USC OC Graham Harrell offers insight into the Trojans' game-winning TD

Prior to snapping the ball on the fourth-and-9 play that would result in USC's go-ahead touchdown Saturday, offensive coordinator Graham Harrell changed the formation based on what he saw from the Arizona State defense.

He knew he had what he wanted at that point -- a chance to get the ball to uber-athletic 6-foot-5 sophomore Drake London matched up against a linebacker. It was a play the Trojans had used throughout the day and the downfield look had rarely been there, but with the game on the line Harrell calculated a combination of his players' confidence in that call and the prime matchup he spotted with London based on the positioning of hte safeties and called in the change.

Moments later London was coming down in the end zone with a 21-yard touchdown reception on a perfect throw from quarterback Kedon Slovis right over that linebacker and just before the safety could close in to break it up.

And that's how USC found itself celebrating a wild 28-27 win over Arizona State.

"We hard-counted just to kind of see what we were going to get, and when I saw the split safeties ... that's when we switched formations because they looked back to the sidelines so we were able to switch formations and call whatever we want," Harrell shared Tuesday morning. "And then really two things went into it. One, I think in that situation too often people try to call the perfect play when in reality in my mind you got to call what you're really good at and what the kids are gonna execute. And that's a play that again the quarterback's really good at and those receivers are really good at and our offense just in general in the last two years, that play is probably the play that we've had the most success on. So one, you want to call what you're good at, two when I saw those two safeties pretty wide I knew we had Drake one-on-one with a linebacker and that's a bad matchup -- I don't care who the linebacker is, you know what I mean?"

Simple as that ... The Trojans, once down 13 points with about 3 minutes to play had rallied all the way back with two touchdowns in the span of 92 seconds -- both on fourth downs.

And USC fans have surely been watching the replay over and over since Saturday.

That throw immediately moves near the top of Slovis' ever-growing highlight reel, while it's without question the biggest catch in London's young career as he indeed proved too much of a mismatch for ASU linebacker Kyle Soelle and then maintained his grip as safety Kejuan Markham closed in on him immediately after the catch and tried to jar the ball free.

"It was a good throw, especially considering the situation, and I think that Kedon definitely made a great throw, but the catch is probably more impressive than the throw when you have guys swiping at his arm," Harrell said. "To be that strong and still find a way to hold onto that ball in that situation is really, really impressive."

The play call deserves its own appreciation, though, after hearing what all went into it pre-snap.

"We called that play knowing that the ball's probably gonna go to Drake and it could be tight, but that's probably the play that we call more than any other play in our offense and it's a play that we execute at a really high level a lot of times," Harrell said. "And again as soon as we saw the coverage I knew where the ball was gonna go and I had a lot of confidence that we were gonna make it because of the two guys that were involved with it with Drake and Kedon."

USC fans weren't necessarily singing Harrell's praises for much of the game, as the Trojans were stuck on 14 points midway through the fourth quarter, but the reality is the offense would put up 556 yards. To have a little fun with numbers, USC now ranks third nationally in yards per game based on its lone performance so far.

It just didn't always seem like a smooth operation Saturday in large part to the four turnovers -- three lost fumbles, an interception and getting stuffed on fourth-and-1 twice.

Vavae Malepeai's fumble in the first quarter came at the goal line, Slovis' interception came in the red zone as well, Stephen Carr was stuffed on fourth-and-1 inside the ASU 10-yard line and Markese Stepp's fumble in the fourth quarter came at the ASU 23.

Harrell emphasized Tuesday that the Trojans were consistently moving the ball -- the problem was simply those errors and missed opportunities.

"We turned the football over and [cost ourselves] points at least three times there, and the fourth one we're driving -- we weren't in the scoring area but we're driving to get there. So we've got to take care of the football. We had moved the football all day, so I was confident that we could continue to do that. It just came down to taking care of the football and finding a way to get in the end zone," he said. "I think the thing I was most proud about is I don't think there was any panic from everything I heard from the coaches that were down on the sideline -- yeah we're frustrated, we should have more points than that, but the positive was we moved the ball well all day and just every time we got down there turned the ball over. Or once we went for it on fourth down from the 5 and don't get it, there's more points off the board. So I think everyone understood, if we get the ball we'll move it because that's what we've done the entire night. We just have to finish drives, we have to do a better job of finishing drives and fortunately we found a way to finish the two that we had to."

Another aspect of the offense that stood out Saturday was that USC ran 95 plays, which was well above its usual pace last season.

That was actually the expectation when Harrell arrived, that the Trojans would rank among the national leaders in pace of play and plays per game, but it largely didn't materialize. They had four games of at least 80 plays last year with a high of 87, but overall the offense averaged 72.2 plays per game overall, per PFF's numbers. That had the Trojans ranked outside the top 50 nationally.

So was Saturday an outlier or a sign of things to come?

"I'd love 95 plays a game, for sure," Harrell said. "The more the better for us. But I thought we did a pretty decent job at times playing with good tempo, and lots of plays are fun and good for us. When we get that many opportunities, like I talked about, with the guys we have, you're going to move the football. If you take care of the football, the other night I think we would have scored a whole lot of points. The more opportunities we get the better for us. At least we like it, and so I think the defense did a good job at times getting them off the field quickly and getting the ball back to us and gave us more shots at it. I don't remember what our average was last year, but yeah, I think that if we can get the play count up in the 80s and 90s that would be very beneficial for us and I think would lead to success."