The Legend of Rey Grows

There is this:

"We let Rey say who he wanted on the kickoff team," recalled Todd McNair, who counts special teams among his coaching duties. "He said 'Gimme all the linebackers.' They're called the Myrmidons."

What?!

Maualuga revived the USC tradition that started four years ago, just after the movie "Troy" was released. "It's kinda backwards, because the Myrmidons were Achilles' elite fighting unit," laughed McNair. "They were fighting against Troy and we are Troy. But, we like the idea of the Myrmidons."

How cool is that? Also from the Washington game:

Late in the third quarter, Maualuga asked his coach if he could go in for another kickoff. "Get outta here, you crazy?" McNair told the senior.
Clearly unsatisfied, Maualuga instructed a younger player to walk halfway onto the field and pretend to join the coverage team, then return to the sideline. Maualuga took his place.
"I'm standing there, and Coach [Pete Carroll] is like, 'T-Mac, what the heck?!?'" I look, and he's out there!" said McNair. "Then he proceeds to go down the field, knock two guys down, and tackles 'em on the 2- yard line!"

They took his helmet away after that.

Hope

USC is manhandled by Oregon State 21-27. That did not look like a fluke.

I had hoped the 2008 season would not be like 2006 and 2007, when USC suffered one or two inexplicable losses. Now, that is exactly what I hope for in 2008. The last two seasons, the Trojans regrouped after their losses to finish strong and win the conference. We shall see.

A best case scenario would look like 2003, when USC lost in overtime to unranked Cal, but went on to win their remaining nine games in dominating fashion and finish the season ranked #1. We'll see. That did not look like a fluke.

Fight on!

Worth a Thousand Words

USC decapitates Ohio State 35-3, September 13, 2008, Los Angeles.

Crazy Stat to Record for Posterity

Pete Carroll is 78-14, two games into his eighth year at USC. His 14 losses have been by a combined total of 59 points. That's an average of 4.2 points per game. Only one loss, in 2001 at Notre Dame, was by more than seven points (USC lost to Notre Dame 16-27 in Carroll's first season).

On Saturday UCLA lost to BYU 0-59.

HT: ocregister.com.

Norm Chow is Dead to Me

No, not really; I'm just formally disowning him. I harbor no ill will toward Norm Chow and I wish him happiness, but not luck or success when it comes to his new job (which he obviously does not need). Chow is no longer a Trojan. He is a Bruin, so he is now the enemy.

Therefore, you will no longer see me pining after his masterful play-calling. Chow has been gone almost as many years as he was originally with the Trojans. Objectively speaking, there has been no drop-off in offensive production over the last two seasons compared to 2002-2004, Chow's last three years with the Trojans. Refer to USC Trojan Football Analysis for evidence of that assertion. Art of Troy has convinced me that the decreased level of scoring over the last two seasons is actually the result of less opportunistic defensive play, especially in terms of turnovers and direct scoring by the defense.

I obviously have a lot of respect for Chow. He is a fantastic coach and he's getting a lot of well-deserved love from pundits after UCLA's upset of Tennessee. I still believe we would have between one and three more national titles (2005-2007) if he had stayed, but that has to do with better play-calling at critical moments in crucial games, and everyone knows hindsight is 20-20.

If UCLA's new coaching staff helps revive a real rivalry between USC and UCLA, that would be a good thing. However, UCLA first has a lot of work to do on the field. They are off to a good start in 2008, but it's way too early to pass judgment on the success or failure of the new Bruin regime. Pete Carroll went 6-6 his first year at USC with Chow and DeWayne Walker on his staff. It will be interesting to compare Rick Neuheisel's first year at UCLA with Carroll's first year at USC.

L.A. Times background info on Chow to UCLA here (my first draft of this post was back in January).

