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Touchdown Pass with 16 Seconds Left Gives USC Victory over UCLA in Rose Bowl

Published on Sunday, December 13, 2020 | 5:18 am
 
UCLA’s Brittain Brown runs for a score in an empty Rose Bowl during Saturday’s Bruin loss to the USC Trojans. (Image courtesy UCLA Photography via Dacebook)

Kedon Slovis threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Amon- Ra St. Brown with 16 seconds to play as USC defeated UCLA, 43-38, Saturday evening at the Rose Bowl in a game the Trojans trailed by 18 points in the third quarter.

The Bruins had regained the lead with 52 seconds remaining on Nicholas Barr-Mira’s 43-yard field goal.

USC called its third and final time out of the second half immediately before the field goal.

“As soon as we called timeout after that third down of UCLA and there was 52 seconds left, I thought to myself it doesn’t matter if they make this or not, there’s an opportunity there for our guys,” Trojans coach Clay Helton said of his team’s third victory of the season when it scored the winning points with 1:20 to play or less.

Gary Bryant Jr. returned the ensuing kickoff 56 yards to UCLA’s 43- yard line. Slovis completed a 35-yard pass to Tyler Vaughns on the first play of the drive, one play before the winning touchdown pass.

“That game should have been ours, point-blank, period,” Bruins safety Quentin Lake said.

Slovis completed 30 of 47 passes for 344 yards and five touchdowns as USC improved to 5-0, its first 5-0 start since 2006. He had two passes intercepted.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson completed 30 of 36 passes for 364 yards and four touchdowns with two interceptions for UCLA (3-3).

The Bruins led 21-10 at halftime, then drove 75 yards in seven plays on the first possession of the second half, with Brittain Brown running 15 yards for the touchdown, four plays after Demetric Felton ran 40 yards to USC’s 25-yard line.

The Trojans scored touchdowns on four of their next five possessions.

Slovis’ 38-yard touchdown pass to Vaughns to complete a 75-yard, seven- play drive. Vaughns had caught 11- and 13-yard passes from Slovis on the previous two plays.

A botched punt attempt by Luke Akers gave USC the ball on UCLA’s 31- yard line. Slovis threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to St. Brown 10 plays later. The Trojans’ two-point conversion attempt failed, keeping the score 28-23 with 4:00 left in the third quarter.

USC stopped the Bruins on downs on the ensuing possession, getting the ball on UCLA’s 46-yard line, but Slovis threw an interception three plays later. Thompson-Robinson threw a 69-yard touchdown pass to Greg Dulcich on the next play.

The Trojans responded with an 11-play, 75-yard drive with Vavae Malepeai running 10 yards for the touchdown.

USC took its first lead with 8:09 remaining on Slovis’ 9-yard touchdown pass to Drake London, six plays after Talanoa Hufanga intercepted a pass by Thompson-Robinson at the Bruins’ 46-yard line and ran into the end zone, but the apparent touchdown was nullified by an illegal block penalty against Nick Figueroa.

The Trojans benefited from back-to-back offsides penalties that gave it a first down on UCLA’s 9-yard line when it had been facing third-and-10. The touchdown pass came on the play after the second offsides penalty.

The Bruins outgained USC, 549-444, and led 27-24 in first downs. The Trojans led in time of possession, 31:40-28:20.

UCLA took a 14-0 lead on Thompson-Robinson’s 33- and 21-yard touchdown passes to Ethan Fernea with 3:05 left in the first quarter and Felton Jr. 8:41 before halftime.

The Trojans cut the deficit to 14-10 on Slovis’ 65-yard touchdown pass to London with 7:35 to play in the second quarter and Parker Lewis’ 42-yard field goal with 3:26 remaining in the second quarter.

Felton caught a 12-yard touchdown pass from Thompson-Robinson 20 seconds before halftime.

Like all other Pac-12 Conference football games this season, the game was played without spectators because of the coronavirus pandemic.

USC was assured of a spot in Friday’s Pac-12 Football Championship Game earlier Saturday when Colorado lost to Utah, 38-21, to give the Trojans the South Division championship. USC is scheduled to face North Division champion Washington Friday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Washington’s planned game against Oregon Saturday was canceled Thursday because it did not have the minimum number of scholarship players available due to a number of COVID-19 cases and resulting isolation of additional players under contact tracing protocols.

The winner of the Oregon-Washington game would have been assured of the North Division championship.

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