Arizona State vs USC Pac-12 Football Picks and Predictions

Arizona State vs USC Betting Preview

WagerTalk college football handicapper Tony Finn offers his Arizona State vs USC Pac-12 football betting preview for Saturday, November 6 at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. At the time of posting, the Sun Devils are a -8.5 home favorite over the Trojans with the total sitting at 60 points.

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Arizona State vs USC Predictions

Arizona State Sun Devils -8.5 vs USC Trojans
Total: 60 Points
Arizona State is 2-9 against the spread in the Sun Devils’ last 11 games as a home favorite.
USC has won its last eight Pac-12 road games.

The oddsmakers feel much different about the Arizona State Sun Devils than the local Phoenix media and the fan base after the Devils fell to Washington State this past Saturday. ASU hosts the USC Trojans on Saturday night in this weekend’s Pac 12 After Dark episode aired by ESPN.

Arizona State opened as 10-point home favorites at Circa Sportsbook of Las Vegas. The total in this matchup was initially set at 60.5 by the Circa group, but an early Monday morning move by sharp money moved the total to 59.5. Nearly four days later – and when this game preview went to press – the over-under at Circa has held serve. The total remains what it was at Monday’s closing of the on-site sportsbook.

With no news of interest coming out of the University of Southern California athletic department about the Trojans’ search for a new head coach, the Pac 12 media has focused on the disgruntled fans and local reporters’ headlines this week requesting that the school fire head coach Herm Edwards.

If you need any evidence that the bookmakers are as unsure of this game and the mindset of the players and coaches from each school, look no further than the opening numbers for this Pac 12 After Dark episode.

The days of yesteryear when Trojan football was on an equal playing field with the now-Alabama Crimson Tide program pigskin coverage from the eastern seaboard gave the Pac 12 face time. The Pac-12 Conference at that time (still is if you ask Bill Walton) was the “Conference of Champions.” It’s no secret that the now-Pac 12 doesn’t resemble the then-Pete Carroll days and ways.

The So Cal athletic department fired former head coach Clay Helton after two games this season. At the request of the school, the departure of Helton was a year or more too late. The and Trojans are 4-4 overall and find the program unranked in November yet again.

Traveling backward to last November with a glance at the 2020 schedule and results, one will find USC with wins against Arizona State, at Arizona and Utah, a deceive 38-13 victory over Washington State followed by a game against crosstown rival UCLA in which Helton’s staff outcoached Chip Kelly and his staff at UCLA registering a 43-38 high-scoring contest to close the regular season.

Even before the Trojans lost the conference championship game to the Oregon Ducks, the media and the fans still called for the firing of coach Helton and his staff. I have tossed superlatives and accolades to what were the glory days of the conference. Yet, I believe that without a program like USC was under conductor Carroll the conference, all leagues, for that matter … don’t matter.

Without Nick Saban, the SEC is not what it is today. What the SEC today is the most competitive and dominating football conference in the history of college ball. Expectations matter. Performance matters. Parity in all demographically driven sports, especially in the backdrop of today’s college athletics, is mission-critical to the company’s overall success.

It isn’t fair to blame the current state of affairs in the Pac 12 on Pete Carroll and what he created at USC. Suppose responsibility is relevant that it should be issued to the schools as a group. North American colleges are everything but indecisive. The university, especially state-guided schools, are businesses.

The governance of higher education institutions around the world varies depending on the political culture and climate. Still, I don’t believe for a minute that laissez-faire is the course of action any of the public universities on the west coast take in matters of athletics. College football coaches in the MAC and Sun Belt conferences are millions. Coaches in the Pac 12 are multi-millionaires paid for and hired by the universities.

USC hired Carroll to serve as head coach in 2001. At the close of his tenure, the Trojans were not just nationally recognized and well respected; coach Pete had transformed the high-brow liberal west coast espresso lovers into a hard-driving win or else brand.

“The expectations are part of the problem, but the expectations are also the key essence of the whole thing because if you can meet those expectations, you can do it,” Carroll said in an interview with Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times.

“What we stumbled into when we went there was a giant of a job. It was a huge opportunity and a huge setting for college football. First, it had been, then it wasn’t, then we hit it running and got in a great rhythm of recruiting, coaching, playing, and all that, and had a great run. It’s an incredible place, so much potential.”

During the interview, Carroll reflected on the current state of USC’s football program. Without a cavalier or cocky feel, Carroll spoke to the ‘expectations’ he and his staff had created, which are part of the current problem.

Unfortunately for the people who have followed, we made it difficult for them. We won every game for three years in a row. The expectations were challenging. In one regard, I feel bad for the guys who followed because it’s been so hard to match up. But it’s a marvelous place with great potential, a great setting, a great university in a great spot.”

