USC vs. Oregon State: College football betting picks, odds and analysis
Change can be a good thing. Just ask the USC Trojans. Not only did the first game without Clay Helton go extremely well, freshman QB Jaxson Dart became the man of the hour in relief of Kedon Slovis.
As the Trojans go into Saturday’s game with Oregon State, however, it looks like Slovis will be back behind center and Dart may not even be dressed, as both USC quarterbacks battle injuries. Dart missed practice on Tuesday and Wednesday, but Slovis was back taking first-team reps.
The never-ending saga for this program just keeps on going.
Oregon State Beavers at USC Trojans (-11, 62.5)
Interim head coach Donte Williams says that we’ll all find out the starting QB on Saturday. It would seem that the Trojans will turn once again to Slovis in this game, as the junior from Scottsdale shakes off the neck injury that knocked him out of last week’s game. Slovis was injured during the second offensive series for the Trojans after completing one pass for eight yards. The offense really took off with Dart, who threw for 391 yards and was USC’s leading rusher with 32 yards on six carries.
The play-calling from Graham Harrell was anything but balanced. USC threw 48 times in the game and ran the ball just 25 times, but it made sense given that the ball carriers managed 1.9 yards per attempt. It was a better idea to throw to Drake London, who had 13 catches for 170 yards.
We’ll see if Slovis can get back into rhythm against an Oregon State team stepping up in class after home games against Hawaii and Idaho. The Beavers lost 30-21 on the road at Purdue in Week 1 and then enjoyed some home cooking with 87 points in the two home victories.
Sophomore quarterback Chance Nolan looks like a promising player for the Beavers with 11 touchdowns against just two interceptions out of his 155 pass attempts. He has completed over 70 percent of his throws this season and was the better of the two quarterbacks against Purdue to seize hold of the job.
USC quarterback Kedon Slovis looked healthy at practice Tuesday while Jaxson Dart was held out and is ‘day to day’ with a knee injury.
Oregon State got the ground game going against Hawaii and Idaho with 6.1 yards per carry, but against the Boilermakers, the Beavers barely mustered three yards per carry.
In seven games last season, Oregon State allowed almost 6.5 yards per play. Defense isn’t a strong suit for either one of these teams and the weather forecast looks much better in Los Angeles than it was in Pullman for last week’s game, where the under was the pick and it narrowly held on.
This week, with Harrell looking to throw the ball all over the yard and Oregon State likely forced into doing the same, look for points at the Coliseum.
Pick: Over 62.5
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