USC will intently watch future opponents UCLA and Wisconsin play

USC football has the coming weekend off. The Trojans played football for seven consecutive weekends from August 29 through October 10. They are tired. They need a rest. When they do relax and sink back on the couch this Saturday, they will be focused on two Big Ten football games. One is the Wisconsin Badgers at the UCLA Bruins. Both teams are future USC opponents this season.

Wisconsin-UCLA figures to be a defensive grinder. The Badgers came back from a 17-0 deficit to beat Penn State on the road. They did that because their defense absolutely locked down the Nittany Lions' offense in the second half. UCLA held Oregon to just 15 points in a dominant defensive performance this past weekend. UCLA Wire writer Ryan Lorenz noted that the Bruins "held Oregon to just 58 total yards in the first half. As mentioned earlier, the Bruins were elite at snagging turnovers to dim the Ducks chances at keeping their hopes alive as they consistently made junior quarterback Dylan Raiola uncomfortable. In fact, they forced Oregon to bench Raiola in the fourth quarter and put in third-string senior quarterback Brock Thomas, who actually found more success against the Bruins than Raiola."

With Nico Iamaleava out, Ty Dieffenbach becomes the starting quarterback for UCLA. The Bruins will lean on their star running back, Wayne Knight, but they will need Dieffenbach to do just enough on third downs and in the red zone against Wisconsin.

UCLA-Wisconsin, with Iamaleava out of the picture, becomes a turnover-and-field-position game. The team which makes life easier for its own offense and harder for the opponent's offense will almost certainly win. USC will be taking notes on how to deal with both defenses. This is not going to be a pretty game, but it's a contest the Trojans will be intently watching as they head into the second half of their season.