Virginia Weekender

The best thing about USC opening their season against UVA in Charlottesville was I got to go to the game! We hitched a ride from DC to Charlottesville on one of the USC Alumni Association charter buses and hung out before the game at the USC tailgate inside UVA's basketball arena, John Paul Jones Arena. We'd been to Charlottesville and the UVA campus before, so we didn't spend any time wandering around campus except for our walk to the stadium.


Scott Stadium from Row Y, Section 521. I read this game set an attendance record for the stadium.


Joe McKnight flies through the air for the Trojans' second touchdown. Pete Carroll celebrates in the background.


Scott Stadium was a pretty cool stadium for college football, especially the lawn behind the opposite end zone.


Marc Tyler's catch and run for a touchdown.


Only Row Z offered respite from the oppressive heat, thanks to a breeze coming over the top of the stadium. We noticed only the home team's benches had canopies providing shade.

Bring on the Buckeyes!

Pete Carroll Is Glad for UCLA

From Ted Miller:

We hear a lot of stuff from the SEC -- I think that's a great statement that UCLA was able to knock those guys off," Carroll said. "I don't know what they'll say from the other side, but you can't make a stronger statement. One of their stronger teams got beaten by a first opportunity for a new coach in a new program. It was a great win for UCLA and I think it does make a big statement. I'm glad it happened.

And why not? It reflects well on the Pac-10, and I don't think for one minute anything UCLA does across town influences Carroll's philosophy about running a football program. Sure, he's competitive, but his focus won't turn to UCLA until November 30, the Sunday before the regular season finale against UCLA. Therein lies the primary difference between USC football and UCLA football: USC measures success by conference titles, BCS bowl victories, and national championships; UCLA measures success by its status in relation to USC.

Previous musings on this topic here.

I Love This Shit

All is right and good in the Pac-10 when the media is writing stuff like this:

Nine tenths of the Pac-10 feels no hope.

This group, from Tucson to Seattle to Eugene to Berkeley to Westwood, looks up and sees USC's Men of Troy standing above, smirking in their Cardinal & Gold Armani armor, which sports six gaudy, sequential badges of Pac-10 supremacy.

Watching the historical dominance of the Pac-10 by the Trojans be reflected in the present day, but to a greater degree, is extremely satisfying to one brought into the fold during the 1990s.

It Was Fun While It Lasted

This is what I wrote and intended to post under the heading "It Was Fun While It Lasted" after USC's last loss to Oregon on October 27:

First of all, USC can still finish 10-2 and go to a BCS bowl, so there's plenty to play for. Although the Trojans lost to Oregon last Saturday, their play demonstrated that USC can beat anybody if they eliminate costly mistakes such as red-zone turnovers and big penalties. That includes Oregon State, Cal, Arizona State, and UCLA, the four remaining teams on USC's schedule.

Nevertheless, the Trojans five-year reign over the Pac-10 has unfortunately come to an end. After last Saturday, there is no longer any question that the Trojans have descended from their perch as the dominant program in college football to being merely a 'good' team. As fans, it hurts so much because we know how it feels to be at the top.

At a time like this, it is critical to maintain perspective. As disappointed as we all are right now, we are seven years removed from the darkest days of USC football, before Pete Carroll arrived to lead the Trojans back from irrelevance and mediocrity. The program is incomparably stronger than it was in 2000. USC has not lost its potential to be a great team and there is no reason to believe USC will not continue to compete for Pac-10 and national championships every year.

I don't remember why I didn't follow through with the post (I probably determined it was excessively negative), but having not deleted the draft provides insight into my thinking at the low point of the 2007 season. Clearly, I jumped the gun in giving up on the Pac-10 title and overreacted regarding the Trojans' status in college football. However, until Oregon lost Dennis Dixon, it looked like the Ducks were going to roll through the rest of the conference and into the BCS National Championship Game, where they would have been this year's selection to beat up an over-matched Ohio State team, instead of LSU. So, USC probably owes its sixth consecutive Pac-10 title to Oregon's misfortune (as does LSU its BCS title). Of course, the Trojans had more than their fair share of injuries to overcome.

