The Toreros had a great season in 2016-17 where they finished 10-2 and made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs where they lost to North Dakota State. Offensively, their go to players were RB Jonah Hodges who rushed for 1500 yards, QB Anthony Lawrence who passed for 3000 yards, WR Brian Riley who hauled in almost 1000 yards, and TE Ross Dwelley who was a big red zone target with 10 touchdowns. Defensively, S Colton Giorgi led the team in tackles with 69 and DE Jon Petersen had 23 tackles for losses, 12.5 sacks, and forced 4 fumbles.

The 2017-18 Toreros return some of their star players. Anthony Lawrence once again is taking the snaps at QB and Dwelley is back for another season. On the other side of the ball, Colton Giorgi and Jon Petersen are bolstering the defense. They will be without Hodges and Riley, both of which are big losses for them on offense.

In their first game of the season, they beat Western New Mexico 34-20 but the score doesn't tell the whole story. WNM out gained the Toreros 506 to 339 yards. 464 of WNM's 506 yards were passing so USD's pass defense is looking a little suspect considering WNM is a division 2 school and one that went 3-8 last season at that. The big issue here was that WNM fumbled and turned over the ball 4 times. So really, USD looks beatable as long as you can hang on to the ball. Should be a fun game, hopefully we can open up offensively on them.