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The USC Trojans are taking on the Utah Utes in Week 3 of the Pac-12 football season. Week 3 sees the Trojans at 2-0 but the Utes sitting comfortably at 0-0, not having played a game yet because of a COVID-19 outbreak that saw them fall under the required 53 scholarship student-athletes to play their previous two scheduled games.
Game prediction
We’ve seen it time and time before in this 2020 football season, not just in the Pac-12, but everywhere: When you are playing your first game after a wild series of coronavirus tests, protocols, contact tracing, etc., your team struggles. Combine that with the fact that Utah is making a ton of changes on defense, a new quarterback and a new running back, and you’ve got an incredibly-big challenge ahead of head coach Kyle Whittingham and Co.
They’ll be without possibly the university’s greatest running back of all time in Zack Moss, a well above-average signal-caller from last year in Tyler Huntley and 11 of the most experienced 12 players on defense from last season.
Those reasons alone were enough to warrant a big favorite for USC but combine that with the fact that they may even be more shorthanded due to Covid-19 cases and subsequent contact tracing protocols, and you’ve got a mess for the Utes.
USC can control this game in both facets, and you can bet USC QB Kedon Slovis has seen and read all the concerns about his level of play this year.
Slovis dominates a brand-new defense, Trojans win in a pull-away-late kind of game.
How to watch
Date/Time: Saturday, November 21, 2020 at 7:30 pm PT @ Rice-Eccles Stadium, Salt Lake City, Utah
TV: National TV: ESPN (announcers TBA)
Radio: 5:30 p.m. (PT), AM 790 KABC Radio, Pete Arbogast, Shaun Cody, John Jackson, Jordan Moore, Sam Farber, Max Browne (includes 2-hour pre- and postgame shows). Also on the USC Trojan Radio Network—KSZL-AM 1230 in Barstow, KXPSAM 1010 in Palm Springs and KSHP-AM 1400 in Las Vegas—as well as USCTrojans.com and KABC.com, SiriusXM satellite radio and the TuneIn Radio app