My thinking was on the mark in other aspects, including my assessment of the team's chances against the remainder of their schedule. Happily, the team also believed there was still plenty to play for, regrouped, and finished the season impressively. Consequently, the 2007 season was "successful", based on my arbitrarily-defined criteria, and the Trojans appear poised to again contend for the national championship in 2008, just as I predicted.

Can Slick Rick Deliver?

The impression I have, based on some Rick Neuheisel statements since he was hired as UCLA's new football coach, is that he is establishing a definition of success for his tenure that is based on UCLA's future performance in relation to USC. I don't mean just UCLA's head-to-head record against USC, but also an ability to win championships and bowl games at a rate comparable to USC. Neuheisel's statements include his televised interview from the stands as a spectator at the Rose Bowl game and his recorded telephone message to UCLA supporters, in which he said, “The team across town has risen to national prominence, and it’s time we meet this head on.”

I respect this approach, but is he setting up himself and his program to fail? My guess is UCLA fans expect to beat the Trojans about as often as they lose to them. Is that a realistic expectation right now? In the past quarter century, USC is 12-12-1 against UCLA, but that includes an eight-game losing streak during the 1990s, pre-Carroll. With Pete Carroll at the helm, the Trojans climbed the college football mountain and have performed at an elite, unprecedentedly consistent level – the 2008 Rose Bowl championship gives the Trojans a 5-1 record over six consecutive BCS bowl appearances. In the same period of time, UCLA has compiled a 43-33 (28-22 Pac-10) record including a 2-4 record in bowl games, none of which were played on or after New Year’s Day.

I don’t expect the Trojans to beat UCLA every year in perpetuity (I can live with one loss out of nine!), but Neuheisel is sowing the seeds of disappointment unless he can engineer a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of both programs. If he cannot, his performance will not compare favorably against the bar he is setting, and he may not last long in what is probably his last chance as a head coach in the college game.

More Crushing on Pete Carroll

Here's a link to a mind-blowing article on Pete Carroll from Los Angeles magazine: 23 Reasons Why a Profile of Pete Carroll Does Not Appear in this Space. This guy never ceases to amaze me. Halfway through, I'm very happy to read the following:

His first task: Turn USC into the grandest college dynasty ever. Not this week’s number one team but history’s. “To win forever,” he says . . . .

Sounds impossible, right? Unrealistically ambitious? Read the article and you'll have a tough time not believing he can pull it off.

Even after almost seven years at the helm of USC football, you'll learn things about the man that sound like they were lifted out of a movie script, like this:

Along the way [Bo] Taylor tells me that he and Carroll do this often. They make late-night journeys through the dicey precincts of Los Angeles. Alone, unarmed, they cruise the desolate, impoverished, crime-ridden streets, meeting as many people (mostly young men) as possible. The mission: Let them know that someone busy, someone famous, someone well known for winning, is thinking about them, rooting for them. The young men have hard stories, grim stories, about their everyday lives, and at the very least Carroll’s visit gives them a different story to tell tomorrow.

[. . .]

We start in east South-Central, a block without streetlights, without stores. Broken glass in the gutters. Fog and gloom in the air. We hop out and approach a group of young men bunched on the sidewalk. Glassy-eyed, they’re either drunk, stoned, or else just dangerously bored. They recognize Carroll right away. Several look around for news trucks and politicians, and they can’t hide their shock when they realize that Carroll is here, relatively speaking, alone.

Carroll shakes hands, asks how everyone’s doing. He marches up and down the sidewalk, the same way he marches up and down a sideline—exhorting, pumping his fist. At first the young men are nervous, starstruck , shy. Gradually they relax. They talk about football, of course, but also about the police, about how difficult it is to find a job. They talk about their lives, and their heads snap back when Carroll listens.

