative tone: we had three penalties against Boston College and lost,” Sarkisian said. “We had 14 last week and won. Do we like having penalties? No. But there’s a lot of stuff for us to focus on that really matter in winning and losing.”

The Trojans lead the all-time series 18-11 but have fallen to the Sun Devils twice in the last four years. Fortunately for the home fans, this year’s action kicks off 4:30 p.m. PST at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where USC has beaten ASU seven times in a row. Even with that  on their side, All-American junior defensive end Leonard Williams and the Trojans will take nothing for granted.

“Arizona State is a good team,” Williams said. “They come to play.”