On Saturday, USC football picked up its second consecutive victory to open the season, defeating Georgia Southern 59-20. It was not always pretty for the Trojans, but they did more than enough to pick up the victory and improve to 2-0.
While not as big of a margin as last week, the game again in hand for the Trojans by the third quarter. Hence, we again got to see USC’s backups get a bit of playing time.
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Who shined in the matchup, and who struggled? Here are some positives and negatives from the game:
Positive: Makai Lemon
Lemon’s stat line Saturday: four receptions for 158 yards and two touchdowns. Perhaps the wildest part was that he did it all in the first quarter. Lemon had two touchdown receptions of over 60 yards, on both of which the majority of the yardage came after the catch. Asking Sun Belt defenders to try and tackle him in the open field is simply unfair.
Positive: Ja’Kobi Lane
Lane didn’t put up quite the massive numbers that Lemon did, but his first quarter touchdown was legitimately one of the best catches that you have ever seen. The Trojans may very well have the best receiver duo in the country with these two.
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Positive: Waymond Jordan
Jordan averaged more than 10 yards per carry, rushing for 167 yards and a touchdown. After the game, the junior college transfer got sword honors, leading the Trojan Marching Band in “Conquest” for the first time in his USC career.
Positive: Anthony Lucas
Entering Saturday’s game, the senior defensive lineman had yet to record a sack in his college football career across USC and Texas A&M. Against Georgia Southern, he had two.
Negative: Secondary breakdowns
Once again, the USC secondary allowed multiple big plays in the passing game, including two touchdowns of more than 20 yards. This is something that the Trojans need to clean up soon, or Big Ten opponents will be quick to exploit it.
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Negative: Penalites
In a rather ironic twist, USC played against a Clay Helton-coached team and were the less disciplined group. The Trojans committed five penalties for 65 yards. This is another issue that USC will need to fix before the start of Big Ten play, or it will come back to bite them at a bad time.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC football defeats Georgia Southern 59-20—positives and negatives
