Wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown etched his name in the NCAA record book, quarterback Kedon Slovis tied a USC record, the offense asserted itself in a way it hadn't to this point of the season and the defense carried over its encouraging, opportunistic, disruptive tendencies from the last game.
And that was just the first quarter ...
Back in action after a COVID-induced one-week layoff, USC played like a team making up for lost time Sunday night -- like a team looking to make a statement, silence critics and swat away some lingering questions (mainly about the offense and Slovis' arm).
The Trojans did all that and then some early on against Washington State, scoring the first 35 points and rolling to a 38-13 win over the Cougars inside the Coliseum to stay unbeaten at 4-0 this season while remaining in control of their path to the Pac-12 championship game.
They also left enough for the critics to pounce on while scoring just 3 points after halftime and finishing with a net of 5 rushing yards (including lost sack yardage).
But in this case, head coach Clay Helton was right.
"Didn't play our best ball in the second half, so there's always some stuff that we can correct offensively, but to get a 25-point win -- 16 last [game], 25-point win this week -- this team is making progress each and every week," he said afterward.
That's the optimistic takeaway from a game that was so thoroughly over at halftime that it's hard to scrutinize the second half too stringently.
The bottom line is the USC offense hasn't looked like it did in the first half Sunday since way back in the stretch run of last season. And after Slovis and his coaches spent the first part of the season dismissing questions about the quarterback's arm due to a some uncharacteristic fluttering, wobbling passes in the opening games, Slovis delivered the best rebuke yet.
He was vintage, peak Slovis, completing 18 straight passes at one point and finishing 25-of-32 passing for 287 yards, 5 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. He had four touchdown passes to St. Brown in the first quarter and dropped an absolute dime in the end zone to Tyler Vaughns in the second quarter as USC built that early 35-0 lead.
"I think that's the biggest difference from when we're playing well and when we're not is really just playing excited and executing and doing your job," Slovis said, declining to make this any sort of personally-validating moment. "I think across the board everyone was kind of doing their job and playing excited again. Especially in that first half, you know, offensive line was blocking well, had a nice pocket for me to step up into, the receivers were doing their job, getting to their spots. It makes my job easy, so really it's a testament to how well everyone else played around me."
Those five first-half touchdowns tied a USC record set by former Trojans standouts Mark Sanchez, Matt Barkley and Cody Kessler.
As for St. Brown, he joined even rarer company. His four touchdowns scored in a quarter tied an NCAA record, and he was only the second player to accomplish that feat on four receiving touchdowns (joining Duke's Corey Thomas from 1997).
St. Brown noted it was the first time since his junior year at Mater Dei High School that he had four touchdowns in a game, let alone a quarter. Those were also his first TDs of the season.
"There's a reason that C is on Amon-Ra St. Brown's chest, because he's an unselfish player," Helton said. "You go three games and you're not in the end zone, he and I talked about it and said, 'Don't change a thing this week -- touchdowns will come in bunches.' He's just played the same, unselfish physical tough game each and every week, and you look up and he has four touchdowns on the day and really set the tone early to be able to separate from a good Cougar football team."
Meanwhile, the Trojans defense continued all the encouraging signs it showed two weeks ago at Utah.
Washington State's first five drives ended in a turnover on downs (after going 40 yards on 7 plays to get into USC territory), a quick three-and-out, back-to-back interceptions by Talanoa Hufanga and Olaijah Griffin and then another punt.
The Cougars got their first points at the very end of the second quarter and then opened the third quarter by fumbling a handoff right back to USC for a third turnover.
Overall, USC notched 4 more sacks -- 3 from breakout redshirt junior Nick Figueroa -- and held Washington State to a season-low 263 yards after the Cougars came in averaging 438.5 yards and 33.5 points through their first two games.
The Trojans also did that without starting linebackers Palaie Gaoteote (concussion protocol) and Ralen Goforth (foot strain), as coordinator Todd Orlando got creative and had Hufanga, his star junior safety, lined up like a middle linebacker at times throughout the game with extra defensive backs out on the field. Hufanga led the team with 9 tackles.
