WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Three long hours after his team evacuated the field for a lightning delay, coach Lincoln Riley finally emerged from the tunnel at Ross-Ade Stadium, knowing any hope of a seamless start to USC’s road slate washed away with the rain.
Nothing about USC’s first tour through Big Ten country had gone smoothly, as the Trojans bafflingly blew fourth-quarter leads in all four of their conference road tilts. So before this second foray into the conference, steps were taken to make this season’s slate of trips as seamless and comfortable as possible.
But Mother Nature had brushed aside those plans before USC’s first road game even began. The Trojans instead were left lying around the tiny visiting locker room at Ross-Ade Stadium for hours before kickoff, doing whatever they could to stay loose.
It was hardly the circumstances USC had hoped for, but after falling short so often a season ago, the Trojans rode out the rain and held strong in the fourth quarter to beat Purdue 33-17.
It was the first win outside of the West since 2012 for USC, which had lost 14 straight games in the Eastern and Central time zones. That win, against Syracuse in New Jersey, also happened to be the Trojans’ last recorded weather delay.
Last season, its conference road losses had come in increasingly heartbreaking ways, from a blocked field goal at Maryland to a goal-line stand in Minnesota to a long touchdown run against Michigan. So when Ryon Sayeri missed a fourth-quarter field goal off the upright that would’ve put Purdue away, the Trojan faithful understandably held their breath.
It was the sort of scenario that might have given the Trojans’ post-traumatic stress. Purdue hit one big pass, then another. USC was called for an offside penalty, then another.
But just when it seemed Purdue might fire back into the game, safety Bishop Fitzgerald flew in front of a pass and picked it off for his second interception of the night.
It shouldn’t have come to that considering how in control USC seemed at the start, with its quarterback, Jayden Maiava, slinging the ball over the field. Maiava would finish with 282 yards passing to go with a rushing touchdown.
Waymond Jordan and Eli Sanders would combine for 152 yards on the ground, as the Trojans put up 460 yards of offense.
Out of the gate, USC didn’t look much like a team that just sat around for three hours killing time. Maiava fired his very first pass deep down the field, hitting Ja’Kobi Lane in perfect stride for a 59-yard gain. Two plays later, he hit Makai Lemon on the run for another explosive play of 21 yards.
The Trojans had to settle for a field goal on that first drive. But the aerial attack continued on their ensuing possession, as Maiava hit three more pass plays of 20-plus yards before punching in a touchdown himself. By the end of the first quarter, he already had 147 yards passing.
Purdue didn’t have much trouble moving the ball at first, either. It strung together four big plays to reach the red zone in the first quarter, only for Fitzgerald to intercept a pass in the end zone.
USC mounted long, first-half drives of 10 and 13 plays to push its lead to 20-3. But the Boilermakers, whose offensive coordinator spent the previous two seasons at USC, kept moving the ball.
It would take a strange sequence of events for Purdue to finally punch it in. After former Trojan wideout Michael Jackson III caught a pass in the flat, he threw the ball back to quarterback Ryan Browne. The intended pass was tipped by USC linebacker Eric Gentry, but because it was thrown backward, Browne was able to pick it up and sprint 26 yards for the score.
USC would get its own strange break a few minutes later, with Purdue driving once again, seeking to make it a one-score game. Defensive tackle Devan Thompkins burst through the line on second down to tip Browne’s pass into the air, where it landed in the outstretched arms of massive nose tackle Jamaal Jarrett.
The 360-pound lineman took off, chugging for an unlikely 70-yard touchdown.
Purdue fired back a few minutes later, and USC missed a field goal soon after.
But Fitzgerald swooped in, as USC was finally able to exhale with a Big Ten road victory in hand.
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