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November 7, 2026

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USC stuns No. 2 Ohio State 30-18: the Halloween upset that shook college football

Faizan Altaf

It took 39 seconds. On the Trojans’ second play from scrimmage, freshman wide receiver Trent Mosley caught a short pass behind the line, slipped through the Ohio State secondary and sprinted 69 yards for a touchdown. Rain was falling lightly on Halloween night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and the No. 2 team in the country was already chasing the game.

USC never gave up the lead, beating Ohio State 30-18 on Saturday, 31 October 2026, in the biggest win of head coach Lincoln Riley’s five years at USC.

The shock was threefold. USC had arrived unranked, a week after a miserable 24-7 loss at Wisconsin — their fewest points in any game Riley has coached. Ohio State had been a 6.5-point favourite, even without their starting quarterback. And USC won without dominating the ball: Ohio State finished with 464 total yards to USC’s 338 and held the ball for almost twice as long. The Buckeyes scored one touchdown all night, with only 2 minutes and 12 seconds left.

By the final whistle, USC students and fans had stormed the field. It was the Trojans’ first win over a top-five opponent at the Coliseum since 2015, and Riley’s first over a top-five team since he arrived in November 2021 — and the fourth straight week a top-two team in the AP Poll lost to an unranked opponent.

At a glance

What happened: Unranked USC beat No. 2 Ohio State 30-18 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, 31 October 2026. Trent Mosley scored on a 69-yard touchdown on USC’s second play, and the Trojans led 20-9 at half-time and 27-9 after three quarters.

Why it matters: The win is Lincoln Riley’s first over a top-five team at USC, keeps the Trojans’ playoff hopes alive, and leaves Ohio State at 6-2 with almost no room for error in November.

What happens next: Ohio State hosts Oregon on Saturday, 7 November, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. USC has a bye week, then travels to face Indiana on Saturday, 14 November.

How the night unfolded

USC scored twice in the first quarter to lead 14-3. Both teams kicked two field goals in the second, so USC led 20-9 at half-time. The Trojans scored the only touchdown of the third quarter to lead 27-9, and a late field goal kept the margin at 12 points after Ohio State finally found the end zone.

Ohio State ran 81 plays to USC’s 50 and gained 204 rushing yards to USC’s 116. Yet USC averaged 6.8 yards per play to Ohio State’s 5.7, thanks to three enormous plays: a 69-yard touchdown, a 44-yard punt return and a 70-yard catch-and-run. Ohio State had not allowed a play longer than 36 yards all season. In the red zone, all three of Ohio State’s scores were field goals; USC scored on all four trips, with three touchdowns and a field goal.

The 39-second statement

On the second snap, Maiava threw a short pass to Mosley behind the line. It looked like a safe screen pass. Mosley caught it, found a seam, and was gone — 69 yards for a touchdown 39 seconds in, his sixth of his freshman season.

Mosley had been quiet a week earlier at Wisconsin, where USC managed only seven points. Against Ohio State he finished with five catches for 101 yards and a touchdown, plus a 44-yard punt return, for 145 all-purpose yards. The return came later in the first quarter: after a late hit drew a 15-yard penalty, Waymond Jordan ran nine yards for a touchdown to make it 14-3.

Maiava completed 15 of 22 passes for 222 yards and a touchdown, with no interceptions. Mosley and freshman tight end Mark Bowman, returning from a hamstring injury, accounted for 12 of his 22 attempts and 180 of his passing yards.

A defence that bent but did not break

If Mosley won the first quarter, USC’s defence won the second. Ohio State gained 192 yards before the break, but their first five drives produced only three field goals — and just before half-time they reached the USC 1 and still came away with three points instead of seven.

Fahey was stopped on a quarterback sneak ruled down short after a replay review. Then, from first-and-goal inside the 1, a Jackson run gained nothing, a false start pushed Ohio State back, and two incomplete passes forced a field goal. USC led 20-9 at the break after Caden Chittenden’s 36-yard field goal with five seconds left. Earlier, Ryon Sayeri had tied his career best with a 54-yard field goal. Ohio State’s Connor Hawkins kicked field goals of 39, 34, 23 and 47 yards — 12 of the Buckeyes’ 18 points.

