I talked to a USC official tonight about how the deflated footballs were discovered during last week’s Oregon game.
According to the official, USC and Oregon kept the footballs in one bag. When the USC student manager used a needle to deflate the balls, the Oregon managers were upset because they thought he deflated the Ducks’ footballs.
Once they realized it was only the USC footbals that were tampered with, Oregon alerted game officials of the problem.