MidValleySports.Com

Information courtesy of Katie Ryan – Director of Football Communications

USC vs. UCLA – United Airlines Field at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum | Los Angeles, Calif.

Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025

Team 1Q 2Q 3Q 4Q Final
UCLA 0 10 0 0 10
USC 7 0 7 15 29

• With the 29-10 victory, USC finishes the regular season 9-3 overall and 7-2 in Big Ten play. UCLA falls to 3-9, 3-6 Big Ten.
• USC finished the 2025 regular season undefeated at home (7-0). The last USC team to go undefeated at home was Lincoln Riley’s first USC team in 2022 (also 7-0).
• USC is now 52-34-7 all-time against UCLA. (Not including 2 wins vacated due to NCAA penalty, original record: 54-34-7.
• Saturday’s Trojan victory was the first win by the home team in the series since 2019, a 52-35 victory in the Coliseum for USC.
• USC won after trailing 10-7 at halftime. The Trojans’ last comeback win after trailing at the half versus UCLA was a 48-45 victory in 2022 (USC trailed 14-0 in the first quarter and 21-20 at the half).
• The Trojan defense held UCLA scoreless in the second half. The last time the Trojans held UCLA scoreless in a half was in 2016, a 36-14 USC victory.
• The scoreless second half by the USC defense was the second in three games after the Trojans also held Iowa scoreless in the second half on Nov. 15.
• The 10 points allowed by the Trojans were the fewest UCLA has scored in the series since USC’s 50-0 win in 2011.
• USC held UCLA to 308 total yards, the fewest total yards allowed against UCLA since 2016 (266).
• RB King Miller opened the scoring with a 5-yard TD run on USC’s opening drive. This was the first USC TD on an opening drive against UCLA since 2016.
• Miller’s TD was also the first rushing TD by a USC freshman against UCLA since RB Joe McKnight in 2007.
• Miller (124 rushing yards, 42 receiving yards, 2 rushing TDs) became the first USC freshman with over 100 all-purpose yards against UCLA since WR Drake London had 142 all-purpose yards in 2019.
• Miller’s 166 all-purpose yards were the most for a USC freshman against UCLA since WR Marqise Lee’s 224- yard showing in 2011.
• Miller was also the first non-quarterback USC freshman to have multiple TDs versus UCLA since WR Marqise Lee had two in 2011.
• Miller was the first USC freshman to account for multiple TD against UCLA since QB Kedon Slovis’ 4 TDs in 2019.
• The last two Trojans with over 166 all-purpose yards against UCLA were WR Jordan Addison (178) and RB Austin Jones (177), both in 2022.
• Miller’s 41-yard rushing TD in the fourth quarter was the longest rushing TD UCLA has allowed all season.
• Miller’s 124-yard rushing performance was his fourth 100+ yard rushing total in the last seven games. Miller, a redshirt-freshman walk-on, finished the regular season with 873 rushing yards and 7 TDs.
• WR Makai Lemon caught his first pass of the game in the third quarter, putting the Trojans ahead 14-10 with a 32-yard TD reception with :30 seconds left in the quarter. It was Lemon’s fourth straight game with a receiving TD and his 11th overall on the season. The junior wideout has caught a TD in 8-of-12 games this season for the Trojans.
• Lemon’s 35-yard punt return in the fourth quarter was the long punt return UCLA has allowed all season.
• DT Jide Abasiri finished with a career-high 1.5 sacks.
• Freshman CB Alex Graham led the Trojans with 7 tackles (6 solo, 1 TFL).
• K Ryon Sayeri’s field goal attempt with 4:19 left in the first quarter was blocked. It was the first kick Sayeri has had blocked this season.
• Nine different USC players had receptions in the game, marking the fourth time this season USC has had nine or more players catch a pass.
• USC had 4.0 sacks in the game, marking the seventh time this season the Trojans have had multiple sacks. USC has had at least 4.0 sacks four times this season.
• USC’s 7 points at halftime were the Trojans second fewest in a half this season, behind the 6 points scored at Nebraska (Nov 1).
• UCLA’s all-time record against USC moved to 34-52-7
• UCLA did not commit a penalty in the first half.
• For the sixth time overall this season and third time in the last four games, UCLA went without a turnover on offense. All six turnover-free performances came under interim head coach Tim Skipper.
• UCLA’s final drive of the game ended on a turnover on downs at the USC 11-yard line. It was just the second time all season that the Bruins were held off the board on a red zone trip. The Bruins finished the year at 29-for-31 in red zone efficiency (94%).
• The Bruins led 10-7 at halftime. It was the fourth time this season that UCLA allowed seven points or fewer in the opening half.
• OL Garrett DiGiorgio made his 49th career start on Saturday, moving him into sole possession of the second-most starts in program history. He trails only Jake Brendel’s 52. Dorian Thompson-Robinson and Spencer
• Havner each totaled 48 starts for the Bruins.
• WR Kwazi Gilmer finished with a career-high 11 receptions for 95 yards and a touchdown. His 11 catches were the most by a Bruin in a game this season, and he became the first Bruin with a double-digit reception performance since Kazmeir Allen vs. Bowling Green in 2022 (10). With the TD grab, he finished the year as the team leader in touchdown receptions with four.
• QB Nico Iamaleava finished with 200 yards through the air on 27-for-38 passing with one touchdown and no interceptions. It marked his fourth 200+ yard passing performance of the year. He finished the season with 1,928 passing yards and 13 touchdowns.
• DB Aaron Williams made his first-career start.
• QB Nico Iamaleava, DL Gary Smith III, and OL Courtland Ford all made their 25th-career start.
• WR Titus Mokiao-Atimalala and OL Sam Yoon both made their 20th-career start.
• Yoon has started each of UCLA’s last 20 games, the longest streak on the team among non-specialists.

