Troy Williams leads Utah to thrilling comeback win over USC

Sam Darnold’s first start was spoiled by Utah’s Troy Williams.

On the night Darnold impressed in his first career start for USC, Williams engineered two lengthy fourth quarter touchdown drives to lead the 24th-ranked Utes to a dramatic come-from-behind 31-27 over the Trojans at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City.

The game was extremely sloppy early with the teams losing a combined four fumbles (three from USC) in the first half, but Darnold began to get in a rhythm midway through the second quarter. Darnold, a redshirt freshman who replaced junior Max Browne after a 1-2 start, led two scoring drives (with some assistance from running back Justin Davis) late in the half to give the Trojans a 17-10 lead going into halftime.

That solid play carried over into the second half. After forcing a Utes punt to open the third quarter, Darnold used his arm and legs to march the Trojans 91 yards for a score, increasing the lead to 24-10. Darnold threw two beautiful balls on the drive, a 21-yarder to Taylor McNamara on a seam route and a 35-yarder down the right sideline to JuJu Smith-Schuster, before scoring on an eight-yard run.

Things looked good for the Trojans at this point, but the Utes, in front of a raucous home crowd, responded with a 10-play, 85-yard scoring drive of their own. Williams, who threw for 270 yards in the win, threw his team deep into USC territory, but a bit of luck allowed the Utes to cut into the lead.

On 2nd and goal from the one-yard line, Armand Shyne lost the ball as he lunged for the goal line. The ball popped into the air and through a crowd of players before offensive lineman Isaac Asiata plopped on the loose bowl for a score, cutting USC’s lead to 24-17.

USC settled for a field goal on the next drive to put its lead back to 10, 27-17.

It was all Utes from then on out.

Williams led an 11-play, 75-yard drive that was capped off with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Raelon Singleton. But the play of the drive came a play before the touchdown when Utes coach Kyle Whittingham decided to go for it on 4th & 1 from the USC 12 instead of settling for a field goal. The call paid off as Zack Moss, who rushed for 90 yards on the night, plunged forward for two yards. The Williams-to-Singleton connection came on the following play, cutting the Trojans lead to 27-24 with 9:45 to go.

The Trojans had a chance to pad its lead on their next drive, but it stalled. And while Whittingham had the confidence to keep his offense on the field on fourth down, USC’s Clay Helton opted to punt on 4th & 3 from the Utah 37. The punt was a good one, pinning Utah at its own 7-yard line with 5:30 to go, but the decision would come back to haunt the Trojans.

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Utah seemed to keep things fairly simple on offense, but a tired-looking USC defense (Utah dominated the time of possession) just could not adjust. Williams was able to dink and dunk his way down the field and lead a game-winning 15-play, 93-yard touchdown drive.

The drive featured two more fourth-down conversions when the Utes could have settled for a game-tying field goal. Whittingham played this one to win, and win he did when Williams found Tim Patrick for an 18-yard score with 16 seconds remaining.

Williams, who began his career at Washington and had a stop at a junior college, finished with 270 yards and two touchdowns while adding a first-half rushing score. Patrick, who totaled six catches for 100 yards, was his favorite target on the evening, helping the Utes improve to 4-0.

Like they did in 2015, the Utes have a real shot to move up in the rankings over the next few weeks. Three of the Pac-12’s weaker teams — Cal (coming off a win over Texas), Arizona and Oregon State — are next on the schedule, and the Utes look like the top threat to UCLA in the Pac-12 South.

Meanwhile, Helton’s first season as the Trojans’ full-time head coach is off to a disastrous start. A 1-3 record is not going to fly for USC fans and Helton’s hot seat is getting even hotter, but at least the offense showed signs of life on Friday night after it was so lifeless in blowout losses to Stanford and Alabama.

It’s clear the move from Browne to Darnold, who threw for 253 yards and ran for 41, was the right one, but of the Trojans have a lot of work to do if they want to be any sort of factor in the Pac-12 (and Helton wants to keep his job).

For more Utah news, visit Utezone.com.

For more USC news, visit TrojanSports.com.

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Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!

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