The University of Southern California is a great school and is well known for their sports teams such as volleyball and football. Since football is the biggest sport in the country, USC has put a lot of emphasis on attaining very good players. It has paid off in the past when they were able to acquire players such as JuJu Smith-Schuster and a line up of outstanding quarterbacks such as Carson Palmer, Mat Leinart, and Mark Sanchez. Even with Sanchez’s questionable NFL career he was the star player at USC. Just recently, Quarterback Sam Darnold played in the 2017-18 season for USC and was drafted as the starting quarterback for the New York Jets. 

The University of Southern California isn’t just known for its players but also for its coaching staff. USC has had many different coaches in the past decade including Clay Helton, who won USC a conference title in the 2017 season, but no coach ever lived up to the legacy of Pete Carroll. Pete Carroll was with USC for the 2002-2009 seasons. He was the best coach in USC history and won a National Championship and 6 bowl games with them. Even though he started his USC career with a rough start (6-6 record), he led USC to be one of the most successful NCAA teams ever. 

After Pete Carroll left to coach the National football team, the Seattle Seahawks, USC’s greatness came crashing down. After acquiring head coach Lane Kiffin, USC went three seasons without winning a bowl game or a conference title. After the 2012 season, USC blew threw three head coaches, one of them being Steve Sarkisian who is now the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Alabama. USC finally landed on Clay Helton who still has not fulfilled USC’s expectations, and has only won one conference title with them. Hopefully, this year USC will be able to live up to their 2002-2009 seasons and come out with at least a conference title or bowl game. They sure seem to be on their way too, after beating Arizona in a close game (34-30). This game and their last game against the Sun Devils secured their spot in the top 20. 

In the Arizona game, USC’s defensive linemen were the players of the game. They were able to stop most of Arizona’s run plays and made huge sacks on 3rd downs. SC’s running backs, Malepeai and Carr, had multiple run plays that brought their offense forward. The quarterback, Kedon Slovis, was not on top of his passing game, which did bring down the score a bit. USC will have to step up their passing game on both defense and offense if they want to once again become a formidable opponent to higher teams like Alabama and UCLA.