The final play Friday night was a painful end to the proceedings for USC in its 31-24 Pac-12 championship game loss to Oregon.

With time for one final play from the Oregon 49, quarterback Kedon Slovis was hoping to get off a Hail Mary downfield, but that was thwarted by the Ducks' relentless pass rush.

As he was hit by two defenders, leaving the ball to end up in the hands of an offensive lineman, Slovis was taken down hard on his throwing shoulder.

Coach Clay Helton said after the game that Slovis was having his shoulder X-rayed -- he didn't specify it was his throwing shoulder, but that's the one he landed on (see below, starting at 14:15 on the video).

Helton also said wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown had to leave the game with what "looks like a pretty good AC sprain" in his shoulder. St. Brown had 5 catches for 74 yards and a TD -- his 7th receiving TD in the last three games.

Those were the only two injury updates he had postgame, while also noting that linebacker Ralen Goforth was still playing through his foot sprain from earlier in the season.

"I know Ralen was in and out and really fought his butt off with that foot. I don't know exactly where that's at right now," he said.

Slovis finished the game 28-of-52 passing for 320 yards, 2 TDs and 3 INTs. It just so happened that those three picks might have been his worst three throws of the season.

On the Trojans' opening series, he was baited into a bad decision by Oregon cornerback Deommodore Lenoir, who easily jumped in front of Tyler Vaughns for the interception. After the return, that gave the Ducks' possession at the USC 9 and set up their first touchdown.

Two possessions later, he was picked by Jamal Hill at the USC 32 on a bad read -- it wasn't clear what he saw on that one. Again, Oregon converted with a touchdown off the turnover.

And then the final pick came with USC driving to try to tie the game late in the fourth quarter as Slovis appeared to be trying to throw the ball away out of bounds, yet he didn't get enough loft on it and Hill made an acrobatic, juggling grab on the sideline while keeping one foot in bounds. That effectively dashed the Trojans' comeback hopes.

"Just going back and thinking about them, the corner did a nice job sitting on a comeback route that TV ran the comeback, sat on it made a nice play. The last one, I really think Kedon was trying to throw that ball away and it looked like it came out of his hand a little funky and their kid made a nice play on the sideline," Helton said. "Didn't necessarily get to see the review, but the kid made a nice play. I know he was trying to get that ball out of bounds."

Oregon had only 2 interceptions overall through its first five games before intercepting Slovis 3 times Friday night, matching the number of picks it had on Slovis in the teams' meeting last year.

Overall, the QB has now completed 67 percent of his passes for 1,921 yards, 17 TDs and 7 INTs in six games.

Afterward, wide receiver Drake London reiterated support for Slovis despite the rough game.

"It's the same every game. There's no doubt, we all believe in him. He's going to have some hiccups here and there, but it's Kedon Slovis, we all trust in him," London said.

The Pac-12 received significant backlash this week for its handling of the championship game matchup, waiting until Monday to decide that Washington wouldn't be able to play as planned, even though it seemed like a decision that could have been made earlier based on Huskies coach Jimmy Lake's comments Monday that his team had no available offensive linemen to even practice.

The criticism extended to the Pac-12's decision to just sub in Oregon -- which didn't even officially win its division -- into that game, rather than simply award USC the conference title.

Also, Oregon had last week off after having its game with Washington cancelled, while USC was playing on short rest and had wasted a day preparing for the Huskies rather than the Ducks.

After the loss, Trojans director of player development Gavin Morris tweeted out a reminder that USC was playing its third game in 13 days.

But Helton made no public excuses from the circumstances surrounding the game.

"The thing I love about our football team is no matter the situation they come to work every day -- they're blue collar. Even when we have to do a 180 in the middle of the week, they did the things to be prepared for tonight. Their preparation was great all week," he said. "Whether it was walkthroughs in the morning, practices in the afternoon, they did whatever it took to put themself in a position to win. Tonight, we had an opportunity and we didn't make it happen this time around."