After underwhelming the first two weeks, the USC defense on Saturday looked exactly as the Trojans hoped it might when they hired Todd Orlando as coordinator this offseason.
They held a run-oriented Utah team to 119 yards on the ground and 335 yards overall, allowed only 10 points (7 came against the USC offense on a fumble returned for touchdown), created 5 turnovers and 2 fourth-down stops and notched 3 sacks.
"We came into the game saying we were going to make a point of emphasis stopping the run. The defensive calls that TO made I thought were extremely aggressive, especially on normal down and distance, and it held a usually really good Utah rushing team to 119 yards rushing," head coach Clay Helton said. "The five turnovers were huge in the game. I thought they were setup a lot by the pressures we put on the quarterback. We got three sacks, but we really got the quarterback off his spot, hit him several times, had him under duress several times. I thought getting off the field, 3 of 11 on third downs for our defense, really limited the play count number for that Utah offense. Usually that’s what they thrive on, those long drives and just wearing you down, and we were able to get off the field very effectively."
All told, that added up to a 33-17 win at Utah on a night when the Trojans offense wasn't its sharpest.
RELATED: USC's defense plants seeds of a burgeoning identity in win over Utah
As always, though, we look beyond the traditional stats and dive deep into the PFF grades, snap counts and advanced metrics for a fuller picture of the Trojans' defensive performance.
See the full breakdown of the PFF grades, snap counts and stats for the USC offense here
As a reminder, grades in the 90s are elite and rare, 80s are very good, 70s are solid and as it goes down into the 60s starts to become the dividing line between average and below.
