Scouting Report | USC
Another USC game at Notre Dame Stadium and another interim head coach. Brian Kelly is used to it by now. He’s faced a few of them during his time.
Clay Helton was fired after another disappointing start to the season and replaced with Donte Williams. The Trojans are 2-2 under him, but those wins came against Washington State and Colorado. His squad lost by two scores each to Oregon State and Utah with both games at home.
They are coming off an open week and they needed it to get healthy and get things reorganized. At 3-3, USC is likely trying to simply be bowl eligible and getting a win here would be massive for them in trying to achieve that.
Ranked 53rd in F+, they have talent on the roster. They always do. Developing that talent has been the issue and they’re heading to South Bend with their backs against the wall.
Injuries
They had 21 players out with injuries or who were simply not dressed against Utah. That says a lot about the depth currently.
Edge Drake Jackson was injured vs Utah and did not finish the game. His status for Notre Dame is uncertain.
TE Michael Trigg was injured as well and didn’t finish the game. I don’t believe he’s going to be available for Notre Dame.
QB Jaxson Dart suffered a torn meniscus on September 18. We’ll see if he is back for this game, but if he is, I would expect him to play.
Offense
This side of the ball hasn’t been a problem in the three years under Graham Harrell. They’ve been good, but not elite.
They are currently ranked 28th in F+ and the passing game still puts up big numbers even if efficiency has dipped every year for them with Kedon Slovis at quarterback.
Expected Strengths
It’s an offense that is capable of striking with the big play at any moment. It’s all built around WR Drake London, who has 18 contested catches this season. He’s also caught a ridiculous 13 of 17 deep targets (20+ air yards).
Everything revolves around him. He receives close to 40% of the targets, has almost three times as many catches as their next leading receiver, and they want to get him the ball as much as possible because he can make plays after the catch as well (14 forced missed tackles).
He’s the best receiver Notre Dame will have faced this season.
The line was a huge question mark heading into the season, but they’ve been better than expected. They’re 10th in sack rate and have given up only 7 sacks all season. A 22.6% pressure rate is very good, but they’ve also faced some weaker pass rushing teams to start the season.
Isaiah Foskey will be the best edge rusher they’ve gone up against by far.
Potential Weaknesses
They are 86th in red zone touchdown efficiency. They can’t run the ball when they have to run it and that puts a lot of pressure on Slovis. He’s only 2 of 11 inside the 10-yard line.
They’ve turned the ball over too much. They’ve done it 11 times (96th).
Slovis is only completing 45.8% of his passes on 3rd down. Both of Dart’s picks against Washington State came on 3rd down.
The big issue with their offense this year is that they haven’t found a number two to compliment London in the passing game, which is much different than the group they brought to Notre Dame in 2019.
Scheme
Everyone knows that Harrell is from the Mike Leach coaching tree and he runs a version of the Air Raid. They are a 60% pass team and are spread out most of the time with mostly 11 personnel (one back, one tight end).
A good portion of their runs are inside zone and it’s them trying to take advantage of numbers in the box. Teams don’t blitz Air Raid teams very often and I don’t see that being the case this weekend. Stanford blitzed 7 of 45 drop backs and had a lot of success (only 5.3 yards per attempt).
Marcus Freeman has experience coaching against the Air Raid. SMU runs it and Cincinnati rushed three or four a lot, only blitzing on six of 53 drop backs. It was clearly the right call as Cincinnati held SMU to 3.41 YPP, by far their lowest average of the season.
Notre Dame is probably going to be in nickel and dime quite a bit against USC.
Key Players
WR Drake London - Second in the country in receptions of 20 yards or more (16). Former basketball player and a jump ball nightmare in single coverage.
RB Keontay Ingram - 5.7 yards per carry for the Texas transfer. Averages just over 12 carries per game.
QB Kedon Slovis - His completion percentage, YPA, and efficiency rating have dipped every year since 2019. He’s still accurate and throws a nice deep ball, but he hasn’t been as sharp this season.
QB Jaxson Dart - Threw for 391 and 4 touchdowns vs Wazzu. He’s more of a running threat than Slovis and USC fans are desperate to see more of him on the field.
