USC survives itself against Colorado, wins 21-17

Can the real USC Trojans please stand up?

Sorry to go back to the year 2000 with a reference, but a team like this deserves to have some Marshall Mathers-level of frustrations vented at them for how they have been playing. Even when they win, more questions are asked than answered.

Despite some carelessness with the ball, USC came away with a 21-17 win against No. 21 Colorado. But it should have never been that close.

Turnovers prevented the Trojans from really separating themselves from Colorado, and kept the Buffaloes in the game. Still, the win gives USC its first winning streak of the season – a season that went from hopeful to exasperating in the first four weeks.

The amount of talent that the Trojans have is not indicative of the record that they have rightly earned with suspect play-calling and inconsistent play – a reflection of the up-and-down game against Colorado.

Ball security was an issue.

Despite dominating (we’ll get to that later) the game, four USC turnovers kept the Buffaloes in position to go 3-0 for the first time since they entered the Pac-12 conference in 2011. Fortunately for the Trojans, Colorado could not take advantage of the takeaways, only scoring seven points off the four giveaways.

And Adoree’ Jackson got one of the turnovers on this play.

Heading into the game, Southern California came in ranked No. 89 in the country in turnovers committed per game. They may have been able to survive those miscues today, but they will not be successful if they can’t take care of the ball.

There on studs on this team. Redshirt freshman Sam Darnold threw for 358 yards and three touchdowns, Juju Smith-Schuster had 5 receptions for 113 yards, and USC ran for 181 yards on the ground as a team.

The pieces are all there for USC to be one of the best teams in the country. The Trojans just can’t put it all together for 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, Colorado might have a bit of a quarterback controversy brewing.

After Steven Montez got rocked late in the first half, Sefo Liufau stepped in and took a snap in a live game – his first since facing Michigan in Week 3 of the season.

Liufau finished the half, but didn’t have too many reps before Montez took over in the second half. Liufau completed 2-of-3 passes for 11 yards, and got knocked around himself before taking a seat.

Before Liufau’s injury, he had 768 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions.

The Buffaloes did have a little fun on the day though. Check out this sweet trick play:

Beautiful.

Unfortunately for the Buffs, it wasn’t enough.