LOS ANGELES — Northwestern’s matchup with No. 20 USC could have been a story about redemption. It could have been about defying history and beating a team it’s never beaten before. It could have been about clinching bowl eligibility for the second time in the David Braun era.
All of these possibilities were in sight with the way graduate student quarterback Preston Stone and his offense played in the first quarter.
Very quickly, though, the game became about something else. The Wildcats’ (5-4, 3-3 Big Ten) 38-17 loss to the Trojans (7-2, 5-1 Big Ten) came down to untimely miscues and miscommunications.
“I think this game is a story of two things,” Braun said after the game. “Momentum swings in the second quarter and a poor second half by the ’Cats.”
The first momentum swing came in the second quarter. On USC’s second drive of the night, the ’Cats’ defense forced what looked like a three-and-out. When the Trojan punting unit came onto the field, though, unbeknownst to the visitors, it looked a bit different.
Sam Johnson — the only player on USC’s online roster wearing No. 80 — handles the punting duties, but he didn’t trot out onto the field. Instead, its third-string quarterback, Sam Huard, who typically wears a No. 7 jersey, went out into the punter’s position wearing 80.
When the ball was snapped to him, Huard readied and fired a 10-yard pass to Tanook Hines. The Trojans earned a first down and scored a touchdown five plays later.
It was the first time USC ran a fake punt this season, and Braun said after the game that he thought he had not seen coach Lincoln Riley call a fake punt in years.
Braun also noted that Huard wearing No. 80 did not show up on their roster online or anywhere else, but that the Trojans did legally submit the adjustment. The change was on the gameday roster at the Coliseum.
“The lesson I’ve learned in that for the rest of my career is when we arrive at a facility, we will go over that with a fine-tooth comb and look for any of those potential issues,” Braun said.
Had NU known about the trickery, Braun said the team would’ve been in safe or called a timeout.
Some USC reporters, however, might have been aware of the switch and the potential for a trick play.
“You guys have got to pay attention,” Riley told reporters postgame. “It’s been on there for three weeks, so I’m glad none of y’all put it on Twitter. It was just a well-thought-out thing by several of our staff members.”
To add further insult to injury, the Trojans started that drive with great field position. Braun said he thought there would be a void behind a player in kickoff return coverage, which would be an opportunity to pop the kick up behind that player and cause a scramble.
Freshman punter Nikola Dugandzic hit the ball a bit lighter than desired, and, suddenly, USC got to start its drive on its own 42-yard line.
Over ten minutes after the fake punt, NU faced another inflection point. Attempting to break the 14-point deadlock before halftime, USC quarterback Jayden Maiava dropped back to pass and faced almost instant pressure from junior defensive lineman Michael Kilbane and redshirt junior linebacker Braydon Brus.
The duo forced Maiava to throw the ball off-balance, and the pass found the hands of graduate student defensive lineman Najee Story at the USC 25-yard line. With green grass ahead of him, Story rumbled towards the endzone for what looked like an almost certain pick-six and lead-changing play.
As Story reached for the goal line, though, Maiava went in for a hit, knocking the ball out of his hands and out of the endzone for a touchback.
The Trojans only needed three more plays after regaining possession to add on seven more points. What could have been a seven-point NU lead with minutes remaining in the first half turned into a seven-point USC lead that it never lost.
“We can’t let it affect us, and, ultimately, you could feel the emotion,” Braun said of how the play impacted the sideline. “… We can’t let those emotional swings happen. Those are going to happen in the Big Ten.”
With a break to regroup during the halftime intermission, NU still looked like an affected team.
On the first drive of the second half, the ’Cats faced a 4th-and-3 from just past midfield. Braun said postgame that the plan was to hustle to the line and attempt to force an aggressive USC defensive line to jump offsides.
He added that if it didn’t work, they were fine with taking the delay of game penalty and creating room for graduate student punter Luke Akers. A frustrated-looking Stone, nevertheless, called a timeout that should not have been called, according to Braun.
With Coach2Player — wireless communication to Stone— on his belt, Braun said he should have been clearer with his quarterback.
“It’s a communication from the sideline that it’s a freeze cadence, we’re going through our operation,” Braun said. “He checks the sideline, if we call a play from there, we’re gonna call a play. I’m not gonna put it on Preston. I should have gotten in his earpiece well before the 15 second cut off and told him, ‘Hey man, we’re going to take a delay of game here.’”
Even after burning the timeout, NU still elected to punt down by a touchdown. Braun defended the decision postgame, saying that the ’Cats did not want to get reckless with it against an offense like USC.
The punt pinned the Trojans deep in their own territory, but the hosts marched down the field and dug NU in a 14-point hole. Braun’s squad only tacked on three additional points the rest of the way. With that, USC’s passing attack took care of the rest.
Maiava finished the night with 299 passing yards and two touchdowns. His leading receiver — Makai Lemon — had a career-high 161 receiving yards and matched his career-high in receptions with 11.
“I think we ended up playing on our heels most of the night,” Braun said. “He did a good job of finding open wide receivers. They dialed up a couple of creative plays, whether it be double passes or some hands and go stuff, but then there’s just some flat-out times that we’ve got to do a better job of winning one-on-one matchups and at times finding opportunities to be more aggressive and playing some more man coverage.”
Though Braun was disappointed with the result and second-half performance, NU showed flashes of being able to win tough football games in the first 30 minutes of play.
In desperate search of a sixth win to clinch bowl eligibility, the next task is putting together a whole performance against No. 21 Michigan in a week.
“I think some of the things that we saw in the first half are evident things that were going to be required to win this football game in terms of establishing the line of scrimmage, controlling the football when we had it offensively and extending drives,” Braun said. “That’s our brand of football.”
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