Key for Notre Dame
Don’t let London beat you
If it feels like this is the same thing I write every week, it’s because most of these teams have one dominant player that they rely on. Purdue had one in David Bell and he just took down Iowa pretty much by himself. Notre Dame held him to only 9.1 yards per reception and it’s a big reason why they won that game.
London had 20 targets against Utah and caught 16 of them, but only two targets were deep because Utah took that away.
How Notre Dame played USC’s Michael Pittman in 2019 is how I expect them to play against London in this game.
Defense
USC’s defense is bad. Really bad. They are 89th in F+ and 105th in yards per play. It’s the worst defense on paper that the Irish have faced in 2021 and several players have underachieved for them.
Expected Strengths
Despite not having a great pass rush and struggling with pass defense, the Trojans find themselves 28th in 3rd down defense. A lot of that has been them dominating the bad offenses they faced (San Jose State and Colorado were a combined 4 of 24), but Notre Dame has been bad on 3rd down all season. Until we see Notre Dame execute much better on 3rd down, this is going to be a concern.
Edge defender Drake Jackson hasn’t dominated, but he’s still a very good player. He’s the best one in their front seven.
Potential Weaknesses
They struggle to stop the run. They are 92nd in average line yards and are giving 5.15 YPC on 1st down.
They are 112th in Stuff Rate. Teams routinely get positive runs against them.
They have been shockingly bad at getting after the passer too. They are 101st in sack rate and only have 10 sacks on the year. Half of those came against Colorado (124th in sack rate).
They are 100th in receptions allowed of 20 yards or more, 110th in YPA against, and 109th in pass efficiency. The secondary has plenty of blue-chip recruits, but they haven’t played well at all.
They are 124th in tackles for loss per game and their Havoc Rate is only 12.7% Havoc Rate. Causing havoc was supposed to be what defensive coordinator Todd Orlando was going to bring to their defense. They are 113th in passes defended.
They’re 118th in red zone efficiency and one of the worst tackling teams in the country. I think you get the point. They look poorly coached.
LB Raymond Scott has one of the worst coverage grades in the country according to PFF. He plays Rover for them and that’s someone Notre Dame will want to target, especially if Michael Mayer is back healthy.
Nickel Greg Johnson is allowing 64.5% completions and has missed way too many tackles.
Mike linebacker Kana’i Mauga has given up a perfect passer rating against him.
S Isaiah Pola-Mao is having a down season and the coaching staff has admitted he has lost confidence.
There will be matchups Notre Dame can take advantage of in this game.
Scheme
4-2-5 is their base and they play Dime on 3rd downs quite a bit. Orlando calls a good amount of man coverage.
He’s known as a heavy blitz guy, but they’ve moved away from that iin their last two games. The most likely reason was that they had to back off because they blitzed quarterbacks on over 50% of drop backs in the first four weeks of the season. In the last two, against Colorado and Utah, that dropped all the way to 12.3%.
I think Notre Dame has to prepare for the pressures with their protection, but with how much USC has struggled in all facets, this may be Orlando going in the direction that Notre Dame’s 2016 defense went after Brian VanGorder was fired. They may play conservative simply to not give up the big play as much.
Key Players
Edge Drake Jackson - 11 of his 16 pressures came against Oregon State and Colorado. He’s a streaky player. When he’s on, he’s tough to block.
DL Tuli Tuipulotu -He’s been good for them and lines as an edge and as a 3-tech. One of the lone bright spots.
LB Kana’i Mauga - Leads the team in tackles, but also in missed tackles.
Key for Notre Dame
Make them tackle
If there ever was a matchup to take advantage of the quick game, this would be it.
They have so many guys who have tackled poorly that it would be smart to test those players as often as possible. Some of that is with the running game and some of that has to involve getting Notre Dame’s skill players in space and forcing USC to make one on one tackles.
Special Teams
K Parker Lewis apparently can’t lose. He’s 10 of 11 on field goals this season.
P Ben Griffiths is 20th in the country in punting average.
It’s surprising that they haven’t found anyone to make a big impact with their return teams, but they have covered kicks well this season.
Overview
USC has an offense that can keep them in games and a wide receiver that can be spectacular, but the defense is near the bottom of the Pac-12 and they don’t exactly play great defense in that conference.
This is a game where Notre Dame’s offense might find some stability simply because USC’s defense is so volatile.