SC QB Darnold dinged – in more ways than one – in thumping loss to Irish … Going into Saturday’s big national TV game at Notre Dame, Southern California redshirt sophomore QB Sam Darnold, who entered the season as the consensus favorite to be the first player selected at the 2018 draft, but has had his ups and downs so far this fall, was almost certainly hoping to use the exposure to resecitate his flagging draft prospects. Instead, the same flaws that have plagued Darnold this year were exposed even more in the Trojans 49-14 loss to the Irish. Darnold did complete 20 of 28 passes, but he muffed the snap on USC’s first play of the night resulting in a turnover deep in his own territory and then was picked off later in the contest. For the season, Darnold has 17 turnovers, including ten picks, in the Trojans first 7 games. And that has taken a lot of the air out of Darnold’s draft balloon; enough that there are rumblings out of USC that Darnold may opt not to enter the upcoming draft and rather return to school with the hope of getting back to the top of the board. And to add injury to insult – literally – Darnold was forced to leave the game in the 4th quarter after injuring an ankle. The injury is not thought to be serious, but it will bear watching this week.
