Andy & Ari On3 - Illinois WALKS OFF USC in a wild one!

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

Illinois just walked off USC with a field goal in Champaign, and Andy and Ari break down a huge result in the Big Ten.  Our show is presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code CFB when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel.   Join On3 today and get one full year of access to The Athletic included! https://www.on3.com/subscribe/C Subscribe to On3!  ⬇️ youtube.com/on3sports/?sub_confirmati...Welcome to On3 | The best of college football and recruiting https://www.on3.com/ Listen to Andy & Ari On3 on podcast! Spotify 🎧: https://open.spotify.com/show/5AhQ4d2... Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Follow Andy Staples on Twitter:   / andy_staples   Follow Andy Staples on Instagram:   / andy_staples   Follow Ari Wasserman on Twitter: https://x.com/AriWasserman Follow us on Twitter   / on3sports   Follow us on Instagram   / on3   Like/Follow us on Facebook   / on3sports   Hosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to an instant reaction episode of Andy and Ari on three presented by Bent MGM. And Ari, we just watched Illinois walk off USC. Illinois tried as hard as it could to give this game away because they were going into win. They fumble into the end zone. USC gets it, comes back, scores. Basically, Illinois choked away a two touchdown lead. And then Illinois did kind of what Michigan did to USC last year, just grind it down the field and Michigan had to get in the end

zone. Illinois only needed a field goal and they got it. I know that USC got stops in that game. I just don't remember any. Like it's like... Well, they got a stop when they fumbled going into the end zone twice and the first one probably wasn't actually a fumble because his elbow was down. Yeah. Those were the

stops. Illinois had a chance to kind of get control the game before halftime, of course, going into the end zone they make a, they fumble the ball, but it actually wasn't a fumble, but they didn't overturn the call on the field. So, and then They got that other one. Yeah, the second one actually was a fumble.

And credit to Jaden Mayava and Mackay Lemon and the USC offense because they were awesome down the stretch. But Brett Bilema said it after the game. He's like, I knew we were going to get in field goal range because all you've got to do is run it right at USC and you're going to get where you want to go historically in the Lincoln Riley era. It kind of worked that way. And like we were talking during the game, but it feels like every single time USC plays a team that hits hard, they can't win or they struggle. mightily, you know, and it's like you feel like this year's was, you know, shaping up to be different because I got to tell you, Andy, Mackay Lemon is one of the best receivers in the country. And Jade Maiava, I thought played a pretty good game, you know, and it's like USC has the offense

in order to do it. Now, you have to acknowledge that they were without their left tackle and their starting center got injured in the middle of the game. And if the starting center doesn't get hurt, they probably get another touchdown because remember the backup center comes in and they run that trick play, and he just caught kind of drifting down field. It was like the third play he was in. And so that one, that was a tough break for USC.

So maybe that evens out the Illinois thing that the fumble. It just felt like very reminiscent of the ways USC has come up short in the past a few years. Now, it wasn't nearly as bad. Like USC's defense two years ago was laughably bad. Oh, this wouldn't even even close two years ago. But I also feel like, too, that Illinois is a very good football team. team that we, you know, that had a really, really rough night. Now, they're probably not as good

as we thought they were, but it's not like that's like a walking terrible team now. That's still a team that can go out and win eight, nine games this year. You know, and it just, you have to be able to match the physicality. And like, I understand we were joking about that tweet that went viral, semi-viral earlier in the week when Lincoln Riley was complaining about how they had the latest kickoff last week and then the earliest kickoff this week. So soft. You created that. And then somebody was like, If only you could play a collection of 11 teams that are also on the West Coast. Like, how can we come up with that?

Kevin Clark from ESPN said that. It was so funny. But like, but you do understand like it's a tricky spot. And Andy, to your credit, you must hate yourself right now because you did go against yourself. But like Andy was walking around in my living room last Sunday.

And we were looking at the like lines and the spreads of the game. And you're like, 11 a.m. And Champaign, Illinois, they're going to lose. And it was like so funny because that's exactly like what happened. And I picked USC to cover because I'm an idiot. by the way on the first touchdown Andy that they gave up to Altmeyer on that run like looked like

they were playing patty cake out there. I was like, you remember that play? It was like they were like this and it was terrible. It was terrible. So, you know, I don't know that anybody's cooked or that any season's over with, but like let me tell you the, you know, I don't know if we want to use this time at the end of the video to like have a rant about Notre Dame and how that might have hurt them today. But like that was a pretty big, pretty big result. in the sport, even if it doesn't necessarily, you know, impact directly the two teams that are on here only. Well, and also, like, what is Notre Dame going to do to USC on the ground?

Like, what, what are Jeremiah Love and Judarian Price going to do to USC? Yeah. They've got to get this figured out. And remember, Michigan's going to do this, too. So your next two games are Michigan and Notre Dame. Like, they're going to run it right down your three. throats if you don't do something about it. And it's just, so Jakeem Stewart, who by the way made a really good, the fumble that may or

may not have been a fumble was Jakeem Stewart made that play. He played great. So he's the type of player that USC is now bringing in that we think they're going to have a bunch of next year that they're bringing in. So, I mean, hang on, I guess. Like hang on, the cavalry's coming. I just, it's not coming this year is the problem. Yeah.

