In their 13th game of the season, the USC Trojans football team did what all fans were asking for: winning a one-score game.
“In some ways a poetic ending to the season… our motto here is ‘Fight On’ and this team has really embodied that,” head coach Lincoln Riley said.
The Trojans came out victorious in the final seconds of Allegiant Stadium’s Las Vegas Bowl against the Texas A&M Aggies, taking home the 35-31 win. The game-winning score came on a seven-yard pass from redshirt sophomore quarterback Jayden Maiava to redshirt senior wide receiver Kyle Ford. When asked after the game about what the score meant for him, Ford said he was rather emotional.
“If you know anything about my story, you can’t write that any better,” Ford said.
Growing up as a USC fan, Ford spent his first three years with the Trojans before leaving for UCLA to try and become the lead receiver. He became frustrated, as he was wearing a blue uniform he just did not like. So he decided to come back to USC, and closed out his time in college football with a game-winning touchdown for the Trojans team he loved.
Although the score meant a lot for Ford, in his eyes, it said more about the team.
“I just think we are never out of it. There’s times in the game where there are highs and lows… those are the moments that make or break you. [When we] get rolling, we get rolling.”
Each team played a solid, defensive first half of football, only allowing a single score from each side. The Aggies struck first when redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed hit junior wide receiver Noah Thomas on a seven-minute, 16-play drive.
It took a while for the Trojans to respond, but USC found the scoreboard a quarter later on a Maiava pass to sophomore wide receiver Ja’Kobi Lane to tie the game at seven apiece.
USC then broke down defensively and allowed two touchdowns and a field goal, digging it in a 17-point hole which it would end up overcoming — the largest comeback bowl victory in USC history.
The next score would come from the Maiava-Lane connection on a drive which covered 71 yards in only three plays. Shortly after, freshman running back Bryan Jackson ran in for his first touchdown in the cardinal and gold, bringing USC within three.
With just over four minutes to go in the game, Maiava connected with Lane yet again for the go-ahead points, putting the Trojans up by four. The Aggies needed to score. Reed decided to do it almost all on his own — throwing for 41 yards and running for 34, capping the drive off with a 19-yard designed QB run to the end zone. USC was set to lose its sixth one-score game of the season.
With only 110 seconds left in the game, it was a sight that the Trojans had seen too many times in the season already. For the most part, these styles of games did not favor USC. First against Michigan, when the Trojans lost with 37 seconds left; they followed it up in consecutive games against Minnesota, Penn State and Maryland, also losing late in the season to Washington.
The only time all season the Trojans were down in the final two minutes and pulled away with the victory was in their opening matchup against LSU, also in Allegiant Stadium. In that game, soon-to-be Louisville redshirt junior quarterback Miller Moss handed the ball off to redshirt senior running back Woody Marks who — with eight seconds remaining — punched it in the endzone to give the Trojans a game-winning 27-20 lead.
Fast forward nearly four months, USC would concoct another two-minute drill and finish with a red zone score with eight seconds to go yet again, and in Allegiant Stadium against another SEC opponent.
The drive started on USC’s own 25-yard line before a trio of passes to Ford and sophomore wide receiver Makai Lemon moved them into Aggie territory. After a “pass” that Maiava flung out of bounds backwards moved the Trojans back three yards, the team needed something big with 30 seconds left to get the win. Who else would it be but Lane on a 33-yard reception to bring USC not only inside field goal range which would send the game to overtime, but also in striking distance of the endzone. Maiava hit Lane a second time for 11 yards, bringing them down to the 2-yard line. After a delay of game penalty on USC, it seemed the Trojans’ clock management struggles may cost them yet another game.
Then, Maiava hit Ford for what was the ultimate game winning score.
It was what USC fans have yearned to see all season — a win in the late stages of the game, showing that head coach Lincoln Riley had what it takes in the final minutes of the game. Unfortunately, it came nine games late, and USC finished the season 7-6.
“We got to do it to [the other team] this time,” Ford said of the last-minute score. “If you battle and it goes out that way — you flip the script a little bit.”
Starting the season how they ended, the Trojans have a lot to improve on and would undoubtedly love to gain some major talent from the transfer portal before they start their next season against Missouri State on August 30, 2025.