LOS ANGELES — The USC football team was without its two starting safeties and some of the best players on the defensive side of the ball in Saturday’s 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.

“Regardless of who’s in the game, we always tell our guys the standard doesn’t change,” defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn told reporters earlier this week. “And 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’re going to execute.”

The defense as a whole struggled to contain Oregon’s offense and the Ducks (10

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