opportunity

After USC’s bye earlier this season, the Trojans flopped.

They lost 24-7 to unranked Wisconsin. Quarterback Jayden Maiava passed for 257 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. USC’s rushing game was held to minus-18 yards, while the offense averaged 3.2 yards per play.

The experience changed the way coach Lincoln Riley approached the team’s second bye week leading into No. 18 USC’s big game at No. 9 Indiana (8-1, 5-1 Big Ten) on Saturday. If the Trojans (7-2, 4-2) win, they keep their College Football Playoff hopes alive. A loss would eliminate USC from playoff contention.

“We were on the field more last week, certainly than we were the first time around,” Riley said of his team’s workouts during the bye. “We handled the weekend a bit differently, both with players and staff, and I think we came into this week with probably more good work under our belt and a little bit more prepared.”

USC coach Lincoln Riley watches his team warm up before beating Ohio State at the Coliseum on Oct. 31.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“We’re quite a bit further ahead than we were at this point before playing Wisconsin,” he added.

This bye week comes after the Trojans beat No. 2 Ohio State 30-18. But that victory remains in the rearview mirror for Riley and Maiava. Just as the team needs to move past a loss, Maiava understands the importance of looking beyond arguably the team’s best win of the season and remaining focused on the present.

“Every single day requires our best. If we’re focused on yesterday’s victories, you lose out on opportunities for today’s victories,” Maiava said.

It’s a message Riley reiterated.

“The reality is you’re not gonna play your best every week. You want to get as close to it as you can, and then you want to get good enough that even when you’re not at your best, you still find ways to win ballgames,” he said. “… These are one-week seasons, and we got to be our very best here this week.”

With three games left in the season, USC’s fate remains in its own hands. A win at Indiana followed by a home game against Maryland at the Coliseum would set up a consequential matchup with No. 4 UCLA to close out the season.

Wide receiver Trent Mosley believes the team has prepared for that pressure during its two weeks of practice.

“We’re all pushing every day. We all know what’s in front of us, and we’re taking it week by week,” he said.

Saturday’s matchup will mark the fifth meeting between the two teams. Historically, the competition has been one-sided, with USC winning all four previous meetings.

Indiana enters Saturday’s game with the nation’s fourth-ranked scoring defense, allowing 12.4 points per game. The Hoosiers also have 32 team sacks, the fourth-most in the nation. Tight end Tucker Ashcraft trusts that USC’s offensive line will keep Indiana’s pass rush away from Maiava.

“[We need to] take advantage of all our opportunities, find the space in their zones and make big plays,” Ashcraft said.

Riley said he sees the opportunity to face reigning national champions as a benefit, helping the team make a late-season playoff push.

“Whether it’s [a] big end-of-season game, championship game, the more you’re in those scenarios, the more you’re used to being in that level of competition,” Riley said. “It’s a different type of feeling and a different type of strength that it takes to win and excel in those games.”

This will be the first time the teams meet during the Curt Cignetti era. The game will also mark the first meeting between Riley and Cignetti as opposing coaches.

“We sit next to each other in Big Ten meetings and make comments back and forth to each other the whole time,” Riley said. “He’s been a fun guy to interact with.”

As the Trojans head to Bloomington, they’ll face a significant change in weather, going from a high of 71 degrees in Los Angeles to a forecast high of 47 degrees in Indiana. For Hawaii native Maiava, playing November football in colder weather is a dream come true.

Regardless of the weather, USC is exactly where it wants to be at this point in the season, Riley said.

“We worked hard and it hasn’t been perfect, but there’s been a lot more good than bad, and that’s why we’re one of the few teams that sits here right now controlling our destiny in so many ways,” he said.

Fox Corporation has completed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, transforming the Murdoch family’s company into a major player in the streaming video business.

The deal closed Friday, months ahead of the companies’ original target of the first half of 2027.

The deal combines Fox’s news, sports and broadcast channels with the San Jose-based streaming platform, which reaches 100 million households globally. The $22 billion valuation includes debt.

Roku, founded in 2002, provides Fox with a direct line to consumer households at a time when the traditional pay-TV universe continues its slow decline as viewers move away from cable and satellite services to video streaming. Fox already owns the free ad-supported streaming service Tubi, which turned profitable last year.

Fox Corp. expects to see around $400 million in cost reductions within two years of the Roku acquisition.

