As this season is showing, USC freshman quarterback Kedon Slovis is learning on the job -- which is to be expected from a guy unexpectedly thrust into the starting role.
But perhaps it says something when the young QB can have what most considered an off day and still finish 19-of-28 passing for 232 yards, 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions as he did in the Trojans' 41-14 win over Arizona on Saturday.
To be fair, the Wildcats are statistically one of the worst defenses in college football this fall -- especially against the pass -- and the critiques on Slovis resulted from USC not being able to do more against that defense earlier.
The Trojans went three-and-out on three of their first four possessions with the lone exception being a drive that started at the Arizona 21 following a muffed punt and still only produced 8 yards and a field goal.
Slovis went into halftime a quiet 11 of 16 for 95 yards and a touchdown -- a 9-yard pass to Michael Pittman to capitalize on another short field after a Wildcats fumble set the offense up at the Arizona 34.
And offfensive coordinator Graham Harrell was candidly pointed in critiquing the young QB after the game.
"I thought this was probably the most hesitant he's been all year," Harrell said. "But he's young -- I think he played more like a freshman than he's played like [to this point]."
Said Slovis: "A lot of that's on me. I didn't do my job, wasn't very disciplined and missed a lot of opportunities, but I think the biggest thing was just not making those mistakes worse and turning the ball over. That kept us in the game and the defense did a great job getting us the ball back."
Indeed it did. USC had six drives start from its own 40 or across midfield, with those possessions leading to two touchdowns, two field goals, a fumble and a punt.
Meanwhile, for the second week in a row Slovis was much better after halftime, completing 8 of 12 passes for 137 yards and a touchdown -- including a 54-yard strike downfield to Pittman to set up his second TD throw of the night.
"I've got to play a lot better in the first and second half, but from the get-go they come out and do something a little different than I anticipate and I can't let that affect the way I read the defense," Slovis said. "I've just got to be disciplined to see what I see and be decisive and not worry about making mistakes."
USC piled on the Wildcats in the second half with 24 points and 285 of its 448 total yards coming after halftime to make the overall numbers more impressive. In the end, it was the Trojans' second-highest point total and third-highest yardage output of the season.
It was a reminder both of this team's potential and that it probably hasn't fully maximized that yet to this poitn of the season.
"Whenever you score 40 points, most [times] you're going to be happy, but I think we left a lot of points out there, could have done a lot better in first-half scoring," Slovis reiterated.
Said Harrell: "I think we obviously could have done a lot of things better, but at the end of the day you're happy with a win."
With that said, we take our weekly deep dive into the PFF College grades, snap counts and advanced statistics from the Trojans' offensive performance:
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**PFF College grades every player on every snap and aggregates the data into a game score on a 1-100 scale. Grades in the upper 70s and 80s are very good while anything in the upper 80s or above is elite. Small sample sizes can lead to skewed grades, especially on the lower end.**