This anecdote from Carroll's tenure with the NY Jets also caught my eye:

And at the end of my talk I say, ‘As we get through it, I’ll explain it more to you, and I know this to be true so much right now that thunder will strike—’” At that moment, Carroll says, he struck a table with his fist and a clap of thunder shook the building. His coaches, he says, turned white. I turn a little pale myself. “At bed check,” he says, laughing, “I found guys curled up, reading their Bibles.”

Read it.

HT: TrojanWire.

I Still Miss Norm

At about this time in 2006, I lamented the absence of Norm Chow and expressed my belief that USC was worse off without Chow. I had hope after the Nebraska game that USC might finally be learning to fill the void, but the 2007 season since then has killed that hope. This column by Jon Wilner makes many of the same points I made in 2005 to argue that USC has not adequately replaced Chow's skill sets:

USC should not be scoring 23 points against Stanford, 20 against Arizona and 17 against Oregon. It should not be committing 10 turnovers in those three games (the Trojans are last in the league in turnover margin). There’s too much talent, way, way too much talent on the USC side of the ball. And those other teams, Arizona, Oregon and Stanford — they aren’t very good defensively (fifth, seventh and ninth in the Pac-10, respectively).

[. . .]

In Year One A.N. (After Norm), the Trojans had arguably the best array of offensive talent in Pac-10 history, and there have been some pretty good offenses in this league:

A Heisman-winning quarterback, the best tailback of his generation, another tailback who scored 26 touchdowns, plus two NFL receivers and three first-team all-league linemen. The Trojans averaged 49 points and almost 600 yards per game and play-callers Steve Sarkisian and Lane Kiffin looked like they were little Norm Jrs. But you didn’t need to be an offensive mastermind to Get the ball to Reggie.

The past two years, the Trojans have gotten progressively sloppier, more predictable and far less effective. Some of the decline has to do with personnel, but not all of it — not even close to all of it.

[. . .]

Chow would never run when everyone knew a run was coming, he’d never call all those swing passes and bubble screens, all those quick outs that are easy to see coming and even easier to defend. He’d be throwing downfield – and doing it effectively.

I believe that Steve Sarkisian is a smart coach, and I believe that he will learn from his mistakes, but he is relatively inexperienced and it is hard to not think of what might have been had Pete Carroll conducted a nation-wide search to find a replacement for Chow. I hope that promoting first Lane Kiffin and now Sarkisian to Chow's former position pays off in the long run for USC, but the USC football program should not be in the business of providing on-the-job training!

Healing?

The Trojans appear to be returning to near full-strength just in the nick of time. I expect Saturday’s game at Oregon to be the most challenging game of the regular season for the Trojans.

Here is the projected depth chart for the 2007 Trojans updated to reflect the current injury situation to the best of my knowledge. I should note that I was surprised to see Brian Cushing, Rey Maualuga, and especially Stafon Johnson play as much as they did at Notre Dame.


Affected players’ names are followed by a number indicating the number of games he has missed so far this year due to injury and his status for the Oregon game.
Strikethroughs indicate players who are out for the year.
Contrary to USC’s official press release last week, Nick Howell is not out for the year.

The linebacker corps has returned to virtually full strength. Cushing, Maualuga, and Keith Rivers are all finally ready to start together for the first time since the Idaho game. The secondary will also be starting their strongest line-up, excepting Josh Pinkard who is lost for the year. Finally, the offensive line is surely returning to health. The 2007 projected starting offensive line of Sam Baker, Jeff Byers, Matt Spanos, Chilo Rachal, and Drew Radovich will probably start together for the first time this year.

Mark Sanchez will start again in place of the healing John David Booty. That might be a good thing.

I am very excited about tomorrow’s game. This is about the time Pete Carroll’s Trojan teams have engaged the afterburners in years past, and last week at Notre Dame they played their most complete game of the season. Of course, Notre Dame is no Oregon (this phrase normally having the opposite meaning than in 2007) and Notre Dame Stadium is no Autzen. However, I believe tomorrow we will finally be privileged to see the Trojan football team everyone expected at the beginning of the season.

