LOS ANGELES — For the first 44 minutes and 55 seconds of No. 10 USC’s road test at Stanford on Saturday night, the Trojans looked like the Trojans of old.

Caleb Williams was dialed in. Jordan Addison was otherworldly. Travis Dye was equal parts bruising and bouncy. And the USC defense was deadly in the red zone and opportunistic once more.

But the Cardinal seemed to wake up late and made a game of it, pulling to within two scores before USC ultimately moved to 2-0 with the 41-28 win.

Riley admitted in a post-game interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe that the USC offense wasn’t good in the second half, though the Trojans did finish with 505 yards on 63 plays.

“Road wins are tough,” Riley told Rowe. “We wanted to step it up in the second half and separate more, but you don’t take road wins for granted.”

With the win and upsets throughout the top-10, USC has a good chance to move into the top 8 next week.

Here are three takeaways from the win.

USC passing game looks downright unstoppable

Until Riley took his foot off the gas pedal midway through the third quarter, the Trojans were simply toying with the Cardinal, who boast a reasonable amount of individual talent on defense.

But Stanford could just not keep up with the relentless USC passing attack, which finally let loose late in the first quarter.

Through almost five quarters of play — four quarters against Rice and nearly the entire first quarter against Stanford — Williams was plenty satisfied taking what the defense gave him.

Then he uncorked a 75-yard bomb to Jordan Addison with 46 seconds left in the first, and it was clear that when USC wants to unleash it, there’s no stopping the Trojans.

That was Williams’ third touchdown of the game. He’d finish with four and 329 yards on 18-of-25 passing. Addison finished with 172 yards and two touchdowns. Point made.

Trojans defense remains opportunistic

Employing a bend but don’t break philosophy, the USC defense let Stanford march down the field with regularity, but when the Trojans needed to strike, they found a way.

USC forced four more turnovers — including two Tanner McKee interceptions — to make up for allowing more than 400 yards of total offense. Stanford had a steady 1-2 punch of E.J. Smith (XX) and Casey Filkins (XX), but Smith put the ball on the ground twice and the Cardinal had several drives crumble with goal-to-go.

The Trojans’ impressive offense makes up for a defense that certainly has some things to shore up.

USC appears to be holding back

If not for three interceptions returned for touchdown last week, the Trojans’ offense certainly would’ve scored more than it did last week.

On Saturday, it wasn’t the Trojans’ defense that held USC back.

It was Riley.

USC scored just two field goals in the second half, with the offense looking a lot more vanilla than it did early as the Trojans built a 21-7 lead. With the game seemingly firmly in hand, Riley chose not to dial it up, and with Williams a little off in the second half, the USC offense looked nothing like it did in the first half.