The now-Seattle Seahawks head coach interview took place after the Trojans had lost to the Utah Utes. The loss all but made the Trojans a non-factor in the college football playoffs and the Pac-12 title chase, as well.

The Los Angeles media encouraged the interim staff and the USC players to dig deep and find the focus to becoming bowl eligible. Following the loss to Utah, the first-ever loss to Utah at Memorial Coliseum, the players and coaches worked across two weeks while scheduling a bye to prepare for Notre Dame in South Bend. Usually, a loss to the 13th ranked team in all college football would be acceptable, but that isn’t the case.

The Trojans fell to the Fighting Irish 31-16, but the final score wasn’t indicative of the nature of how coach Brian Kelly and the Irish maltreated the Trojans in the trenches. Following the loss to Notre Dame, the Trojans faced a winless Arizona Wildcats team that entered Memorial Stadium winless on the season. USC closed as 22-point home chalk.

During the Saturday night game between the Trojans and the Wildcats, the best receiver in the history of USC football, statistically, Drake London sat in tears on the team’s custom golf cart, readying to take him to the locker room. Reality has rudely presented itself to London, and he broke into tears. At that moment, London was broke, but athletes like London found ways to fix themselves and prepare for the next challenge.

USC defeated Arizona (0-8, 0-5), which just lost to USC for the ninth straight time, but not before the Wildcats showed the grit and determination that saw them fight and claw back into a game that was supposed to be over at halftime. The Trojans went into intermission with a 21-point lead.

The Trojans football program is broken. The Trojan football in So Cal isn’t broken because of Pete Carroll and the expectations he created. The football at USC is broken because those who followed the Carroll cartel didn’t pay attention to what he and his staff had built or what it took to keep it from crumbling.

The refocus that was expected of the current coaching staff and players were on point for the first half of the win over Arizona. However, the game was a microcosm of who this Trojan team is. For every five achievements and performances, plays, if you will, that this USC team executes, they take their eye off the little things that make the big happen and don’t have the fortitude to overcome the bump they have created.

The Sun Devils fan base has expectations. Herm Edwards has expectations. Those of you who have heard and read me over the years know that I rarely do or exclaim what I believe without some form of passion. I could break down the X’s and the O’s of this matchup between the Sun Devils and the Trojans, but it isn’t necessary. Where ASU is strong, USC is soft. Where USC excels, ASU struggles.

This game, this preview I have engineered, isn’t based on complex calculus. So I don’t need to tell you something you already know. This Saturday matchup between two rosters filled with talented players will find the winners who knew they could and would, not the little red engineers who stop at “thinking they can.”

One plus one equals two … so on and so forth … the winner of Saturday night’s matchup between a coach who is passionate about his players and reputation, Herm Edwards, squares off against an interim coach, Donte Williams, who is as unlikely to lead his player to bowl eligibility as the sun is to rise in the west.

There is a reason that Arizona State is a near double-digit favorite for Saturday night’s game at Sun Devil Stadium. It isn’t because the Devils have a dozen more five-star recruits. ASU isn’t 10-points more talented, nor is Herm Edwards the best preflop or in-play coach ever to walk the Sun Devil Stadium sideline.

Arizona State wins and does so in convincing fashion. The field sidelined with player personnel representing ASU and a coach they respect in Herm Edwards already know they have won. The Trojans’ sideline is a stretch of grass consisting of coaches and players who know they lost this season long before they left Los Angeles for Tempe.

Sneaky-good game in Conference USA this weekend as undefeated UTSA travels to UTEP. Join Joe, Dave, Teddy and Ralph for College Football Daily as we preview the marquee NCAAF Week 10 matchups. https://t.co/xK0nXc0bfM

— WagerTalk (@WagerTalk) November 4, 2021

Arizona State vs USC Analysis from The GoldSheet

USC’s defense allowed the winless Wildcats, who rank 102nd in total offense and 124th in scoring, to roll for a season-high 466 yards and 34 points. USC recruits the talent, and the poor performance on defense last week should goose that unit into a better performance. Replacing London will have to be a group effort, but Williams can lean on RB Keaontay Ingram, who has 342 yards rushing the last two weeks. QB competition did lead to season high in yardage against the Wildcats.

Arizona State vs USC Video Preview

USC lost WR Drake London, who was second in the country with 88 catches and third with 1084 yards, last week against Arizona. How will his departure affect the Trojans’ offense? WagerTalk college football handicappers Drew Martin, Rob Veno and Tony Finn offer their Arizona State vs USC predictions.

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