Greg McElroy Predicts Big Ten Powerhouse Will Lose at Home on Saturday

We're starting to get into the meat of the college football season, where conference matchups take place and ranked opponents square off.

This weekend, ESPN's Greg McElroy expects one of those ranked teams to suffer a brutal loss at home.

New Big Ten foes USC and No. 18 Michigan will square off in the Big House on Saturday afternoon, and McElroy doesn't have much confidence in the defending national champions to get the job done against Lincoln Riley and the Trojans, ranked 11th.

It's been a frustrating start to the season for Michigan, losing to the Texas Longhorns in Week 2 and being forced to make a quarterback change already going into Week 4, and the ESPN college football analyst doesn't think things will be getting any easier this week.

"I'm taking USC in this game," McElroy said on his podcast. "As of this moment, I think Michigan's offense is going to be too one-dimensional. I am not a this point at all threatened by what I've seen from Alex Orji."

It was Davis Warren who started the first three games for the Wolverines, but he struggled greatly, throwing for just two touchdowns and six interceptions. So, in steps Orji, who has just seven career pass attempts.

Meanwhile, the Trojans have looked better than expected through their first two games of the year, thriving under quarterback Miller Moss and enjoying a resurgent defense under new defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn.

While McElroy sees a small chance that the Wolverines' defense — their best unit — could step up and make this game interesting, it may be too big of an ask.

"Maybe Michigan's defense flexes a little bit, gets back to playing the way that they've been playing the last few years and makes this thing interesting," McElroy said. "But at this point, I'm not sold. I think USC has too many weapons and will exploit a secondary that has been inconsistent this year."

The game kicks off at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday afternoon, aired on CBS. At the moment, USC is favored to win by 5.5 points on the road in their first Big Ten matchup.

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