The turning point: a fumble, then a hurdle

The game was still alive at half-time. Ohio State trailed by 11 points and had a freshman quarterback growing into the game. What happened in the first eight minutes of the third quarter ended that hope.

Early in the quarter, running back Isaiah West caught a short pass from Fahey and lost the ball. Desman Stephens II forced the fumble, Floyd Boucard recovered it at the Ohio State 32, and two plays later Bowman turned a catch over the middle into a 70-yard gain, hurdling Jaylen McClain on his way to the 2-yard line. Two plays after that, King Miller ran one yard for a touchdown: 27-9.

The swing was brutal: instead of cutting the lead to three points, Ohio State were suddenly 18 points behind. It was one of seven tackles for loss and two sacks by a USC line that spent the night hurrying Fahey, who completed only 8 of 15 passes for 86 yards in the first half. Miller finished as USC’s leading rusher with 78 yards and a touchdown, despite losing a fumble in the second quarter — the first of his career. Jordan added 48 yards and a touchdown, and together they gained 126 yards, after USC’s running game had managed minus 17 yards at Wisconsin.

Two freshmen, two very different nights

For USC, Mosley was the story. The true freshman has become Maiava’s first option. His 69-yard touchdown was the longest play Ohio State had allowed all season, and his 44-yard punt return set up the second touchdown. Two of his touches produced 14 of USC’s 30 points.

For Ohio State, the freshman under the spotlight was quarterback Luke Fahey, making his first career start near his Orange County home. He finished 21 of 38 for 260 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions, and he did not play badly. But he could not provide the same downfield threat as the man he replaced, and his team scored only one touchdown in 81 plays.

That man was Julian Sayin, the former Heisman Trophy finalist who injured his right throwing arm two weeks earlier at Indiana on 17 October. He had thrown for 235 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions before leaving, and Fahey finished the 19-15 win with an 0-of-2 passing line. Sayin has been sidelined indefinitely. Fahey became only the fifth true freshman to start at quarterback for Ohio State, joining Kyle McCord (2021), Braxton Miller (2011), Terrelle Pryor (2008) and Art Schlichter (1978).

Fahey’s one touchdown pass made history. With 2 minutes and 12 seconds left, he found Jeremiah Smith for a one-yard catch — Smith’s 40th career touchdown reception, breaking Braylon Edwards’ Big Ten record, and his 13th of the season. Smith finished with 10 catches for 83 yards and passed 1,000 receiving yards for the third straight season, a first for an Ohio State receiver. The score was too late to matter, and the two-point try failed.

Running back Bo Jackson rushed for 121 yards on 21 carries. His performance underlined the oddity of the game: a team can have a 100-yard rusher, a 260-yard passer and a record-breaking receiver, win the yardage battle by 126 yards — and still lose by 12 points. Football is won in the red zone, on turnovers and on big plays, and USC won all three.

What it means for Lincoln Riley

For Riley, this was the win his USC tenure had been waiting for. He arrived in November 2021 as one of the most celebrated young coaches in the sport, but his USC teams had never beaten a top-12 team in five years, and never a top-five team at all. That record was the stick his critics used against him.

The pressure reached a new level a week earlier: the 24-7 loss at Wisconsin was the worst offensive performance of Riley’s career, seven points, the fewest any Riley-led offence had ever scored. USC fell out of the AP Top 25, and plenty of people in Los Angeles were calling for him to be fired. The season had begun with four straight wins, then stalled with a 41-27 loss to Oregon, wins over Washington and Penn State, and the Wisconsin defeat.

Saturday night changed the conversation. Riley’s team held the Buckeyes without a touchdown for the first 57 minutes and produced the physical, disciplined defensive performance his USC teams have often been accused of lacking. The Associated Press called it the biggest win of Riley’s tenure. USC are almost certain to return to the AP Top 25 on Sunday.

The hard part is what comes next. After a bye week, USC travel to face Indiana on 14 November. Indiana are the defending national champions, whose 22-game winning streak Ohio State ended with the 19-15 win on 17 October. After Indiana, USC face Maryland and unbeaten UCLA. Beat Indiana on the road and the playoff conversation becomes serious; lose, and Saturday night will be remembered as a brilliant one-off.

