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ANN ARBOR — The window was near-closed, Michigan’s Makari Paige closed, quickly, but Miller Moss was a man without fear. Despite the hits. Despite the bruises. Despite the ferocity with which he was slammed to the turf the very previous play. He wound up and fired a third-and-16 rope to trusted 6-foot-4 receiver Ja’Kobi Lane, and time slowed with the liftoff of Lane’s lanky limbs.
The USC sophomore pulled it down to Earth, a fourth-quarter go-ahead touchdown that promised Big Ten glory, and held his arms horizontal with palms up to the suddenly-mute swath of yellow at the Big House.
How about that?
For a moment in an eventual 27-24 loss, they were poised for one of the greatest wins in recent USC history. Despite a pulverized offensive line. Despite a third-quarter momentum-killing pick-six from Miller Moss. Despite a run defense gashed by big plays.
“I thought we put ourselves in position,” USC head coach Lincoln Riley told reporters postgame. “But you’ve got to finish it.”
They didn’t collapse. But they couldn’t finish it. The beginning of a Big Ten era ended the only way it could have, with war in the trenches, the Michigan showdown capping off with a fourth-and-1 try from the Wolverines with around 40 seconds left. And linebacker Mason Cobb arrived with fury, smothering dogged Michigan back Kalel Mullings. But his tree-trunk legs motored, and the ball had already crossed the plane.
Cobb shoved someone, a few seconds later. It didn’t matter. A show of physicality, too late.
Eleventh-ranked USC (2-1, 0-1 Big Ten) had gone toe-to-toe with the defending national champs – mano-y-mano, as linebacker Easton Mascarenas-Arnold put it postgame – a reality that, theoretically, should have inspired confidence in the program’s continued ascent. They were disappointed, as Riley said postgame, “but not defeated.” And yet the loss stung with the ghosts of plays that could have been made, of opportunities left on the table, against an 18th-ranked Michigan program that had virtually no hope of passing the ball and somehow won a football game with exactly 32 passing yards.
“I don’t think it was, they wanted it more than us,” Mascarenas-Arnold said postgame. “It was a four-quarter fight like you saw.”
“But when it comes down to big games like this, you’ve got to execute. And credit to Michigan: they executed better than us.”
It was improbable, to be fair, that USC was even in the ballgame in the first place. They totaled exactly 3 yards of offense in the first half, and entered the break down 14-3 after 53-yard and 41-yard touchdown gashes by Michigan’s Mullings and Donovan Edwards, respectively.
Runs up the gut didn’t work. Downfield tries didn’t work. Screen-play spread-out trickery, especially, didn’t work. The offensive line was so brutal that USC yanked right guard Alani Noa for a stretch and completely re-shuffled their front in the second half, trotting out former right tackle Mason Murphy at left tackle in benching starter Elijah Paige and sending redshirt freshman Tobias Raymond to right tackle for the biggest snaps of his young life. Michigan All-American Will Johnson jumped a route to stun Moss with that third-quarter pick-six to put Michigan up 20-10, and catastrophe continued into the next drive, when Moss was popped by Michigan wrecking ball Josaiah Stewart off the edge and lost a fumble recovered by Michigan’s Kenneth Grant.
But USC played with bleeding heart, red uniforms spilling across turf in this sea of yellow in Ann Arbor. As Stewart motored, running back Woody Marks – who had just broken free for a 65-yard gain earlier on the drive – charged up behind him and knocked the ball back loose, recovering it.
Riley was asked, postgame, about his confidence in his program’s ability to regroup from the loss. The fight, Riley emphasized. He pointed back, later, on a question about Marks’ effort.
“The question earlier about why I believe in the locker room – plays like that,” Riley said.
USC finished off an extended third-quarter drive with a Moss strike to wide-open Auburn transfer Jay Fair, and the defense laced up bootstraps and shut down the Wolverines’ offense for the better part of the second half. Linebacker Eric Gentry continued to play like his 6-foot-6 frame was on fire, forcing a fourth-quarter fumble from Michigan’s Edwards to set up the Moss-to-Lane score. And USC had ample hope.
Hope was fleeting. After another defensive stop, USC seemed poised to grind out the clock, holders of possession with just five minutes left. But they went a quick three-and-out, and two incompletions stopped the clock, and they used just 59 seconds of game time before handing the ball back to Michigan and introducing another round of play-calling questions for Riley.
“I thought I could have been better,” Riley said postgame, asked about the sequence. “I didn’t think I called a very good drive there.”
Three plays later, Mullings churned up the middle and looked wrapped up, only to spin away from a tackle and burst down a seam for a 63-yard gain. With newly-minted Alex Orji at quarterback and the offense struggling with the sheer modern concept of the forward pass, the Wolverines turned back to their Big Ten standby and simply drove USC back into doom as the clock spun. A 1-yard handoff, 8 yards, 2 yards, 3 yards, 2 yards, and then the backbreaker.
Moss finished with 283 yards and three touchdowns but went just 28-of-51 in an uneven performance. Marks ran for 100 yards on 13 carries. Gentry authored a masterclass, with three tackles for loss, a sack, that forced fumble, and 12 total tackles.
It wasn’t enough, and a suddenly-rosy path towards a College Football Playoff grew thick in the fall air in Ann Arbor.
Originally Published: September 21, 2024 at 4:42 p.m.
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Publish date : 2024-09-21 19:42:00
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