USC Trojans vs. UCLA Bruins Betting Picks

The 4-0 USC Trojans will go on the road Saturday night to face off with the 3-2 UCLA Bruins at 7:30 PM ET in Rose Bowl Stadium. You can tune into the matchup on ABC. The Trojans come in as 3.5-point road favorites and we’re looking at a 62 over/under. Let’s dive into how this one will go down and who will end up covering the spread. Make sure to check out the rest of my CFB Picks and Predictions for the upcoming weekend slate of games.

• Trojans are 1-6 ATS in their last 7 games in December.
• Bruins are 4-0 ATS in their last 4 games overall.
• Under is 4-0 in Trojans last 4 games overall.
• Under is 4-0 in Bruins last 4 home games.

It hasn’t been an easy path to 4-0 for USC, winning their first two games over Arizona State and Arizona by a combined five points. They followed those games up with comfortable victories over Utah and Washington State, and now go into a matchup with a UCLA team that has the best offense they’ve faced to this point. The Trojans are led by sophomore QB Kedon Slovis, who’s one of the best quarterbacks in the entire country. He’s up to 1,257 yards on the season with 10 touchdowns and two interceptions. They have a plethora of weapons on the outside with Amon-Ra St. Brown, Drake London, and Tyler Vaughns all over 20 receptions. Brown leads the bunch with four scores.

That doesn’t mean USC doesn’t want to run the ball. They’ve only passed it 40 more times than they’ve run it and they deploy a nasty three-headed backfield. Markese Stepp, Stephen Carr, and Vavae Malepeai have all carried it between 27 and 35 times with all three scoring twice. Malepeai is the best receiving back with 14 catches out of the backfield. The Trojans have an elite offense and it’ll come down to the defense stepping up.

The Bruins have been up and down this season and they’ve looked a lot better than their 3-2 record shows. They’re coming off two straight victories in which their defense stepped up and allowed a combined 28 points to Arizona and Arizona State. The same two teams that gave USC huge problems.

Offensively, the Bruins are led by junior QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson, who’s been a lot better this season. He’s up to 691 yards and eight touchdowns on top of 210 rushing yards and three scores. His dual-threat nature is lethal when he takes care of the football. The best player on the team is RB/WR Demetric Felton, who has carried the ball 111 times with 578 yards and five scores on top of 17 catches for 112 yards and a score. Greg Dulcich and Kyle Phillips are DTR’s top -two options and while neither are going to do it on their own, both are solid between the ’20s and in the RZ.

I like the Bruins to keep this game extremely close and I wouldn’t be surprised if they win this game outright. The Trojans struggled in a big way with Arizona and Arizona State, who the Bruins just beat up on in back-to-back weeks. Dorian Thompson-Robinson has looked better than ever and the USC offense hasn’t looked like it did in 2019. The UCLA Bruins defense has been great recently and the offense is consistent. The Bruins have home-field advantage and I like them big time in this game as one of my favorite bets in this game.

The Bruins defense has unexpectedly stood up of late and the USC offense isn’t what it’s made out to be by the general public. The Bruins are solid offensively, but they also run the ball a ton and very rarely push the ball downfield. Their offense consists of getting Felton the ball as much as possible. This number is far too high and I’m a big fan of the under.