While Roku provides Fox with an opportunity to be more aggressive in marketing its channels, Fox has pledged that the platform will remain open to distributing content from competitors.

“Beginning today, our top priority for the combined company is to continue to relentlessly serve audiences and partners, while reinforcing the openness and choice that is the essence of the Roku platform,” Fox Executive Chair and Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch said in a statement. “Our shared entrepreneurial passion and clear conviction toward building the future together with our new Roku colleagues gives us great confidence in the opportunities ahead of us.”

Roku founder Anthony Wood will join the Fox board of directors. He will also serve as co-chair of Fox Digital Platforms, the newly formed division that includes Roku, Tubi, the direct-to-consumer streaming service Fox One and Red Seat Ventures, which provides sales and technical support to podcasters. Paul Cheesbrough, who oversaw Tubi for Fox, will become co-chair and chief executive of the division.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Roku stockholders are entitled to receive $95.30 in cash and 0.9799 shares of Fox Class A common stock for each share of Roku Class A and Roku Class B common stock they owned immediately prior to closing. As a result of the transaction, Fox stockholders own around 74% of the outstanding shares of Fox common stock and former Roku stockholders own approximately 26%.

Roku shares stopped trading on the Nasdaq Friday.

Since coming out of retirement before this season, Rams defensive lineman Aaron Donald adopted a humble approach, always allowing younger, less-accomplished players to go ahead of him during drills.

But on Thursday, the future Hall of Famer enthusiastically moved to the front of the line.

The Rams practiced scooping fumbled footballs off the turf.

“I needed that,” Donald said Thursday, chuckling. “Learn bending and getting down.”

Last Sunday against the Chargers, Donald missed the opportunity to score his first NFL touchdown when, with a clear shot to the end zone, he failed to come up with a fumble, albeit in hilarious fashion.

“I saw what he was thinking because it’s going right in front of you and he’s thinking, ‘I’m going to scoop and score,’” coach Sean McVay said after the game. “Then he knocks that … out of bounds. I mean, what the hell?

“His face, he couldn’t even look at me and make eye contact after that. But at least we can laugh about it right now.”

Donald was still laughing about it Thursday.

“I should have slowed down, but I felt people behind me and I’m like, ‘I’m going to get hit in my back. That’s going to hurt,’” he said. “So I tried to go full speed and scoop it. I thought the ball was going to bounce this way but it bounced that way, and it just looked all damn silly.

“Then I hit the ball out. I just laid down. ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’”

Donald was grinning throughout his session with reporters while replaying the missed opportunity — and the new opportunity on the horizon with edge rusher Myles Garrett back at practice.

McVay has not said whether Garrett will be activated from injured reserve and play for the first time since undergoing knee surgery after the season opener.

But Donald sounded as if that could happen Sunday when the Rams play the Washington Commanders in Landover, Md.

Donald did not play in the opener, so whenever Garrett returns would mark the first time the future Hall of Famers will play together.

“If Myles is 100% ready to go, and plays this week, that’s going to be amazing for us,” Donald said. “It’s always good when you have all the pieces of the puzzle.”

Donald, a three-time NFL defensive player of the year, and Garrett, a two-time winner, have a combined 236½ sacks. Last season with the Cleveland Browns, Garrett set an NFL season record with 23 sacks.

Donald has played in six games for a team that opened the season as the Super Bowl favorite but is 4-4 after its win over the Chargers.

Donald does not have a sack, but he has 12 tackles, three for losses.

Will Garrett’s return free Donald from double teams and other schemes?

“I’m pretty sure,” Donald said. “The guy did have 20-something sacks last year.”

Donald said the season has not gone as expected, but he is enjoying it.

“I’m enjoying the process, I’m enjoying myself week in and week out getting better, enjoying being out there with the guys,” he said. “And just playing this game.”

Etc.

The Rams activated kicker Joshua Karty to the roster from the practice squad and signed cornerback David Long to the practice squad. The Rams selected Long in the third round of the 2019 draft and he played three-plus seasons before stints with four other teams. … For the second day in a row, cornerback Trent McDuffie (back), tight end Colby Parkinson (ribs) and safety Kam Curl (foot) did not practice.

Prediction columns are silly.

If you want to guarantee something won’t happen, go ahead and predict — as Bill Plaschke did — that the Rams are going to go undefeated.

See, what happened was that his crystal ball was misfiring. Kind of like Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert has this season, throwing an interception in every game so far.

