USC vs Arizona Report Card 2016: Grading the Trojan Defense

USC vs Arizona featured a Trojan defense which looked vulnerable early, but forced key turnovers to keep the Wildcats in check.

Facing yet another spread attack, USC’s defense found their footing against Arizona and helped secure the 48-14 victory in Tucson.

The Trojans held the Wildcats to a season low of 4.9 yards per play and their second lowest total yardage mark of the season with just 343 yards on the day.

Forcing four turnovers on the day, USC’s defense gave the offense a short field on two critical first half drives to get the blowout rolling.

SEE ALSO: Grading the Trojan Offense vs Arizona

Here’s how each defensive unit graded out against the Wildcats:

The Trojan defensive line wasn’t at their most disruptive against Arizona after a particularly bright performance against Colorado.

That’s not to say they put too many feet wrong, holding the Wildcat rushing attack to just modest gains. In fact, Arizona had little real success on the ground outside of quarterback Khalil Tate’s scrambling outside and one long Nick Wilson run.

Rasheem Green, Malik Dorton, and Josh Fatu combined for three tackles between them.

Stevie Tu’ikolivatu, who did not start in favor of Fatu, led all linemen with three tackles but had a face mask penalty called against him giving Arizona a first down at the goal line, but the Wildcats failed to score.

USC’s early troubles against Arizona largely came via the running quarterback, Tate, who was able to get by Porter Gustin on the outside on multiple occasions. The outside linebacker struggled to keep contain and simply wasn’t quick enough to recover as Tate slipped by for chunk yardage.

Still, Gustin stretched to make an important tackle on Tate at the goal line to prevent a touchdown in the second quarter while the Wildcats were still looking to make the game competitive.

Besides Gustin, other linebackers did enough to keep Arizona’s offense at bay.

Michael Hutchings had four tackles, second best on the team and burst through for one of USC’s two sacks on the day. Connor Murphy recovered a fumble, Jabari Ruffin had a tackle for loss and a blocked kick, while Cameron Smith’s only statistical contribution was dropping Wilson for a loss on Arizona’s first drive.

Though Uchenna Nwosu was held without a tackle, he did contribute in the pass rush.

There are two sides to every story, and when it comes to Tate’s passing production against USC that’s certainly the case. The freshman quarterback didn’t have a great day throwing the ball, but the Trojan secondary played their part in rendering Arizona’s passing offense useless.

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Tate finished with just 58 yards through the air and Wildcat receivers Nate Phillips and Samaje Grant had just three catches each.

At safety, USC’s Chris Hawkins led all Trojans with five tackles and forced the fumble on Tate to set up a touchdown. Adoree’ Jackson recovered said fumble and returned it 26 yards.

Leon McQuay III had a sack and made a stop on third and goal at the three. Iman Marshall and Ajene Harris each had an interception while Ykili Ross and Jack Jones both broke up a pass.

There’s not much else you could ask of the secondary. Though it’s doubtful Marvell Tell III will forget being stiff armed by Tate so thoroughly anytime soon.

USC’s defense did it’s job against Arizona, even though Tate’s legs kept it interesting in the early going.

When it came down to it though, the Trojans stiffened and didn’t concede a meaningful point after the Wildcats first touchdown — which even then was aided by two 15-yard penalties, one on special teams and another on Marshall for pass interference.

Since looking out of their depth against Alabama, Stanford and Utah, Clancy Pendergast’s defense has stepped up to handle every offense put in front of them.