Cursed?

Are the 2007 Trojans cursed?

The Trojan line-up has been devastated by injuries. This is the situation as far as I can tell, based on attrition to the depth chart since the season opener:


Affected players’ names are followed by a number indicating the number of games he has missed so far this year due to injury and his status for the Notre Dame game.
Strikethroughs indicate players who are out for the year.

The offensive line and the secondary have been hit especially hard. At one point, Josh Pinkard, Cary Harris, Shareece Wright, and Vincent Joseph were all out at the same time, leaving virtually no CBs to play opposite Terrell Thomas. Safety Mozique McCurtis filled in. It’s even worse than it looks on the offensive line. According to USC’s 2007 media guide, Nick Howell was Matt Spanos’s original backup. However, Spanos injured his triceps prior to the opener, so USC opened the season with true freshman Kristofer O’Dowd at center. O’Dowd played commendably for the first three games. Then, O’Dowd and RG Chilo Rachal both injured their knees during a single play at Washington. It looks like USC will start Butch Lewis at LT, Jeff Byers at LG, Spanos at C, Alatini Malu at RG, and Drew Radovich at RT for the Notre Dame game.

I know that injuries must be expected during the course of any season, but this is ridiculous.

Add this to the adversity with which the team has had to deal. Many of the passengers on the team’s charter flight to South Bend were thrown from their seats, putting the fear of death into some of the players, when the plane dropped abruptly during its landing approach. The pilot aborted the landing and circled around for a repeat attempt.

Welcome to Notre Dame. I’m sure the jungle grass and the green jerseys will help calm your nerves.

A tip of the hat to Student Body Right.

UPDATE: I know the graphic is unreadable, but if you click on it, you will be linked to a full-size version.

Overrated

I'm not unhappy about where USC is ranked this week, but this . . .

USC #7 Coaches' Poll
USC #10 AP Poll

is wrong. I expected the Trojans to land somewhere between #10 and #15, but a ranking as low as #20 would not have upset me.

Like I said below,

The fact is there is no objective evidence this year’s team is any better than average, even though they have more talent than any other team in the country. USC has beaten four teams with a combined record of 9-14 (Idaho is 1-5; Nebraska is 4-2, barely beat Ball St., and got blown out by Missouri; Washington St. is 2-4; and Washington is 2-3) and lost to Stanford with its 2-3 record.

USC will have plenty of opportunities to prove themselves, with games against Oregon, Cal, and Arizona St. on the schedule. I hope they live up to their still-lofty ranking.

Recalibrate?

It might be time to revise my expectations for USC football - for this season, obviously, but maybe also for the program itself. The last time I went through such a transition was in 2003 when the Trojans followed an outstanding season (11-2, Orange Bowl victory over Iowa, Carson Palmer’s Heisman) with a national championship. I started to believe that BCS bowl berths would be commonplace and national championships not infrequent.

Trojan fans have been spoiled by an unprecedented level of success over the last five years or so. We have come to expect that kind of success every year, and we have been lulled into believing that Pete Carroll has installed a system at USC that will perpetuate this success as long as Carroll remains the head coach. However, the loss to Stanford raises serious questions about this perception. Is USC returning to a more normal state for modern college football programs? Was this game the continuation of a negative trend that started with the 2006 Rose Bowl (Texas 41 – USC 38 if anyone needs a reminder), a trend characterized by losing to three unranked Pac-10 teams in less than a year, a trend in which last year’s dominating Rose Bowl victory over Michigan is an anomalous blip? Or, is USC football still on an elevated plateau with the loss to Stanford as a rare exception? I hope for the latter, but I fear the former.