We don't know if Illinois or Michigan's better. this year. I feel like there might be kind of similar. Illinois, this lost by 53 last week to Indiana. Let's not forget that. I know. If Michigan went to Illinois next week, though, I bet you that would be like a three-point spread. Sure. But I, so it's still kind of, so let's just say just for the benefit of argument that Michigan's better than Illinois, it gets progressively harder with the same type of style every week until you hit a team that I think maybe find out could be a top five team. Like Notre Dame is a very good football team. I know we're down on them. They lost their first two games, but I wonder if losses are going to age well. Like Notre Dame isn't a bad team. They're a very, very good

team. So like USC absolutely needed to figure out a way to win that game. They almost found out a way. Illinois completely handed it to them on a platter at the end. And they still couldn't shut the door because their defense can't get it up when when it's necessary. So I don't know. The chat is making good points about what I just said about hang on. Because Anthony says helps been on the way since Lincoln got there. I disagree. They actually started recruiting like they're supposed to this cycle. They weren't doing that before. Killface says you're expecting a lot from true freshman. That is absolutely true. They're not going to be able to come in and make that big of a difference. So it's still going to be a while. And like the USC fans got

mad at me before the season when I said, hey, I don't think they're looking at this is the year. I think they're looking at the years coming. but this is not going to be the year. And it still might be the year. Because, again, they just lost on a walk-off field goal in a tough road game. So it doesn't mean this is all over. But we just look, the next two teams on their schedule are going to do this to them but worse. Exactly what Illinois did to them, but worse.

And you've also got Iowa and Oregon. So, like, that's the problem right there. Yeah. You know, you are kind of nailing it right on the head. I don't know what you were. fans were thinking about like whether this was the year or next year is the year or whatever year is coming I do know is that USC was firmly in that are they good category you know and it looked like for a while there at the beginning of the year that this could be different or that

they could be ahead of schedule based on whatever timeline USC fans have carved out for it and it seems like they're not so Anthony asks again whose fault is it Lincoln Riley is now just recruiting the way we were told he was going to since day one it's Lincoln Riley's fault but if you paid attention to him at Oklahoma, you knew he wasn't going to recruit the right way. So you should have, you should have seen that coming. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I think that if you're a USC fan, you're probably just very upset because, you know, while this may or may not have been your year or you were expecting to go out and make the playoff, that's irrelevant. What is really frustrating is that you lost a game

in a very similar fashion to the frustrating way you lost last year. And you don't want to see that. You don't want to see that while you're building. You don't want to see that when you have an entire offseason address some of those things. And like when Illinois got the ball back with like a minute and 40 seconds left, like everybody knew they were going to score. Like, and that's just not a good feeling to have if you're a USC fan. Yeah, it's frustrating because it's not over. Like, it's one loss.

And they're going to be in these games. Like I don't think Michigan's going to blow them out. But if it happens like last year, it doesn't matter. Like it's going to. And Michigan's better at running the ball this year than it was last year. And throwing the ball. Yeah. They're better out.

So that's, that's the scary part. And then obviously, Notre Dame is as good as anyone at running the ball. Yeah, that's right. So, you know, we'll see what happens with USC, but I thought that was tremendously disappointing. Yeah. Do you want to talk about what their loss means for Notre Dame for five seconds? Sure. We can do that.

So I'm currently arguing with people online, as I am per usual, about whether or not Notre Dame controls its own destiny. And I think that if you're a Notre Dame fan, this was a really consequential loss for you, because if you look at what they did today, and I have a column coming out on three about this right now. But if you look at what they did today, that is out of necessity. You fake a punt up by 29 points early in the third quarter because you need to put up big eye-popping scores

because they don't have the opportunity to prove that they're very good. Now, it might turn out that those two losses that they have at the beginning of the year are good. But USC was the last remaining tent pole opportunity. Like there's nobody on the schedule. Right. So they need USC to finish like nine and three. USC is the only team on the schedule that had a chance of making the top 10 this year. And that is now probably out the window.

So now you have to look at this comparison because there is this notion that all Notre Dame needs to do is go 10 and 2 and they're in. And it's like, yeah, a two-loss team won the national title last year, but that two-lost team that won the national title also had two wins over playoff teams on their regular season resume. This resume is going to look a lot like Miami's last year. Miami got left out. So like any help that you could get just kind of went out the window. Now, maybe USC will, we'll, we'll finish 10 and 2, and, you know, that will be much better for them. But Notre Dame lost a little today when USC just gave up that last second field goal. So, you know, that's just kind of the reality of the situation from my standpoint.

Well, it's going to be a lot of fun the rest of the way that the afternoon games have already started. We've had a crazy touchdown in LSU Ole Miss already. Georgia Tech survived in overtime against Wake Forest. We saw some fun games. The Kansas Cincinnati game was wild. It only gets crazy from here because the matchups and the states get even bigger. Also, one more thing from this afternoon from this early window, Ari. The empty seats at halftime in Fayetteville pretty much tell the story.

I think we're going to have some news tonight or tomorrow. Yeah, I hope it's tonight. But, you know, just we're talking about a coach who's been on the hot seat for nine straight years. And it's like, you know, maybe it's just time to move on. Yeah, just let it go. It's, you know, they've got to pay him the extra buyout because I don't think they're going to go for an eight this year. So they'll end up having to pay Sam Pittman the extra buyout at Arkansas. But just let let it stop because the, like I said, you're exaggerating.

We say nine years, but the reality is it has been for three years. So that's never on the hot seat. Yeah, and like the defense was just porous, was porous. I mean, it looked like they don't even practice out there. What did we say the over was automatic? Actually, the over almost didn't hit because Arkansas wasn't doing enough on offense. Yeah, yeah. Like the total was 68 points.

The over was 64.5. It didn't score a point because I kept going for it and not getting it. Yeah, I thought that was an entertaining morning window, but Andy, we're right in the throes of some pretty, like, Washington's at the three-yard line right now, A&M's up 7-0, LSU is winning. We got some games. So let's go. We'll talk to you after this window.