And of course the subplot to all of this was the forced week off and disrupted prep after the Trojans weren't able to play last Saturday against Colorado due to a four positive COVID-19 tests and seven other players quarantined through contact tracing, leaving too few available offensive linemen to meet the required threshold.
As USC returned to action Sunday, it was still without three offensive linemen in starting left guard Andrew Vorhees and backups Justin Dedich and Liam Douglass. True freshman Courtland Ford got the start at left guard and fellow freshman Jonah Monheim played a significant stretch of the game at right guard.
With all that said, one could almost hear the exasperation in Helton's voice as he was asked back-to-back nearly identical questions about the run game struggles Sunday.
"Again, let me watch the tape. I get to talk to you all again on Tuesday. I’ll answer every question you’ve got," he said. "I don’t want to guess. I did think we had some advantageous looks in the second half and should’ve gotten more out of the run game. But we’re going to celebrate all wins right now, and the 25-point victory is a good one. There are some things we need to correct, but I think this team is improving with each and every game. I know we’ll find something to talk about, that you’ll bring to the table. So I look forward to talking more on Tuesday."
Again, he's right.
The run game questions are totally fair and warranted -- we've been making the point here for weeks that the rushing stats the first few weeks were fool's gold to a large degree.
But that can also be a story for the rest of the week. There were enough other positives Sunday night to take the lead.
Speaking of which, back to Slovis and St. Brown ...
Slovis got the offense moving on the first possession with completions of 20 and 30 yards to Drake London and eventually hit St. Brown in the end zone for a 7-yard touchdown.
The second Slovis-to-St. Brown strike was a thing of beauty -- again, vintage Slovis. The junior receiver had a defensive back draped all over him, but Slovis lofted it to just the right spot where St. Brown could grab it cleanly.
The third touchdown was a stat-padder for the passing numbers as St. Brown came in motion right to left and took a short forward pitch around the end and into the end zone. But it was a very effective play call.
And the fourth, well, it rivals the second touchdown as Slovis fired what looked to be intended as a back-shoulder pass to the left side of the end zone. St. Brown again was essentially smothered by the DB, but the pass was so precisely placed it didn't matter as the Trojans converted on third down to make it 28-0.
All that said, Slovis didn't throw a prettier ball all night than the one he dropped into hands of Vaughns down the right sideline and into the end zone in the second quarter to make it 35-0.
"I felt like this was the first time as receivers we felt like we were getting more man looks early on in the game. The first three games, as receivers we felt we were getting a lot of cloud looks, a lot of zone, and they came out really playing man and that was something that we love, man," St. Brown said. "As receivers, we love one-on-ones and we just came out, played well, Kedon threw great balls and we made plays."
St. Brown finished with 7 catches for 65 yards and the 4 TDs, London had 5 catches for 92 yards and Vaughns had 5 catches for 69 yards and a TD.
Again, USC didn't do much offensively in the second half -- a 48-yard Parker Lewis field goal followed by a field goal miss early in the third quarter -- but the Trojans had done enough already.
Not all will agree (the tone on the postgame message boards already indicates as much), but this was more or less the feel-good, comfortable, compelling kind of performance this team needed.
Sure, many fans would have preferred to see the Trojans push the margin even wider in the second half, but judged relative to what the this team had shown so far, there was a lot to be encouraged by here.
The run game has to be better and deserves the spotlight it will get the rest of the week, but also maybe it's just time to accept that this isn't going to be a great rushing team and acknowledge that it found a way to win by 25 points in spite of it..
The Trojans are 4-0 and certainly appear to be getting better in enough other areas -- on both sides of the ball -- with each game. Which is good timing because, as strange as it sounds, the regular season ends next week with a visit to the Rose Bowl to face UCLA. If USC can take care of business one more time, it will be in the Pac-12 championship game for the first time since 2017.
Even in a wonky pandemic-shortened, COVID-corrupted season like this, that has a nice sound to it.
"We've got a lot to play for and that's what you want in December," Helton said.
On that note, he's right again.