The fact is there is no objective evidence this year’s team is any better than average, even though they have more talent than any other team in the country. USC has beaten four teams with a combined record of 9-14 (Idaho is 1-5; Nebraska is 4-2, barely beat Ball St., and got blown out by Missouri; Washington St. is 2-4; and Washington is 2-3) and lost to Stanford with its 2-3 record. It is unreasonable to expect the Trojans to never lose. It is not unreasonable, however, to expect the Trojans never to lose at home against a team the caliber of Stanford.

Carroll and the rest of the USC coaching staff have received excessive praise for reviving a slumbering program and building it into the dominant program of the decade. It was deserved. However, the fire and intensity with which Trojan teams customarily played during their amazing four-year run from 2002-2005 has only been evident sporadically since then. The extreme listlessness and total lack of intensity the Trojans displayed last Saturday against Stanford is impossible for me to fathom. Has all the success in the recent past led to arrogance and complacency on the coaching staff? It has sure looked that way lately. Hopefully, this loss is just what the team needed to prompt some recalibration of its own.

It’s time for the coaches to really earn their pay. Yes, Carroll is a recruiting fiend, but if this game proves anything, it’s that vastly superior talent does not guarantee wins. Apparently the Washington game wasn’t enough proof for the players that they have to do more than just show up to win, and for the coaches that they have to take every opponent seriously. Carroll has not had a Trojan team in this situation before. This team could feasibly self-destruct and limp through the rest of the season with 4 or 5 more losses (if Stanford can beat USC at home, then anybody can beat them). This team, players and coaches, needs to use this loss as a wake-up call to reevaluate, refocus, and rededicate to playing and coaching football like Trojan fans have come to expect. If that doesn’t happen, I will start having doubts about the health of the USC football program. Which will it be? Prove that the Stanford game was a fluke and USC still sets the bar for college football excellence!

However the rest of the season goes, it just got a lot more interesting, and I’ll be watching just as closely and enthusiastically as ever.

Fight On!

USC-UW

I knew our seats were probably nosebleed-inducing, but was surprised (and out of breath) to find they were in the absolute top row.


Our view of the field standing up. The support post did not actually obstruct our view when sitting.


Looking east over Lake Washington toward the Cascade Mountains. The mountains are not visible due to the weather.


Second quarter

Even though we were sitting in the top row, it was a great vantage point and we still had a good view of the action.


Fourth quarter. This play was Jake Locker's one-yard sneak for the Huskies' last touchdown of the game. The visitors' section, Spirit of Troy, and contingent of four Song Girls are in the background.

You probably can’t make out the numbers on the board displaying team statistics near the top of the above photo. This was one of the last plays of the game, so they should read something pretty close to: Huskies 190 total yards (100 rushing/90 passing); Trojans 460 total yards (224 rushing, 236 passing). Yeah, USC dominated the game statistically. So why was the final score so close? Trojan mistakes from start to finish.

USC committed three turnovers, two of which led directly to Husky touchdowns (one 14 yard drive after a fumbled snap and one pick-six). A blocked punt and return to the USC nine yard-line led to the third Husky touchdown. UW’s field goal concluded a 10-play, 22 yard drive that was jumpstarted by a 15-yard penalty for interfering with the punt receiver and extended by two 15-yard pass interference calls. USC was penalized for 161 yards and five of the Huskies 15 first downs were due to penalties.

That is the litany of negatives, aside from Booty’s inconsistency. The positives? Well, the last time USC made this many mistakes, in Corvallis in 2006, they dropped their first Pac-10 game in three years. The fact that the Trojans escaped Husky Stadium with a road win after that much sloppy and mentally-deficient play can be thought of as a positive. All the credit goes to the defense, which was truly dominant. UW’s first drive of the game was its longest at 67 yards, but ended with a Thomas Williams interception. Only one other Husky drive was longer than 30 yards.

