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USC will face Louisville in the 44th annual Holiday Bowl Wednesday at Petco Park in San Diego in a matchup of teams missing key personnel, as is typical for bowl games outside the College Football Playoff.
The Trojans will be without 2022 Heisman Trophy-wining quarterback Caleb Williams; MarShawn Lloyd, who ran for a team-high 845 yards; and Brendan Rice, a son of Pro Football Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice, who led USC with 12 touchdown catches.
Williams is expected to announce he will forfeit his final year of eligibility and be the first choice in the 2024 NFL draft. Lloyd and Rice have announced they will both forfeit their final year of eligibility to make themselves eligible for the draft.
USC has had 17 players enter the transfer portal, including redshirt freshman Malachi Nelson, listed as the No. 1 ranked recruit in the nation by ESPN in 2022, who had been expected to be Williams’ successor.
The Cardinals will be without Jawha Jordan, who ran for a team-high 1,128 yards and 13 touchdowns; and Jamari Thrash, who made 63 catches for 858 yards and six touchdowns, all team highs. Both declared for the draft.
Louisville will also be without eight scholarship players, including seven on defense, who entered the transfer portal.
Redshirt sophomore quarterback Miller Moss will make his first start for the Trojans. Moss has completed 23 of 32 passes for 309 yards and one touchdowns in four games this season without an interception.
“He’s a guy that has really hung in there,” USC coach Lincoln Riley said. “He’s continued to put in work even though that he wasn’t the starter. He’s learned our offense as good as any player on our roster. He really earned the respect of the team. The coaching staff, the players are really excited for him to play.”
The Trojans (7-5) have lost three consecutive games and five of their last six after a 6-0 start.
The Cardinals (10-3) have lost their last two games following a four-game winning streak.
The teams have one common opponent — Notre Dame, which handed USC its first defeat of the season, 48-20, Oct. 14, one week after losing to Louisville, 33-20.
The Cardinals were ranked 16th in the latest Associated Press poll, released Dec. 3. The Trojans dropped out of the Top 25 following their 52-42 loss to Washington Nov. 4.
This will be the first meeting between the teams.
Oddsmakers have made Louisville a 6 1/2-point favorite. ESPN Analytics gives USC a 53.4% chance of winning.
The Trojans will be playing in the Holiday Bowl for the fourth time since the Pac-12 Conference began supplying a team for the game in 1997. USC defeated Nebraska, 45-42, in 2014; lost to Wisconsin, 23-21, in 2015, and lost to Iowa, 49-24, in 2019.
The Cardinals will be playing in the Holiday Bowl for the first time. It is the second time any Atlantic Coast Conference team has played in the game. Under an agreement announced in 2019, the ACC will supply a team for the game at least through 2025.
North Carolina lost to Oregon, 28-27, in last year’s game.
The Cardinals will be playing in California for the third time. They tied Long Beach State, 24-24, in the 1970 Pasadena Bowl, and San Jose State, 10-10, in 1990. Louisville will return to California in 2024 to play at Stanford, which has joined the ACC.
“We’ll pass each other in the air,” Riley told his Cardinal counterpart Jeff Brohm at Tuesday’s news conference, referring to USC’s two trips to the Midwest and one to the East Coast during its first season in the Big Ten.
The game will be televised by Fox. The opening kickoff is set for 5:14 p.m. The game will be followed by the KGB Sky Show.
The first 10,000 fans will receive a ticket to SeaWorld San Diego.
The bowl will try to establish a new tradition of having the winning coach doused with eggnog. Eggnog was the choice of bowl organizers after it topped a nonbinding social media poll with 44.9%. Mini tacos placed second with 28.6%, beach sand third with 16.6% and sunscreen last in the field of four with 9.9%.
