At any other point over the last few years, USC's abject rushing struggles Saturday at Washington State would have had fans and media pouncing as a primary storyline of the week.
But there's been a few other things to discuss like, say, freshman QB Jaxson Dart's breakout performance, the status of Dart's knee injury, a potential QB competition moving forward, etc.
Also, for the second year in a row, the Trojans didn't need a rushing attack at all to roll past Washington State, winning 45-14 Saturday on the strength of Dart's 391 passing yards, 4 touchdowns and 2 interceptions and a dominant defensive performance.
In fact, USC's 38 second-half points were the most in any half for the program since 2005, which is incredible to think given how much scrutiny the offense was under entering the week.
All the same, the run game struggles can't be overlooked as USC totaled 48 net rushing yards (including lost sack yardage), while Dart led the ground attack with 32 yards and running backs Keaontay Ingram and Vavae Malepeai combined for just 25 yards on 16 carries.
That certainly had the attention of interim head coach Donte Williams, who addressed those struggles head-on the day after the game.
"I wasn’t very pleased that we weren’t able to run the football in that particular game. Washington State, kudos. Hats off to them. They did a couple things up front that made it difficult. Those guys have promised me that issue won’t happen again. And when I say that, I’m talking about the players," he said. "They’ll hold each other accountable. They’ll be ready to go. That won’t happen again. It’ll be a big change on Saturday."
Interestingly, it was that same Cougars defense -- not necessarily known as a dominant front -- that held USC to just 5 net rushing yards last year in a nonetheless lopsided 38-13 Trojans win.
"That's two years in a row against Washington State we didn't run the ball real well. I think we should, but at the same time two years in a row we [play] really successfully against those guys," offensive coordinator Graham Harrell said. "There's going to be teams that try to take certain parts of the game away -- they do a lot of things to try to take the run away and at times leave themselves vulnerable on the back end.
"Like I said, running the ball's important, those guys are good with the football in their hand so we've got to find a way to get those guys carries and be efficient in the run game. I thought the first two weeks we did a really good job of it and last week we didn't so we've got to be better than that."
Even with the struggles Saturday, USC is still averaging 131 rushing yards per game -- which is about 34 better than last season.
For his part, Ingram didn't seem discouraged moving forward.
"I wasn't frustrated. I've done played a lot of football. Washington [State] did a dang good job of stopping the run, they kind of stunted a few looks -- something we weren't used to, something we didn't work in practice -- so I mean hats off to them, but we still got the W at the end of the day so that's all that matters," he said.
Meanwhile, offensive line coach Clay McGuire, who is usually pretty blunt and matter-of-fact about what he sees, wasn't pleased with the offensive line performance overall.
"Not good enough in my opinion," he said. "Luckily, I think our skill guys stepped up and made big plays for us. We didn't control the line of scrimmage in the run game. That was something we worked really hard on and made progress the first two games, but we just didn't get it done in the game. They did some line movements and games on us and I think because of it, they hit us early, we lost confidence and we didn't come off and play fast. So we didn't do a very good job in the run game, it was one-dimensional, and as far as pass-pro goes there was too many times I thought the quarterback bailed us out on some situations, avoiding sacks and getting rid of the ball quick and things like that."
At the same time, the passing game hasn't looked that good in a while, as Harrell notably said he felt like the offense finally played free and not tight.
That was with Dart providing an aggressive jolt to the downfield attack. With Dart missing from practice the first half of this week, it seems like it will be on Kedon Slovis to continue that momentum and try to silence talk of an in-season QB competition.
Getting more help up front after he was knocked from the game Saturday on the opening series would sure help, as would a complementary run game.
With that said, let's take a deeper look inside the PFF grades, snap counts and advanced data from the Trojans' offensive performance at Washington State.
(Note, grades are on a 1-100 scale with grades in the 90s limited and considered elite, 80s very good with the line between average and above average falling somewhere in the 70s.)
