Jayden Maiava was responsible for 18 of USC's 42 points

USC ran 76 plays to San José State's 56 and needed almost none of them to be spectacular. Nine of them gained 15 yards or more, against five for the Spartans, and Jayden Maiava had a hand in six. This was never a case of one team being able to move the ball and the other not — San José State moved it, 35.5 yards a drive. It was a case of who kept earning another snap.

Maiava went 3-for-4 on third down, and USC went 9-for-13

Third down is where this separated. USC converted nine of 13, 69 percent, against 45 percent for the Spartans, and the conversions came from a short list: Maiava 3-for-4 with his own arm and legs, Shahn Alston 2-for-2, Deshonne Redeaux 2-for-2 on the only two third downs that came his way. San José State went three-and-out on half its ten possessions. USC went three-and-out twice, and then had the ball back with a lead.

Field position followed from that. The Spartans started an average drive 72.7 yards from the end zone; the Trojans started 65.7 — seven yards closer, every possession, which across ten drives is a great deal of ground one offense never had to cover. Luke Weaver's group had to travel further to reach the same places, and USC scored on 60 percent of its drives to San José State's 40 percent while doing less work per trip.

Trent Mosley caught seven of nine, and nobody found an answer

Maiava threw at Mosley nine times and completed seven for 118 yards, comfortably the most productive connection on the field and worth close to nine points of expected value by itself. The touchdown came at Q3 2:28: a short right throw Mosley caught at the Spartan 9 and carried the last 14 yards into the end zone. That made it 35-3 with a quarter and a half still to play, and it was the last time the outcome was in question.

The rushing line reads minus-9 yards on three carries for Maiava, the least flattering true number in the game and also close to meaningless. One of those carries was the 1-yard keeper at Q1 8:55 that opened the scoring; the damage came at Q2 4:23, when Dylan Lee sacked him for 13 and USC took an intentional grounding flag on top of it. Across 32 plays he generated about 14 points of expected value on 286 passing yards and two scores.

Luke Weaver had the best individual night on the field and lost by 16

Weaver threw for 234 yards on 32 attempts with two touchdowns and added 42 rushing yards on eight carries with a third, worth about 12 points of expected value over 39 snaps — the same 18 points of scoring responsibility Maiava carried. His deep middle throw to Carson Clark at Q3 10:16 went 42 yards and was the most valuable pass either quarterback attempted. Clark caught all six balls thrown his way for 74 yards. None of it changed the result.

Jide Abasiri kept ending Spartan drives before they got to the good part

Abasiri finished with 2.5 tackles for loss among three tackles, and the plays he made took roughly six points off the board, more than any defender on either sideline. The largest arrived at Q2 8:21, fourth-and-1 from the USC 7, when he met Isaiah Carlson two yards deep in the backfield and San José State walked off with nothing. Carlson's night: minus-2 rushing yards on three carries, every one of them taken inside the red zone.

The Spartan defense was not the problem either. Ethan Powell's 6.5 tackles and single tackle for loss denied about five points, and it was Powell who made the stop at Q1 3:59 — fourth-and-4, Maiava running right, tackled at the Spartan 1 — that ended the most damaging drive USC ran all night. Naseri Danielson added eight-and-a-half tackles and the game's only takeaway, picking off Jonas Williams at the USC 41 with 2:33 left.

The fourth quarter San José State won 23-7

Weaver's 28-yard touchdown throw to Jerry Mcclure at Q4 14:56 opened a quarter the Spartans took 23-7. Jordan Anderson's 3-yard catch at 5:11 followed, then Weaver's own 7-yard run at 1:45 with a two-point pass to Cooper Hoch behind it. In between, Viliami Teu broke a 24-yard run on third-and-11 at 6:54, the single most valuable snap either team produced. Against a 35-3 deficit entering the quarter, all of it was scoreboard repair.

What each side carries out of the Coliseum

USC leaves with an offense that never had to invent anything. Six different players scored: King Miller carried 15 times for 63 yards and punched in a 4-yarder at Q2 0:30, Riley Wormley touched the ball twice and one of them was a 5-yard touchdown at Q2 14:20, Kayden Dixon-Wyatt caught four for 36 and a score. The unfinished business is short-yardage — 60 percent scoring is strong, and the drive that died at the Spartan 1 says it is not automatic.

The Spartans leave with a quarterback who accounted for 18 points against a roster favored to bury him, a receiver in Clark who caught everything thrown at him, and a run game split between Carlson's minus-2 yards and Teu's 25 on two carries. Weaver explains most of what went right. The 50 percent three-and-out rate, and the fourth-and-1 at the USC 7 that Abasiri blew up, explain the rest.