the turnout last weekend in the sweltering heat<\/a>.<\/p>\nFans who showed up Friday were treated to a nearly flawless performance from Maiava. Showing much sharper touch than he did last week, the veteran quarterback completed 23 of 25 passes for 349 yards and three touchdowns without an interception before giving way to backup Jonas Williams late in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Through two games, Maiava has completed 48 of 54 passes \u2014 an absurd 88.9 percent completion rate.<\/p>\n
His favorite target might warrant dueling Heisman Trophy campaigns. A week after he topped 100 yards in his collegiate debut, Mosley reached triple figures \u2014 before halftime.<\/p>\n
Trent Mosley holds the ball over the goal line for a touchdown as Fresno State defensive back Ethan Tierney watches during the first half of USC\u2019s blowout win over Fresno State. AP Photo\/Mark J. Terrill<\/p>\n
Curiously, Fresno State (0-1) let Mosley run wide open on one route early in the second quarter and paid dearly. After catching a pass inside the Bulldogs\u2019 40-yard line, Mosley juked a defender around the 20 and ran for a 68-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
Was Maiava surprised that Mosley was that open?<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe a little bit, yeah,\u201d Maiava said with a wry smile.<\/p>\n
Mosley added a 9-yard touchdown later in the second quarter after making a catch at the five and eluding a defender before stretching the ball across the goal line. Mosley finished with four catches for 104 yards and two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Fellow freshman wide receiver Kayden Dixon-Wyatt also starred with six catches for 102 yards.<\/p>\n
Maiava benefited from the return of a familiar target.<\/p>\n
Josiah Freeman (left) can\u2019t hold on to a pass as cornerback
Chasen Johnson defends during the first half of USC\u2019s blowout
win over Fresno State. AP Photo\/Mark J. Terrill<\/p>\n
USC wide receiver Tanook Hines, who missed the season opener while rounding into form from an unspecified injury, hauled in an 8-yard touchdown pass on the opening drive after running open into the right corner of the end zone.<\/p>\n
If there was anything to nitpick, it was the Trojans\u2019 slippery hands. They fumbled three times, losing the ball twice.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t cost them against a team that couldn\u2019t consistently move the ball or block for quarterback Jayden Mandal, who was constantly under pressure and took two safeties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know, as long as I\u2019ve been a coach, if I\u2019ve ever had two in a game,\u201d Riley said. \u201cSo that was pretty darn cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
One sequence in the second quarter illustrated the Trojans\u2019 dominance on defense.<\/p>\n
On first down, defensive back Alex Graham and Abasiri stuffed running back Rayshon Luke for a 2-yard loss. On second down, Abasiri was credited with a sack after pressuring Mandal into throwing the ball away for an intentional grounding penalty. On third down, defensive back Kennedy Urlacher knocked Mandal out of the back of the end zone for a safety.<\/p>\n
Things never got any better for Mandal or the Bulldogs offense. USC safety Prophet Brown made his first career interception on a pass that was thrown up for grabs and Fresno State managed just 56 yards of offense before its final, meaningless drive.<\/p>\n
Riley said his defense played fast and confident after trusting in itself and new defensive coordinator Gary Patterson\u2019s ability to put everyone in the best position.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our front and our back end really played well together and complemented each other,\u201d Riley said. \u201cThat\u2019s what really good defense looks like. It was steady with a dose of explosive plays defensively, and that\u2019s a pretty good recipe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trojans have one more tuneup, against Louisiana \u2014 well, two, really, if you saw what happened to Rutgers this week <\/a>\u2014 before things get real against Oregon on Sept. 26 at the Coliseum.<\/p>\nMaiava and Mosley appear ready, and maybe now the Trojans\u2019 defense does too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another huge halftime lead. More crazy efficiency from quarterback Jayden Maiava. Further fodder for Trent Mosley\u2019s case as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[48031,112,114,113,3257,32698,127,13670],"class_list":["post-454591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-big-ten","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-fresno-state-bulldogs","tag-lincoln-riley","tag-sports","tag-usc-trojans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}