8:00 PM EST, FS1 – Line: Iowa -1.5, Over/Under: 52.5
A classic Big Ten/Pac-12 matchup is next in line as Bowl Season continues its march, as the No. 22 Southern California Trojans meet the No. 16 Iowa Hawkeyes in the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl from SDCCU Stadium in San Diego, California. After suffering their first losing season since 2000, it wasn’t necessarily a surprise that Southern California (8-4, 7-2 in Pac-12) managed to right the ship and return to their winning ways, but it’s considered a MAJOR coup that the man responsible for overseeing their previous collapse is still in charge at this juncture. Simply put, if there was a Head Coach on a hotter seat in College Football than Clay Helton, we’d like you to point them out, for throughout this season it felt more like when he’d be relieved of his post rather than if it would happen. However, there were certainly factors that prolonged his stay of execution, most notably the fact that Athletic Department at Southern Cal was undergoing a season-long renovation, leaving his fate up in the air while the school went through a lengthy process in hiring a new Athletic Director. The first shoe dropped shortly before the end of the Regular Season, with the Trojans hiring Mike Bohn, previously of Cincinnati (2014-2019) and Colorado (2005-2013), as their new Athletic Director, with the second shoe coming down in short order, as Bohn, to the surprise of many, decided to retain Helton’s services for another year. While this could certainly be a case of a new administrator not looking to make seismic changes immediately after his arrival, there is also a strong argument that Helton deserved another year with the school, particularly given the circumstances that his team endured in 2019. How many teams are capable of vying for a place in the Pac-12 Championship Game after not one, not, two, but three different Quarterbacks have started for them? That’s what USC did this year, turning to True Freshman, Kedon Slovis (71.8%, 3,242 YDS, 9.0 Y/A, 28 TD, 9 INT), after his Sophomore Predecessor, J.T. Daniles (73.5%, 215 YDS, 6.3 Y/A, 1 TD, 1 INT), tore his ACL in the latter stages of the season opener. Of course, Slovis got hurt too, with the ball being handed to Matt Fink (65.7%, 574 YDS, 8.2 Y/A, 4 TD, 4 INT), a Junior who very nearly transferred away from the program altogether, instead spearheading the Trojans’ signature 30-23 victory over South Division Champion and No. 10 Utah, which would be the only defeat handed to the Utes in the Regular Season. Say what you will about the man, but Helton has done a tremendous job of rebuilding the recruiting base at a school that had rarely struggled in that area in the past, for it’s a legitimate debate as to where this team would have ended up had they not been forced to play Musical Chairs under Center so early in the term. His troops managed to overcome an early 3-3 start to win five of their final six games, in which the Offense took off behind the return of a healthy Slovis. The Frosh guided the new-look Air-Raid Attack to averages of 37.3 Points and a staggering 495.5 Total Yards, completing a stellar 70.4% of his Attempts for an average of 375.8 Yards on a healthy 9.02 Yards per Attempt, with Twenty-One Touchdowns in comparison to Five Interceptions during that stretch, racking up Four Touchdowns in each of the last three contests. The Season Finale against struggling UCLA saw the Offense’s finest performance yet, amassing a season-high 643 Total Yards and Thirty-Four First Downs, with Slovis deftly completing 37-of-47 Passes for 515 Yards and Four Touchdowns in the 52-35 victory. The hosts featured four different Players with 100 Receiving Yards, including Drake London (35 REC, 533 YDS, 15.2 Y/R, 4 TD), Amon-Ra St. Brown (68 REC, 879 YDS, 12.9 Y/R, 6 TD), Tyler Vaughns (68 REC, 858 YDS, 12.6 Y/R, 6 TD), and Michael Pittman Jr. (95 REC, 1,222 YDS, 12.9 Y/R, 11 TD), who together combined for Thirty-Five Receptions, 480 Yards, and Four Touchdowns. Many have wondered what the Air-Raid Offense, imported by Offensive Coordinator and former Texas Tech Quarterback, Graham Harrell, would look like with the high-quality athletes that Southern California has routinely fielded for decades now, and the results have been very promising; USC owns the fifth-most prolific Passing Attack in the country (335.9 Y/G), and they’ve managed to do so largely with a True Freshman at Quarterback. Again, the case for keeping Helton in power becomes stronger and stronger the more that its debated. Remember that this not only a guy who has saved his job not once, but twice, and isn’t that far removed from leading the Trojans to back-to-back 10-Win Campaigns in 2016 and 2017. A win tonight would bring his record with the school to a rather respectable 41-21 (.661), and may just springboard USC into the next successful era of college football if only Bohn and the university continue to show some patience…
