USC Football: Insider Unpacks How Trojans Have Slipped From Last Year In Critical Stat
Entering the season, the biggest question mark surrounding the USC Trojans football team was how their defense would hold up. It was their Achilles heel last year, and the program knew that it needed to be improved this summer.
Despite the struggles from a season ago, the Trojans did have an excellent turnover ratio on the defensive side of the ball. But even with that, it would be very difficult to duplicate again this year.
Through two games, it seems that is exactly what is happening as the Trojans have one forced one turnover so far.
“USC has one turnover (good) and has forced one turnover (not so good). This is a more normal turnover margin, maybe a little disappointing to the coaches considering the first two games might be the two easiest on the schedule.”
The defense has looked better as a whole through the first two games of the season, but the turnovers aren’t there just yet. Maybe this is a give-and-take situation for USC, with the end result being that they are a stronger unit without the turnovers.
It sounds crazy, but weirder things have happened. But as the year goes on, the Trojans are going to need to figure out ways to create turnovers against stronger opponents.
“It just shows how last year’s turnover margin was kind of an anomaly. Maybe USC will have a breakthrough with Stanford.”
They get another chance to show their improvement this season when they welcome in the Stanford Cardinal this weekend. It should be a good test for the Trojans, even if Stanford isn’t a top-tier team.
USC has a very small, if any, margin for error this season if they want to reach their goal of winning a National Championship. So they can’t take any opponent for granted and need to come into the matchups ready to go.
