College football: Agholor, Kessler propel USC past Cal 38-30

LOS ANGELES — Nelson Agholor caught a career-high 16 passes for 216 yards and two touchdowns, and Cody Kessler passed for 371 yards and four scores in Southern California’s 38-30 victory over California on Thursday night.

George Farmer and Randall Telfer also caught TD passes for the Trojans (7-3, 6-2 Pac-12), who beat their upstate rivals for the 11th straight time.

Agholor and Kessler shredded Cal’s porous pass defense while USC jumped to an early 31-2 lead before holding on to its fourth win in five games.

Jared Goff passed for 279 yards and three touchdowns for the Golden Bears (5-5, 3-5), whose fourth loss in five games prevented them from clinching bowl eligibility. Cal hasn’t won at the Coliseum since 2000, and the Bears couldn’t overcome their huge early deficit.

Stephen Anderson caught a 29-yard TD pass from Goff with 1:36 to play, but Darreus Rogers easily recovered the onside kick.

Agholor had another spectacular night under the Coliseum lights, becoming the first receiver in USC’s storied history to post back-to-back 200-yard games.

“It just means I have a great offensive coordinator, head coach and quarterback to put me in that position,” Agholor said. “(Kessler) did an amazing job controlling the game, picking and choosing where to go with the ball.”

The Trojans’ lower-key successor to Robert Woods and Marqise Lee had nine catches for 139 yards after the first snap of the second quarter. Agholor had just three catches after halftime, falling one catch short of Woods’ school-record 17 receptions.

Justin Davis rushed for an early score as USC tuned up for its season-ending showdowns with UCLA and Notre Dame. Javorius Allen rushed for 60 yards, missing his seventh straight 100-yard game on the ground, but getting more than 100 total yards from scrimmage for the 13th straight game.