Starting safeties Bishop Fitzgerald and Kamari Ramsey each missed Saturday’s game against Oregon due to injury.<\/b>
\nThe USC football team was without its two starting safeties and some of the best players on the defensive side of the ball in Saturday\u2019s game at Oregon: Bishop Fitzgerald and Kamari Ramsey.
Christian Pierce and Kennedy Urlacher started in their place for the Trojans (8-3 overall, 6-2 Big Ten). The former had nine total tackles and the latter had nine tackles (eight solo) and an interception.
\u201cRegardless of who\u2019s in the game, we always tell our guys the standard doesn\u2019t change,\u201d defensive coordinator D\u2019Anton Lynn told reporters earlier this week. \u201cAnd we give our backups a ton of reps in practice. We two-spot a lot, so when they go in games, we feel confident that they\u2019re going to execute.\u201d
The defense as a whole struggled to contain Oregon\u2019s offense and the Ducks (10-1, 7-1) finished with 257 passing yards and 179 rushing yards. Head coach Lincoln Riley is optimistic about Pierce and Urlacher, however, based on their performances.
\u201cThey fought,\u201d Riley said. \u201cThey\u2019re two fighters. They tackle the ball. They\u2019re violent. They\u2019re contact seekers. A couple plays that we want back from a communication standpoint. But for both those guys in that moment, against a good offense like that \u2014 they both made a lot of plays.\u201d
Fitzgerald, who leads the Big Ten Conference in interceptions, was listed as \u201cout\u201d on the official Big Ten pregame availability report. Ramsey was listed as \u201cquestionable.\u201d
Fitzgerald left last weekend\u2019s Iowa game just before halftime with an undisclosed injury and Ramsey left the game in the first quarter of that game after sustaining an injury while breaking up a pass.
Head coach Lincoln Riley declined to give a full health update on either \u2014 in addition to offensive lineman Elijah Paige, who also missed the game earlier in the week.
\u201cThey all did some things today, but we\u2019ll get to the week,\u201d Riley said. \u201cSee where they\u2019re at. Address it on the injury report.\u201d
USC suffered another blow when center Kilian O\u2019Connor went down with an apparent lower-body injury at the 6:26 mark of the first quarter. It was his second injury this season.
Long snapper Hank Pepper, linebacker Eric Gentry, quarterback Jayden Maiava, receiver Asante Das, safety Christian Pierce and offensive lineman Tobias Raymond were all named captains against Oregon.
Maiava has been a game captain in every week except for one this season. He went into the game first in the conference and ninth out of all FBS quarterbacks in passing yards per game with 286.8.
Representatives from NFL teams, including the New York Jets, Baltimore Ravens, Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys, Cleveland Browns, New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers were in attendance for Saturday afternoon\u2019s game.
The Browns are slated to pick second and the Jets are third in the 2026 NFL Draft, which is set for April 23-25.<\/p>\n