The playoff and Big Ten picture

For Ohio State, the damage is serious but not fatal. The Buckeyes are now 6-2 overall and 4-1 in the Big Ten, their first defeat a 24-23 loss to Texas in Austin on 12 September. They had not lost two games this early in a season since 2011, the year before Urban Meyer arrived in Columbus. Now they will probably need to win all four remaining November games — Oregon and Northwestern at home, Nebraska away, and Michigan in the season finale — to reach the playoff and the Big Ten championship game.

The mitigating factor is that the Buckeyes played without Sayin, and their defence, not their freshman quarterback, was the bigger problem: Ohio State had allowed 30 points for the first time since a 32-31 loss to Oregon in 2024. If Sayin returns and the defence recovers, the Buckeyes can still win out — but a third defeat would almost certainly end their playoff hopes.

For USC, the picture is brighter but still complicated. The Trojans are 7-2 overall and 4-2 in the Big Ten, with a signature win no other two-loss team can match. But two losses — to Oregon and Wisconsin — mean they cannot afford another slip. Their path to the playoff almost certainly runs through Indiana on 14 November, and probably requires wins over Maryland and UCLA as well. A week ago that looked impossible. Now it looks merely difficult.

By the numbers

The final score was USC 30, Ohio State 18, with quarter scores of 14-3, 6-6, 7-0 and 3-9. Ohio State gained 464 total yards to USC’s 338, with 260 passing yards and 204 rushing yards against USC’s 222 and 116, and held the ball for 39 minutes and 28 seconds, almost twice USC’s 20 minutes and 32 seconds. But USC averaged 6.8 yards per play to Ohio State’s 5.7, both teams lost one fumble and neither threw an interception, and Ohio State were penalised 11 times for 75 yards to USC’s six for 42. Ohio State are now 10-14-1 all-time against USC, and have lost five straight at the Coliseum, where they have not won since 1946.

Frequently asked questions

What was the final score between USC and Ohio State?

USC beat Ohio State 30-18 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, 31 October 2026. USC led 20-9 at half-time and 27-9 after three quarters.

Who scored the first touchdown of the game?

Trent Mosley, USC’s freshman wide receiver, scored on a 69-yard touchdown catch on the Trojans’ second play, just 39 seconds into the game. It was his sixth touchdown of his freshman season.

Why was Ohio State’s starting quarterback not playing?

Julian Sayin, Ohio State’s starting quarterback and a former Heisman Trophy finalist, was out with an injury to his right throwing arm, suffered on 17 October against Indiana. Freshman Luke Fahey started in his place, completing 21 of 38 passes for 260 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions.

What record did Jeremiah Smith break?

Smith’s one-yard touchdown catch with 2 minutes and 12 seconds left was his 40th career touchdown reception, breaking Braylon Edwards’ Big Ten record. Smith also passed 1,000 receiving yards for the third straight season, the first Ohio State receiver ever to do so.

What does the result mean for the College Football Playoff?

USC, now 7-2, are back in the playoff conversation and almost certain to return to the AP Top 25. Ohio State, now 6-2, will probably need to win all four remaining November games — Oregon, Northwestern, Nebraska and Michigan — to reach the playoff and the Big Ten championship game.

When do USC and Ohio State play next?

Ohio State host Oregon on Saturday, 7 November, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. USC have a bye week, then travel to face Indiana on Saturday, 14 November. USC then finish the regular season against Maryland and unbeaten UCLA.

Conclusion

Halloween night at the Coliseum was a reminder that no ranking, no favourite’s tag and no statistical advantage guarantees anything. USC were unranked, coming off their worst offensive performance in years, and facing the No. 2 team in the country. They answered with a 69-yard touchdown in 39 seconds, a goal-line stand, a 54-yard field goal, a forced fumble and a 70-yard catch-and-run. They won the moments that mattered, even while losing the yardage battle by 126 yards.

For Riley, it was the signature win his tenure had lacked. For Ohio State, it was a second defeat and a warning about life without Sayin. For the rest of college football, it was the fourth straight week a top-two team lost to an unranked opponent. Whether Saturday night becomes the night USC’s season turned will be decided in November, at Indiana and against UCLA.

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.

Sources

Faizan Altaf

Faizan Altaf is the founder and author of findivoza.com, a news blog covering world, Pakistan, business, technology, health and sport in plain English. He writes for general readers who want clear, trustworthy news without jargon. His work focuses on explaining what happened, why it matters, and what to watch next.

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