Football falls to Notre Dame

“Embrace the suck … It’s going to be fun when we’re running up the score.” That was senior wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr.’s advice to his teammates four days before USC took on Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. Saturday. 

Pittman’s confidence seemed to affect his Trojan squad, as USC outplayed the No. 9 team in the nation for most of the showdown. But football is a game of four quarters, and the one in which USC faltered — the second — proved too costly to overcome. 

At the end of the first quarter, well before the verdict was settled in USC’s 30-27 loss to the Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium, it looked like USC could pull off one of the more improbable upsets of this college football season. But whatever dreams Trojan fans had quickly turned into an all-too-familiar nightmare heading into halftime. 

That second quarter featured 17 of 20 unanswered Irish points, 156 rushing yards (including a 51-yard touchdown by sophomore wide receiver Braden Lenzy) and a botched opportunity for USC to pin the Irish inside their own 5-yard line on a punt. 

“They were running a lot of plays to get us moving around a lot,” junior defensive lineman Brandon Pili said of Notre Dame’s dominant run game in the quarter. “They came down the middle, and we just missed gaps.”

The defense wasn’t solely responsible for the struggles, though, as the offense could not get anything going beyond a first quarter field goal.

“I think the biggest thing we came away with [from] the first half was a lack of execution,” said freshman quarterback Kedon Slovis, who threw for 74 yards in the first half and 181 with two touchdowns in the second. “We got them stretched out, we moved the ball well up until the point we made a mistake.”

USC’s frustrations culminated in a skirmish while the teams headed to the locker rooms, as every player on both teams received an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. 

It appeared Pittman was right about running up the score but wrong about which team would do so. But in what has been a trend this season, the game took a turn yet again in the third quarter.

After the teams traded field goals to open the half, Slovis — who saw his first game action in three weeks after recovering from a concussion — connected with his favorite target of the game for a crucial score. Sophomore wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown tipped a deep ball to himself with one hand and reeled it in for a 38-yard score, bringing the Trojans within a touchdown.

That play contributed to St. Brown’s 112 receiving yards on the night. No other Trojan receiver had more than redshirt junior Tyler Vaughns’ 47. Pittman — notably USC’s leading receiver heading into the game — had just 29. 

After another Notre Dame field goal and a 5-yard touchdown pass to Vaughns, USC had cut the once daunting 17-point lead to just 3. 

“I think the tempo really just opened up things for us on the offense,” St. Brown said of the improvement in the second half. “We came in and started going as quick as we can. I think that opened up the offensive playbook and everything.”

With 10:27 remaining, all the Trojans had to do was hold Notre Dame to a field goal, and they would have a shot to steal the game. 

Like in the second quarter, though, USC failed to slow the Fighting Irish’s ground attack — only this time, senior quarterback Ian Book provided the fatal blows. The Trojans had a golden opportunity on third-and-10 at USC’s 30-yard line, but Book, who received almost no pressure behind the line of scrimmage all game, scrambled 17 yards to pick up a first down. 

Two plays later, a quarterback keeper gave the Irish an 8-yard touchdown and a two-possession lead, essentially closing the book on the game. 

“The A-Gap on the second play was wide open, and the edge was open on the first one,” Pili said of Book’s runs. “It was our fault, and we’ll go back to the drawing board.”

USC responded with an impressive drive spanning two and a half minutes that ended in a 2-yard scoring run from redshirt freshman running back Markese Stepp. Stepp, who has seen his usage steadily increase all season, ran for a team-high 82 yards and seemed to carry multiple Notre Dame defenders on his back throughout the evening.

After a failed onside kick from redshirt sophomore placekicker Chase McGrath, three kneel downs sealed the game for the Irish. 

Still, head coach Clay Helton said he was proud of the way his group battled against one of the nation’s best teams. 

“I told our team in [the locker room], if they play like they did in the second half, get ready, they’re going to win a Pac-12 title, and I honestly believe that,” he said. “We’ve got six games to really put our best foot forward in our conference. We control our own destiny on our way to a Pac-12 title, and that’s what we’ve gotta do.”