Meanwhile, for the eighteenth time in the past twenty-one years, Iowa (9-3, 6-3 in Big 10) is in a Bowl, with Kirk Ferentz looking to extend his record to 9-8 in postseason contests. One of the longest-tenured Head Coaches in College Football, Ferentz has gone 161-104 (.608) since arriving in Iowa City back in 1999, a period in which the Hawkeyes have registered five 10-Win Campaigns, all the while becoming one of the most consistent programs in the country. When you think of Iowa you think of Ferentz, and when you think about the 64-Year Old, you associate his teams being modeled in his image: tough, consistent, and understatedly competitive. Like their opponent tonight, the Hawkeyes ended the season in strong fashion, overcoming a bit of a midseason swoon to win five of their final six games, with their only defeat coming on the road at West Division Champion Wisconsin (22-24). This is a team that routinely found themselves in narrow affairs, constantly straddling that fine line between glory and failure, though managing to succeed more often than not. Of their twelve games in 2019, seven of them came by seven points or fewer, including three of their final five victories, and each of their three losses. In fact, that triumvirate of defeats came by a combined fourteen points, or in other words an average differential of 4.7 Points per Game. So why hasn’t the media shown these guys more love this season, you ask? Well, apart from being located in the middle of nowhere (relax, we jest Iowans), they came up short in nearly all of their big tests this season, with their three defeats coming at the hands of No. 19 Michigan (3-10), No. 10 Penn State (12-17), and No. 16 Wisconsin (22-24), in which their Offense was quite frankly hard to watch. With that said, Ferentz did lead his troops to an impressive 23-9 upset of previously unbeaten, No. 7 Minnesota, grinding their way to a commanding 20-6 lead at Halftime. Though the Golden Gophers would make things interesting in the Second Half, the Hawkeyes were able to feed off their rabid faithful at Kinnick Stadium staving off the visitor’s final attempt to draw even. The hosts controlled the game despite being outgained 290-431, rushing for 117 Yards on Thirty-One Carries, led by freshman Tailback, Tyler Goodson (116 CAR, 590 YDS, 5.1 Y/C, 4 TD), who totaled Ninety-Four Yards and a Touchdown on just Thirteen Attempts. Though he hasn’t been as sharp as he has in his previous two season as the Starting Quarterback, Nathan Stanley (58.9%, 2,738 YDS, 7.4 Y/A, 14 TD, 7 INT) has certainly enjoyed his moments in his final season at Iowa, completing 14-of-23 Passes for 173 Yards and a pair of Touchdowns against Minnesota, the first to Redshirt Freshman Receiver, Nico Ragaini (44 REC, 385 YDS, 8.8 Y/R, 2 TD), and the last to Junior Wideout, Ihmir Smith-Marsette (42 REC, 676 YDS, 16.1 Y/R, 4 TD). Typically, when a team is so successful in close games, it’s due to their Defense continuing to grant their teammates on the opposite side of the football every opportunity to win the day, and Iowa has been no different, yielding a paltry 13.2 Points Per Game (5th Overall) on just 304.6 Total Yards, including 183.7 Yards against the Pass (10th Overall) and another 120.9 Yards versus the Run. This unit has been particularly hard on opposing Quarterbacks, permitting a Completion Percentage of 57.9%, while racking up nearly as many Interceptions (11) as Touchdowns allowed (12). Only four Quarterbacks have managed to throw more than One Touchdown against, with just three mustering 300 or more Yards. Headlining this group is Junior Defensive End, A.J. Epenesa (45 TKL, 12.5 TFL, 9.0 SK, 3 FF, 3 PD), who despite not being quite as prolific as he was last season, remained a terror in the trenches with 12.5 Tackles for Loss and Nine Sacks. At 6-6, 280 lbs this guy is an old-school Defensive Lineman, equally effective against both the Run and the Pass, while offering the positional versatility that teams crave at the professional level. We should expect his name to be called rather early come the 2020 NFL Draft, for outside of All-American and Heisman Finalist, Chase Young, there isn’t a better prospect at his position, should he decide to declare, of course. With the Trojans expected to spread them out and attack vertically, this matchup will be a case of strength versus strength, which could vault Epenesa even further up the Draft board come Spring.