A new college football season is officially underway and USC football is already in need of an upset.
The Big Ten Trojans are preparing for their first game of the season against the LSU Tigers, taking their talents to Las Vegas for a Sunday night affair at Allegiant Stadium. The lone college football game on Sunday, this matchup is the third ranked-on-ranked game of Week 1, with the Trojans coming in at No. 23 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll while the Tigers are ranked No. 13.
With USC coming in as both the ranked and betting underdogs, it will be a tall task for the Trojans to come out for a win — the higher-ranked team took home the win in the previous two top-25 affairs of the sport’s opening weekend.
Still, multiple upsets have already taken place throughout the college football season. No. 10 Florida State fell in its Week 0 matchup, while Vanderbilt upset Virginia Tech and Texas A&M — the betting favorite despite a lower ranking — fell to Notre Dame.
The Trojans will look to achieve the first true ranked-on-ranked upset of the season with a new-look team.
The biggest storyline is the fact both teams have new defensive coordinators and both are replacing Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks with redshirt junior signal callers; Miller Moss takes over the Trojan reins and Garrett Nussmeier will now man the Tiger offense.
In front of a nationally televised audience, both squads will have the chance to debut their revamped rosters, but the world has already had a chance to see the new quarterbacks. Both Moss and Nussmeier showed out in their team’s bowl games at the end of last season, taking home MVP honors in the final game of the season for both programs.
The bowl games were the first career starts for both slingers, but it was Moss who had the better debut. The new USC starter put up six touchdown passes off of 372 yards and Nussmeier put up three scores and 395 yards.
One game is too small of a sample size to determine how good one player truly is — especially since the opponent has to be taken into account — but the Trojans seem to have the edge at the position, especially with head coach Lincoln Riley at the helm.
The defensive side is a different story. While each team’s quarterbacks won a Heisman, and therefore somewhat comparable, there was a much larger gap in between both programs’ defensive units.
The pair of defenses were putrid in 2023, but LSU only gave up 28.0 points per game compared to USC’s whopping 34.4. Now each squad’s new defensive coordinators — D’Anton Lynn for the Trojans and Blake Baker for the Tigers — will get to show off how much better their defensive units are for 2024.
Riley and USC recently released the squad’s opening-day depth chart, giving a snapshot on who the main contributors might be. The positions of interest, similar to last season, are in the trenches for the Trojans, the offensive and defensive lines.
Of note, junior defensive tackle Bear Alexander did not win a starting position outright despite notching 47 tackles last season, tied for the most among returning defensive lineman. Alexander is listed as an “OR” with Wyoming transfer and redshirt senior defensive tackle Gavin Meyer, meaning one of those two will get the starting spot come Sunday.
Alexander was USC’s highest-rated transfer in the 2023 recruiting cycle and despite a relatively strong first season with the Trojans was not able to create separation in fall camp between him and Meyer.
While Meyer had a productive career before coming to USC, Alexander has the higher ceiling and will need to produce against a strong LSU offensive line if the Trojans hope to win.
On the offensive side of the line, USC featured a mix of experience in its opening depth chart. A redshirt freshman or true sophomore will man two of the five spots and redshirt juniors or redshirt seniors occupy the other three slots.
Redshirt freshman Elijah Paige will protect Moss’ blind side at left tackle, making it that much more important that he grew throughout his redshirt year. In 2023, Paige was sent to the scout team midway through the season when the coaching staff was frustrated that his progression had stalled.
“He came back Week 10 or 11 and he was a different player,” offensive line coach Josh Henson said at the team’s in-house media day. “Down there on the scout team, the defensive lines are trying to beat up on every play ... You have two choices: You can take it or you can fight and get better and grow. And he chose to grow.”
If the offensive line struggles, the Tigers have junior linebacker Harold Perkins Jr., a man with 13 career sacks, at their disposal to wreak havoc.
The Trojans have a tough task ahead of them, but with how many unknowns exist between these two things, anything is possible. USC will kick off its season in Allegiant Stadium on Sunday at 4:30 p.m.