Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 18, 2025 35 GAME PREVIEW: SOUTHERN CAL SOUTHERN CAL RUNNING GAME VS. NOTRE DAME RUN DEFENSE It always seems to be the same old song and dance with the Southern Cal running game for as long as Lincoln Riley has been the head coach there. The Trojans are really effective when they keep the ball on the ground, as evidenced by a 6.41 team-wide yards per carry average through five games, but the total output doesn't match the efficiency metric. For instance, that number of 6.41 ranked fifth in the FBS through Week 6. But the team's rushing yards per game figure of 227 ranked 17th nationally. At least that's not as much of a disparity as the Trojans had in 2024. Last year, they were 21st in yards per carry at 5.16 but 82nd in yards per game with 145.31. There has been more of a steady commitment to running the rock with Hutchinson Community College transfer Waymond Jordan. He only got five carries in the season opener, but in the four games after that he had anywhere between 16 and 20 carries. For the season through five games, Jordan paced Southern Cal in the rushing department with 77 carries for 537 yards and 5 touchdowns. Southern Cal has an experienced runner to spell Jordan as a backup, too, in graduate student Eli Sanders, who is at his third FBS school by way of Iowa State and New Mexico. He had a 1,000-yard season as a Lobo last year and chipped in with 47 carries for 264 yards and 2 touchdowns through five games this season. Notre Dame is decent against the run but far from perfect, sitting 47th in the country in yards against per rushing attempt (3.63) and 43rd in yards against per game (117.2) through Week 6. Because Southern Cal has a wild card in freshman King Miller, who has a 75-yard touchdown to his name this season, to go along with an established one-two punch, we're giving the Trojans a slight edge in this department. Advantage: Southern Cal SOUTHERN CAL PASSING GAME VS. NOTRE DAME PASS DEFENSE Riley's career-long bread and butter hasn't changed all these years down the line. His teams love to throw the ball. It isn't always the volume that stands out, though. That's typically reserved for when Riley feels pressed to throw his way back into games, as evidenced by a season-high 43 pass- ing attempts, at that time, in an eventual 34-32 loss to Illinois. Prior to that defeat, though, South- ern Cal hadn't attempted more than 30 passes in a single game this season. Keeping that in mind, the five-game output was quite staggering. Through their first handful of games, the Trojans ranked third in college football in both yards per passing attempt (11.0) and passing yards per game (338). When Riley gets his hands on a quarterback who fits his system, his offenses tend to be lights-out. And that's what we're currently witnessing in redshirt junior Jayden Maiava's second season in Los Angeles. Through five games, Maiava completed 70.5 percent of his pass attempts for 317.4 yards per game, second in the nation through Week 6, with 11 touchdowns and just 1 interception. There were only eight quarterbacks with a pass efficiency rat- ing better than that of Notre Dame redshirt fresh- man CJ Carr's 177.81 as of Week 6, and Maiava was one of them with a mark of 191.08. It helps when there is such an expansive array of pass catchers to distribute the ball to. Southern Cal's group is led by 5-foot-11 shifty junior speed- ster Makai Lemon, who had 35 catches for 589 yards and 5 touchdowns in the first five games of the season. Outside of Lemon, though, Southern Cal only had three other players with 10 or more catches at that time, and two of them were tight ends. The Trojans also get the running backs involved in the pass game, with Waymond Jordan and Eli Sand- On PaPer Junior wide receiver Ja'Kobi Lane had 13 receptions for 278 yards (21.4 yards per catch) and 1 touch- down through five games. PHOTO COURTESY SOUTHERN CAL ATHLETICS