{"id":49819,"date":"2015-09-05T19:11:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T02:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=49819"},"modified":"2015-09-06T01:55:48","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T08:55:48","slug":"usc-vs-arkansas-st","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=49819","title":{"rendered":"Trojans Drive 55 in Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Arkansas<\/a>

Arkansas State found the Trojan defense suffocating. (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Tim Peterson<\/p>\n

(Los Angeles) –\u00a0Cody Kessler threw four touchdown passes and Tre Madden ran for 106 yards and a touchdown as USC cruised\u00a0to a 55-6 rout of \u00a0Arkansas St. Saturday night\u00a0to kick off the 2015 season before 79, 809 at the Coliseum.<\/p>\n

USC\u00a0scored on its first possession\u00a0on a 61-yard touchdown pass from\u00a0Kessler to JuJu Smith-Schuster.<\/p>\n

\"Ju<\/a>

Ju Ju Smith-Schuster gets loose on a 61 yard touchdown catch and run. (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n

Chris Hawkins picked off\u00a0a pass but the Trojans couldn’t take advantage of the\u00a0turnover. However on the next possession, Adoree Jackson returned a punt 30 yards to set up a 14-yard TD strike from Kessler to Steven Mitchell to give USC a 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

Tre Madden broke loose for\u00a0a 65-yard touchdown romp in the second quarter to give the Trojans a three score advantage.\u00a0It was Madden’s first touchdown since September 28, 2013. Meanwhile Arkansas St. was struggling to move the ball\u00a0against the USC D.<\/p>\n

Jalen Greene, the Trojans’ third string quarterback, took\u00a0a pass from Kessler and then tossed\u00a0a 14-yard pass\u00a0to Dominic Davis down to the two-yard to set up a two-yard TD pass from Kessler to Taylor McNamara as the\u00a0Trojans went\u00a0up 28-0 with 4:32 left in the quarter. USC took that\u00a028-0 advantage into the half.<\/p>\n

Jackson\u00a0suffered an abdominal strain in the first half and didn’t return. “We don’t think it’s serious,” said USC head coach Steve Sarkisian.<\/p>\n

Kessler was 13 for 18 for 189 yards and\u00a0three touchdowns in the first half.<\/p>\n

Arkansas St. put together a drive to open the second half. Michael Gordon\u00a0capped\u00a0it with a nine yard TD run to get the\u00a0Red Wolves on the board. They went for two\u00a0and failed.<\/p>\n

Su’a Cravens intercepted a pass to set up the next\u00a0Trojan score – a\u00a0Madden\u00a0reception of a nine-yard swing pass from Kessler for a 35-6 lead.<\/p>\n

On the next possession freshman Ronald Jones finished a quick four-play, 72 yard drive with a 24 yard run.<\/p>\n

In the fourth quarter USC added a couple more to eclipse the 50 mark.\u00a0Osa Masina scooped up\u00a0a fumbled lateral and rumbled 46 yards for the score to make it 48-6.<\/p>\n

Aca’Cedric Ware blasted into the end zone from five yards out to cap an eight-play, 63 yard drive with 4:16 left as the Trojans hit 55.<\/p>\n

USC racked up 509 total yards of offense.<\/p>\n

Arkansas quarterback Fredi Knighten completed just 8 of 23 passes in addition to throwing the two picks.<\/p>\n

“All in all a good first win. There’s going to be plenty of room for improvement,” Sarkisian said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Peterson (Los Angeles) –\u00a0Cody Kessler threw four touchdown passes and Tre Madden ran for 106 yards and a touchdown as USC cruised\u00a0to a 55-6 rout of \u00a0Arkansas St. Saturday night\u00a0to kick off the 2015 season before 79, 809 at the Coliseum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[871],"tags":[11508,10808,11496,11500,8871,11506,11502,11498,11497,11509,11505,11507,11499,10817,11503,11501,8137],"class_list":["post-49819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college","tag-acacedric-ware","tag-adoree-jackson","tag-arkansas-st-football","tag-chris-hawkins","tag-cody-kessler","tag-dominic-davis","tag-jalen-greene","tag-ju-ju-smith-schuster","tag-la-coliseum","tag-michael-gordon","tag-osa-masina","tag-ronald-jones","tag-steven-micthell","tag-sua-cravens","tag-taylor-mcnamara","tag-tre-madden","tag-usc-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49819"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49849,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49819\/revisions\/49849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}