Actually, it’s Herbert’s Chargers who are going to go 0-17.

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Gary Klein breaks down what went right for the Rams in a 24-9 win over the Chargers at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.

After the Rams’ suspense-free 24-9 victory over the “visiting” Chargers on Sunday at SoFi Stadium, the Rams are 4-4. But the Bolts are 0-7 and barreling toward most unfortunate history.

NFL teams have gone winless before, but it hasn’t happened since the schedule grew to 17 games in 2021. Are the Chargers desperate enough to avoid being the first? It doesn’t feel like it.

They have 10 games left, of course. Each one “an opportunity,” as Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said, to figure it out. Or even to trap an unsuspecting, wounded opponent.

But there’s also the fact that the Chargers are 0-10 since their last win on Dec. 21 in Dallas — even longer ago than the Chargers’ last touchdown, which was nine quarters and 27 possessions in the rearview mirror.

What’s 10 more losses if not on the table?

Just about everything should be on the table — though not trading Herbert, by all accounts — for this banged-up, head-scratching, flat tire of a football team.

The Chargers’ lost season is the opportunity for major renovations.

It would even be really silly for the Chargers not to give the market a good shake before the NFL’s Nov. 10 trade deadline.

Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh reacts in the fourth quarter of a 24-9 loss to the Rams at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

No one wants to say goodbye to Chargers mainstay Khalil Mack that way, but the veteran defender should be worth a pretty pick to a contender. What about receiver Quentin Johnston? Running back Kimani Vidal?

But do not excuse Mike McDaniel. Let the beleaguered offensive coordinator keep calling games.

Why? Because history is on the line!

And so is the No. 1 draft pick that could land Ohio State’s sensational receiver, Jeremiah Smith.

The Detroit Lions went winless in 2008 and got Matthew Stafford — a Super Bowl winner and last season’s league MVP for the Rams — with the top pick in the next draft for their suffering.

But neither that season, nor the Cleveland Browns’ 0-16 2016, will go down as an abject disappointment on the level of this Chargers season.

Those teams weren’t supposed to be special. ESPN’s consensus was that the 2008 Lions would finish fourth in the division. And the Browns were coming off a 1-15 season (after which they drafted Myles Garrett No. 1 overall).

The Chargers came into this year with the eighth best odds to win the Super Bowl. They were fresh off consecutive 11-win seasons in Harbaugh’s first two seasons at the helm. And they were pairing Herbert and McDaniel. They were supposed to be a dynamic duo. Instead, the pairing has been a colossal dud.

Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert looks up at the videoboard after the Rams add to the lead on Sunday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Herbert’s two interceptions Sunday pushed his season total to an NFL-leading 10. In 2024, he threw only three.

“Turnovers are what’s stopping us [offensively], and that’s something that we have to clean up,” Herbert said after Sunday’s loss, in which he hit both Rams safety Quentin Lake and Rams cornerback Trent McDuffie in the chest with passes.

The first interception led to a Rams field goal, the second set up a Rams touchdown.

It was that kind of game in that kind of season.

Herbert’s Hail Mary before halftime came down in Ladd McConkey’s grasp a foot short of the goal line. It was the second time this season Herbert completed a pass of 50 or more yards and had the play end on the one-yard line — an NFL record, according to ESPN.

The Chargers also went into halftime with 129 more yards of total offense, nine more minutes of possession and prevented the Rams from achieving a first down on their first five drives for the first time in Sean McVay’s decade as coach.

But still the Chargers — they of little faith — trailed 10-9. Because the Rams closed the half by charging 66 yards to score a touchdown on a five-play, 1-minute, 36-second drive immediately after the Chargers had elected to kick a field goal rather than go for it on fourth and two.

They played like a team ready to accept another defeat and fell to 0-7 for the first time since 2000, when Harbaugh was their quarterback.

They finished 1-15 that season, the franchise’s worst. I wondered: Did that experience teach Harbaugh — who is just the fifth coach ever to win a college national title and also appear in a Super Bowl — anything?

“I mean, there’s no quit, there’s no surrender,” Harbaugh said. “It’s going to be an opportunity next week, get ourselves ready for that. It’s that motivation, it’s that dedication that, you know, there’s next week. There’s an opportunity, and … you got to keep working, you got to keep moving forward.”

Unless they can put in a reverse jinx, the only thing they’re moving toward is some ignominious history.