This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Friday night's USC-Utah game is a classic match between a team whose name is bigger than its actual game and a team whose name, at least according to the casual masses, isn't as great as its game. And that kind of set-up often ends poorly for the marquee guys.
Utah is a program on the rise. Still relative Pac-12 neophytes, the Utes have gotten better each season, finding their footing and becoming a threat to any team they face. Flaws remain, the thing isn't perfect, particularly on offense. But nobody — a clear-headed Trojan included — on the inside of any opposing league program would look forward to playing the Utes on a cold, rainy September night at Rice-Eccles.
USC, on the other hand, is not USC anymore. That's as much a compliment to the Trojans' past as it is a criticism of their present. But the criticism is warranted. Their 2016 iteration is a group in search of itself, a far distance from the great teams that come to mind in SC history, which is to say these Trojans are disjointed, discombobulated and … vulnerable.
Yes, they won the South last season, and, yes, they've beaten Utah all but once since the Utes entered the Pac-12. But anybody who watched USC's performances against Alabama and Stanford saw what was hard to miss: By the end of the first half, the Trojans were done, trailing in each 17-3, with little hope of recovery. They attempted to put up a fight, initially, but as those games played out, there was no fight in their Fight On.
According to whispers, though, there may be fight(s) inside their locker room, among players and coaches. Answer this: Does Clay Helton look like a longtime USC coach to you? A man who can handle dissension among his players and his boosters?
In their losses, it seemed as though USC's players believed, based on their individual ratings and backgrounds (read: hype), that they should be the equal of their opponents, and then their hearts were torn out as they discovered that collectively they were not. When it comes to winning, as everyone knows, the collective is all that matters.
USC's collective right now is underperforming, underachieving and underwhelming.
Is there anything worse that can be said about a team? It's one thing to lose by double-digits on account of not having enough talent to compete. It's quite another to have it and not utilize it.
Apologists will point out the Trojans' losses — they are 1-2 — came away from home at the hands of two of the best teams in the country, losing 52-6 to Alabama and 27-10 to Stanford. While that is true, it is subterranean thinking for one of the country's premier college football programs.
This is USC, after all. Or, was.
The Tide straight crushed these guys. By the end, the Trojans embarrassed themselves and their fans in that showing. And the Cardinal win was devastating in this way: Not only are Stanford's players intellectually superior to the Trojans — check the test scores — they also are physically superior. That isn't fair.
The problem for USC is that Utah's defense is in the same class as Alabama's and Stanford's. If it put up a combined 16 points against those teams, conjuring a whole lot more against the Utes would be surprising. Especially now that the Trojans have switched quarterbacks, handing the wheel over to Sam Darnold, a freshman who has never before started a game.
Nobody's saying USC isn't talented. It's just that its talent is an indictment against itself.
The Trojans' offensive line, for instance, was supposed to be the team's strength this season. Other than the quarterback, that position might be the most important on any football team. USC's group has more starts together than nearly any other team in the country. And yet, it's been a huge disappointment so far. Look at some of the skill players on this offense, and … they've fallen considerably short.
The defense? Don't ask. All you need to know there is that the Trojans' best defensive lineman, Stevie Tu'ikolovatu, transferred from Utah to USC because he couldn't get enough playing time on the Utes' D.
To this juncture, USC has scored 61 points, its opponents 86. It has gained 359 yards on the ground to its opponents' 593. Its total offense gained is 969 versus its opponents' 1,122. It has punted 17 times against 13 for opponents. The one advantage the Trojans have had is in total passing yards — and the quarterback who passed for most of those yards, as mentioned, has been benched.
And now, a USC offense that has struggled to find an identity arrives in Salt Lake, desperately seeking it, with a fresh-faced quarterback, against a Utah defense that has proved one thing this season: It's a bunch of bad men with bad intentions, including 10 sacks in last week's win.
USC's longtime play-by-play announcer, Pete Arbogast, on Tuesday called the Utah game the key to the Trojans' fate and fortune: "That makes or breaks your season. … If they lose this game, look out below."
That was either a compliment or not.
One thing is certain: The victor Friday night will be determined neither by a team's name nor its history. Just by its game. And that bodes well for the guys who aren't up on anybody's marquee.
GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.