What a fitting way for Notre Dame football to wrap the 2024 regular season.
Everything on the line against your biggest rival. No reason to hold anything back. Let it rip and win and grab a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff. Lose, and you get no CFP spot.
The Irish have been here before, but here not necessarily being the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where they play for the 49th time in a series that dates to the black and white photos and train traveling days of the 1920s.
Here for these Irish is having to win to realize their postseason dream. In 2012, Notre Dame won at USC to secure a spot in the national championship game. In 2018, Notre Dame won at USC to snag a spot in the four-team CFP. Might the third time also be a charm?
Let’s head for the west coast and find out.
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No. 5 NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH (10-1)
DT Donovan Hinish (41)
When D-line cornerstone Howard Cross III lay on the Notre Dame Stadium turf with a left ankle injury against Florida State, the prevailing concern was, uh, oh. The Irish were going to miss Cross exponentially for however long he’d be out.
Enter Hinish, who’s done plenty to plug the gaping hole along the defensive front left by Cross, who has missed the last two games. No big deal for the 6-foot-2, 278-pounder (give or take a few lb’s) from Pittsburgh. Hinish hasn’t been Cross like in the middle, but he hasn’t been that far off, either.
Hinish tallied five tackles with two sacks against Florida State. In his first career start against Virginia, he had four tackles, a sack and a quarterback hurry. Last week in New York against that run-heavy Army outfit, Hinish again finished with five tackles.
Rewind back to the heat and humidity of that late August night in Texas against A&M. All Hinish did to open the season was make a career-best five stops.
Hinish has been at his best in big games. Saturday certainly qualifies. Notre Dame’s defense has held its last six opponents to 250 yards or fewer. It all starts up front and starts with the work Hinish has done. Cross may play Saturday, but if he doesn’t, Hinish can handle it.
RB Jeremiyah Love (4)
Seven carries for 130 yards for a ridiculous 18.6 yards per carry with two rushing touchdowns and a third receiving Saturday in Yankee Stadium should’ve served as the coming-out-party for the 6-foot, 210-pound sophomore from St. Louis.
Except … Love was already at the party. The life of it in many ways for an Irish offense that has been on a serious roll of late. Running up yards. Scoring touchdowns. Beating opposing defenses down with a variety of weapons and ways. If Love doesn’t run away from them, he’ll just jump over them, as he did Saturday for his first score against an Army defender that’s still probably wondering where Love went.
We last highlighted Love as one to watch way back in Week Three before the 66-7 beatdown of Purdue. We wondered then when offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock would unlock Love and his myriad skills. Consider Love unlocked.
Love has carried 121 times for 850 yards and 14 TDs. He also has 19 catches for 168 yards and two more scores. A rushing touchdown Saturday in Los Angeles would give him the school record of 12 straight games with a rush TD, breaking the record of Wayne Bullock which has stood for 50 years.
In a city of stars, expect one of Notre Dame’s brightest to deliver.
USC TROJANS (6-5)
QB Jayden Maiava (14)
This is what it says about Maiava, a 6-4, 220-pound redshirt sophomore who transferred last spring from UNLV, on the USC football website: “looks to compete for playing time.”
For the first nine weeks, Maiava played the part of backup quarterback – getting reps when he could, holding a clipboard and/or signaling plays to starter Miller Moss, who made many believe that the QB spot was in good hands post-Caleb WIlliams after he set a Holiday Bowl record last December with six touchdown passes. In Moss USC would trust. Or so it seemed.
Nine games into 2024, after the Trojans had lost four of five, Moss, who had thrown for 2,555 yards and 18 TDs, lost his job and has subsequently entered the transfer portal.
The job the last two weeks has been Maiava’s. He’s not going to keep Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden up at night this week with his potential to run. He prefers to stay in the pocket. In five games, he’s thrown for 546 yards and four TDs while completing 64.2 percent of his passes. He went 25-of-35 for 259 yards and three scores in his debut against Nebraska, then helped SC win the rivalry game against UCLA by going 19-of-25 for 221 yards and one score.
He’s the wildest of wild cards in this one.
MLB Easton Mascarenas-Arnold (4)
An angry Mascarenas-Arnold is an effective Mascarenas-Arnold for a USC defense that sorely needed something like that — really, someone — after too many seasons of butter-like softness.
The 6-foot, 231-pound senior from Mission Viejo, California was quoted recently as saying “when I play good, I play mean.”
Mean has worked. Eleven games into his only season at USC after transferring from Oregon State in the spring (he opted out and did not play against Notre Dame in the 2023 Sun Bowl), Mascarenas-Arnold has been a one-man defensive wrecking crew from his middle linebacker spot. Coming off a career-high 107 tackles in 2023 at Oregon State, he leads the Trojans in solo tackles (50), is second in assists (38) and first in overall tackles (88) with the next closest defender at 68. He also has 5.0 tackles for loss (third on the team), 3.0 sacks (first), two interceptions (tied for first) and two quarterback hurries (tied for second).
All this from someone whose family background may have left him better suited to hit a baseball instead of hitting opposing ball carriers. Mascarenas-Arnold’s mother, Toni, was a softball pitcher at Arizona who competed in the College World Series. He’s named after the Easton bat company. But that game seemed too slow to him, so it was on to football. It’s worked out.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: It doesn’t get any better than Notre Dame football visiting USC football