HEAD COACH LINCOLN RILEY
Opening statement:
“That was a fun night in the Coliseum right there. Another phenomenal atmosphere. One of the things we talked about earlier in the season with this team was protecting our home, and there’s two parts of that. It’s one, that us as a program, playing well at home. And then the flip side of that is the Coliseum lit up like it was tonight. There was a major factor in the game. Again, it was an awesome, awesome atmosphere. It has been all year. For us to run the table here at home and play the way that we did was really key to this season. And yeah, a tremendous win. Proud of the response there in the second half, another dominant performance defensively there in the second half. Special teams and offense were able to finish some plays there. And obviously, we just got on a big run there as a team and really, really separated. So I don’t want there to be a lot of questions about the season and all that, and it’s not really the time for this right now. It’s been a really good season. It’s been a team that’s been really fun to coach. We told them yesterday, typically these years, when they go by really fast, that means you’re having fun and the team’s doing well, and this year flew by. I mean, just flew by. And that’s a credit to the guys in the locker room, these two guys here next to me, who have been kind of with us here from the beginning,
kind of hard to imagine they just played their last game here in the Coliseum, hard to even fathom. I’m sure they can’t really process it right now either. But what a great memory to go out on. You know, these guys help pave the way. This team helped pave the way. I thought last year’s team paved the way for this year’s team to take some big steps, and we did that. This year’s team certainly paved the way for the future here, which couldn’t be more exciting. So proud of these guys, proud of the win. Rivalry games are always tough, and just a great way to end the season.”

On WR Ja’Kobi Lane and WR Makai Lemon not playing the first quarter:
“There was a violation of a team policy, and that was the decision that was made. ”

On how this team has paved the way for the future:
“In every way. I think we’re a better team, we’re a better program now than we were 12 months ago. I think with some of the resilience that we showed throughout the year, it’ll be easy with this team to kind of sit back and there’ll be a little bit of, ‘what if’, especially with all the different guys that we didn’t play with all year. But there’s always part of that, and this team never let it become an excuse. We won tough games. We were able to win games a lot of different ways, the way we played in the second half, really, throughout the entire season. I just think there’s just so much to build on. And these two guys here, and all of those guys in that locker room are responsible for it, and this program is going to get better. We’ll have better teams here in the future than this team, but I don’t know if we’ll have had a more important team. This team was really, really important to what we’re doing, and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”