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USC’s comeback against Notre Dame falls…

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USC’s comeback against Notre Dame falls painfully short

Two long interception returns for touchdowns in the final four minutes seal a Fighting Irish victory over the Trojans that was much closer than the 49-35 final score at the Coliseum

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By | levans@scng.com
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Quarterback Riley Leonard #13 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish dives over cornerback Jacobe Covington #14 of the USC Trojans for the first down in the first half of a NCAA football game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 30, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

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LOS ANGELES — The roars reverberated around a weary Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum come the fourth quarter, a salute to a USC football program that was flawed and fragile but always fearless.

“Let’s go, Tro-jans! Let’s go, Tro-jans! Let’s go, Tro-jans!”

Pride came, outpouring like it never quite had before in 2024. The Trojans’ backs had been against the wall on their home turf from kickoff: heroic running back Woody Marks was sidelined, and their run defense was bludgeoned, and quarterback Jayden Maiava had seemingly used up every drop of juice in his right arm.

And yet here this confounding program hung, improbably, against fifth-ranked Notre Dame, a touchdown shy of a tie-game with four minutes to go.

Nobody who’d watched this USC team, head coach Lincoln Riley asserted in the hours to come, could deny their heart. Nobody could deny their soul. Nobody could say they didn’t lay everything they had on the line, for weeks and months, for the 60 minutes that elapsed Saturday.

But gut and guile could only go so far, as most everything that could go wrong did go wrong in those final four minutes, the Trojans’ rivalry hopes collapsing late in a 49-35 loss to Notre Dame that bookended this Greek tragedy of a football season.

“Yeah,” Riley said in his opening comments postgame, with the muted emotion of someone delivering a eulogy. “Just an excruciating loss.”

They’d made massive strides on the defensive side of the ball. They’d been in position to strike in every fourth quarter this season. Yet by the time players trudged off the turf Saturday, USC’s 2024 record closed at an ugly 6-6, a step back from a disastrous 2023 follow-up to Riley’s first year and a stark result that’ll lead to a complicated offseason.

At times, on Saturday afternoon, USC (6-6, 4-5 Big Ten) looked both outmatched in talent at the line of scrimmage and – to reference their head coach’s rhetoric – a few plays away from competing with the best of the best nationally, a complex reality through which to evaluate their status three years into Riley’s reign.

Postgame, when asked what gave him faith in the program’s direction to compete for championships, Riley largely deflected the question.

“I can sit up here for an hour and talk about the things that I know are happening within this program,” Riley said. “I could rattle off all the stats, I could show you facilities, I could show you recruiting – I mean, I can show you the staff. I can go on about that for an hour. I just don’t think that it’s the appropriate time right now.”

Right now, indeed, his players were stuck processing the emotions from a last-minute stretch that was as much a gut-punch as any other collapse in 2024, the pain etched into the furrow of quarterback Jayden Maiava’s eyebrows.

By the start of the fourth quarter, Notre Dame seemed poised to slam the door and wave a gleeful goodbye on a bus ride out of the Coliseum, up two touchdowns on USC. They ran for 258 yards and three touchdowns on 36 carries, Riley saying USC’s defense simply “didn’t do a good enough job against the run,” and USC’s home crowd was silent.

But D’Anton Lynn’s unit came up with a pair of timely stops, helped by sacks from true-freshman edge Kameryn Fountain and senior defensive end Jamil Muhammad, and Maiava connected with receiver Ja’Kobi Lane in the end zone to narrow Notre Dame’s lead to a score. Again, Maiava marched the Trojans downfield deep into Notre Dame territory, poised to strike for an improbable tie.

With a first-and-10 on Notre Dame’s 21-yard-line, though, Maiava pulled back a play-action, fearless as ever in testing one of the toughest secondaries in the country. Star running back Marks exited with an injury in the first quarter and didn’t return. USC’s offense had become heliocentric around Maiava, hinging on his ability to lob deep balls to his playmakers.

Kyron Hudson found a sliver of daylight, streaking deep. But the two, Riley reflected postgame, “weren’t quite on the same page.”

Maiava went back-shoulder with the throw. Hudson stumbled, unable to come back to the ball. And Notre Dame’s Christian Gray intercepted Maiava’s toss, then streaked down the left sideline with nobody in cardinal-and-gold in his way, shutting down USC’s comeback bid in one fell swoop with a 99-yard touchdown return.

Maiava stumbled to the sideline in sheer despair, offensive lineman Amos Talalele offering a steadying arm of support around the quarterback’s waist. Not two minutes later, a last-gasp heave from the 13-yard line was picked off again, this one returned for a 100-yard touchdown by Notre Dame’s Xavier Watts for an improbably gut-wrenching sequence to bury USC’s rivalry hopes.

It was “a lot to learn from, for sure,” Maiava mumbled postgame, asked what he’d learned about himself after three games as USC’s starter. He’d let the team down, he felt. Particularly the seniors.

But Riley cut in before reporters could move to a different question.

“Nah, you were a big part of the reason why we had a chance to win that game,” Riley told Maiava directly, at the postgame podium. “So make sure you remember that, too.”

Indeed, Maiava authored a virtuoso performance, finishing 27 of 49 for 360 yards and five total touchdowns. He played from behind for much of the afternoon – leading a tour-de-force 28-second touchdown drive before halftime, Superman-leaping into the end zone in the third quarter on a keeper to tie the game. He gave a host of receivers chances to make plays, with a 133-yard effort from budding star Makai Lemon and three touchdowns from Lane.

But too much was placed on Maiava’s right arm Saturday, between Notre Dame’s overwhelming ground game and Marks’ absence, and this USC team found themselves in the same place they’d always been: a few plays away from glory.

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