There’s just no stopping USC by Cal
Jones rushes for 223 yards and Darnold throws five touchdown passes.
USC 45, CAL 24
In retrospect, the most surprising part of USC’s first offensive play in a 45-24 win over California on Thursday evening, a 61-yard Ronald Jones II run, was that the Golden Bears stopped him at all.
Jones had scythed inside left tackle Chad Wheeler, breezed past a linebacker grasping at air and flummoxed two defensive backs so thoroughly that they tripped over each other. By the time he ripped a tackler off his back and hightailed down the sideline, a final straggler could just manage to flush him out of bounds which, on Thursday, could almost count as a defensive highlight for the Bears.
The victory was USC’s fourth in a row. After an ignominious start, USC (5-3, 4-2) has reasserted itself as a factor in the Pac-12 South Division race, though it remains behind Utah and Colorado.
USC did what it was supposed to with the nation’s third-worst rushing defense. California vacated wide swaths of the field. USC was happy to fill the void. The
Trojans diced the Bears, running at will.
It mattered little that the starter, Justin Davis, was not in uniform as he recovered from a high ankle sprain. Nor did it make a difference that Jones had sputtered in the first half this season. He hadn’t reached 100 yards yet this season. He surpassed that mark by the second quarter. He reached 200 yards for the first time in his career by the third quarter.Two USC rushers finished with more than 100 yards: Jones accumulated 223 and Aca’Cedric Ware totaled 130.
Jones needed only 18 carries to tear apart California’s defense.
He caught a screen pass in the first quarter and nearly walked into the end zone. He escaped for a 42yard scamper. He took a handoff in the third quarter, hopped inside the pulling center and cruised for a touchdown.
Somehow, it was USC’s first and only rushing touchdown of the evening. Quarterback Sam Darnold benefited from the rushing attack to turn a prodigious five-touchdowns, 231-yards game, though his evening was marred by turnovers.
When USC Coach Clay Helton jogged to the sideline at halftime, his mouth stretched in a grind, half amused, half pained.
The Trojans were overwhelming California with 451 yards of offense in the first 30 minutes, more than double California’s first-half total.
To that point, Darnold carved up California’s spacious secondary with four touchdown passes in the first half — two to Darreus Rogers, one to Jones and one to Deontay Burnett, making his first start at slot receiver for the injured Steven Mitchell Jr.
USC scored 28 points in the half — their secondhighest total in any half this season. Yet Helton knew USC had let points get away.
“We should be up more than we are right now,” Helton said of the 28-10 lead before he joined the team in the halftime locker room.
The refrain has become familiar since Darnold became the starting quarterback, evidence of both his proficiency and his biggest weakness. Earlier this season, the Darnold-led USC offense gashed Utah’s defense but hobbled itself with three turnovers, one a Darnold fumble. A win over Colorado turned tense because of three more turnovers, two on Darnold fumbles.
Against Cal, Darnold endured his highest turnover total yet, with three. A blindside sack by DaVante Wilson jarred the ball loose in the first half. Darnold fumbled on the next possession too. The Bears converted the turnovers into 10 points. He lobbed an interception into double coverage in the fourth quarter.
“Regret it right now,” Helton said when he reemerged for the second half.
The regret intensified briefly when play resumed. USC punted after a threeplay opening drive. California quarterback Davis Webb, who finished with 333 yards, orchestrated a 10play, 71-yard touchdown drive, capped by a quarterback keeper for a touchdown, to pull California within 11 points.
Jones responded with his touchdown run on the very next drive, as if offended that Webb had beaten him to a rushing score.