USC Football: Trojans' Loaded Offense Will Help Them Contend for 2015 Playoff

SAN DIEGO — Fresh off winning Most Outstanding Offensive Player in No. 24 USC’s 45-42 Holiday Bowl victory Saturday over Nebraska, Trojans quarterback Cody Kessler made it clear he’ll be back for 2015.

“I’m absolutely coming back,” Kessler said in the postgame press conference, though just minutes earlier during the trophy presentation, he mentioned coming back for a national championship next year.

In the meantime, Kessler’s three scores Saturday gave him 39 for the 2014 campaign, tying a single-season record that USC predecessor Matt Barkley set in 2011—even if he didn’t know it.

“What’s awesome is he had no idea [he tied the record],” head coach Steve Sarkisian said.

“The most important thing to me [is] winning games for [teammates],” Kessler elaborated. “If that happens to [mean] breaking a record because that’s what it takes to win a game, then so be it.”

Both individual records and wins should be in great supply for Kessler and USC in 2015. But the quarterback is just one instrumental piece in a veritable offensive machine USC has rolling out of this season and into next.

Offensive lineman Zach Banner probably summed it up best: “Got a lot of young dudes coming back.”

Nowhere is USC’s youth more apparent than on the offensive line. It’s a unit that virtually learned on the job in 2014.

Of the starters in Saturday’s Holiday Bowl, only center Max Tuerk made any career starts prior to this season. Three first-stringers—Damien Mama, Toa Lobendahn and Viane Talamaivao—couldn’t have, because all were high schoolers just a year ago.

From preps to lining up opposite future NFL draft pick Randy Gregory: That’s Lobendahn’s arc in the past year.

“They did a great job,” running back Javorius “Buck” Allen said. “[Offensive line coach Tim] Drevno does a great job with those guys every day.”

Allen took advantage of big holes the line paved in the second half, rushing for 152 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

The redshirt junior running back may not be one of the players back in 2015—he said he’ll weigh his NFL draft decision in the days to come—but his success operating behind that young offensive line bodes well for the future of the Trojans’ ground attack.

Along with Allen, its top rushing weapon, USC may have to replace its leading receiver, Nelson Agholor.

Agholor said, “I’m in no hurry at all,” as far as an NFL draft decision is concerned.

If the Holiday Bowl was his collegiate farewell, he went out in a manner befitting his outstanding career with seven receptions for 90 yards and a touchdown.

He also played defense on Nebraska’s last gasp, Hail Mary attempt as time expired.

Should Sarkisian have to fill Agholor’s void in the passing game, the Trojans’ coach will have options.

Freshman John “JuJu” Smith’s stellar debut season finished with a three-catch, 66-yard night. Tight end Bryce Dixon also had arguably the best game of his young career with four receptions, including a touchdown.

Dixon and Smith could be two parts in a dynamic sophomore triumvirate—if Sarkisian gets his way with Adoree’ Jackson.

“I keep battling [defensive coordinator] Justin Wilcox because I want [Jackson] on offense,” Sarkisian said. “He probably would have scored four touchdowns tonight.”

Sarkisian had to settle for Jackson scoring two. One was a Holiday Bowl-record 98-yard kickoff return, the other a 71-yard catch from Kessler.

Lenny Ignelzi/Associated Press

The coaching staff will have an interesting decision with Jackson in the offseason, but Saturday’s showing gives Sarkisian and Co. plenty to mull over.

As the coaches decide how best to utilize Jackson, the rest of the USC offense already knows what it can build on for 2015—because, as Banner pointed out, they began taking those strides in 2014.

“You’ve got to do your part to the highest level,” he said. “And we learned that as a team over the [course of] the season.”

Quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise cited. Statistics courtesy of the Holiday Bowl.