This week’s Stanford game arrives at a fortuitous time. USC has suffered a rash of injuries. Hopefully, the next couple of games will give LB Brian Cushing, LB Clay Matthews (Cushing’s back-up), C Kristofer O’Dowd, RG Chilo Rachal, OG Alatini Malu (Rachal’s back-up), CB Cary Harris, CB Shareece Wright (Harris’s back-up), and TB Stafon Johnson time to rest and heal before the meat of the schedule begins on October 27.

UW Tailgating Photos

Cat and I flew to Seattle early Saturday morning for the USC-UW game. We landed at noon, rented a car, and drove straight to the U District. After parking north of campus, we met up with my cousins who are sophomores at UW for a few hours of tailgating with another cousin, who is a USC fan. I tailgated with Anne at the last USC game I attended in person.


Anne, Cat, and Marnie

Marnie is not actually a USC fan; she apparently lost a bet to Anne the previous weekend when USC played Washington State.


Cat was definitely the MVP of our mixed Husky-Trojan flip cup competition.


Husky Stadium, north side

The clouds over Husky Stadium looked ominous, foreshadowing the mistake-riddled play of the Trojans throughout the game.


Our tailgate hosts: Zach and Anne, Marnie and her husband.

Another Celebrity Fan of USC

I watch "24", so the following made me smile:

Ruel and the other USC assistants had gathered a few hours before the game. Having created some pretext to get Carroll into a meeting room, they popped in a DVD of uncertain provenance. On the screen appeared Sutherland's Jack Bauer, who interrupted a scene by turning to the camera and saying, "Happy birthday, Pete."

Kiefer Sutherland gave Pete Carroll a Jack Bauer action figure for his birthday, which was the day of the Nebraska game!

USC-Nebraska

I didn’t have any noteworthy thoughts about the state of the program after the Idaho game, which showed us nothing about the team. After the following two-week wait to finally see the team in real action, I was definitely tense when Saturday arrived. Obviously, I liked what I saw on Saturday night.

Things I love about the USC Trojans right now:

• Offensive play-calling – Steve Sarkisian is showing willingness and an ability to effectively adjust his play-calling mid-game. In the 2007 Rose Bowl, USC abandoned their balanced attack in favor of passing nearly exclusively in the second half (26 of 28 plays at one point; the two runs were quarterback sneaks for first downs) to blow open the game. On Saturday against Nebraska, the Trojans turned to the running game after two stalled drives weighted toward passing and Nebraska took a 10-7 lead. They finished with 313 yards rushing vs. 144 yards passing. Best of all, the feel of the Nebraska game was reminiscent of Norm Chow-called games in 2002-2004. Many opponents during those years were allowed to hang around well into the second quarter, perhaps drawing fans of those teams into a false sense of hope. However, once Chow ran through his script, deciphered the opponent’s defensive scheme, and made his adjustments, the offense became virtually unstoppable. This game felt like that.

• Rushing defense – The defensive script for the Trojans is the same as always: stuff the run and keep everything in front of the secondary. Once the opponent’s attack becomes one-dimensional, the offense as a whole usually suffers. That’s exactly what happened in Lincoln on Saturday night. Yes, Nebraska moved the ball with lots of short passes underneath for 1 ½ quarters, but the USC defense made them earn every yard. More importantly, Sam Keller started the second half with interceptions on Nebraska’s first two drives and was mostly ineffective until the Trojans started playing their reserves.

• New guys stepping up – This is also nothing new, but the depth of talent on this team and the readiness of back-ups to excel in critical roles when needed still amazes me. Freshman David Ausberry has emerged as the Trojans’ most reliable WR. Stanley Havili is back from his medical redshirt year performing exactly as everyone hoped. Sophomore Stafon Johnson, who had all of three carries in 2006, was the offensive player of the game at Nebraska (144 yards on 11 carries). Clay Matthews did a fine job filling in for Brian Cushing. Freshman Kristofer O’Dowd’s performance at center in place of Matt Spanos has been exceptional.

The Trojans’ next 5 games, with the possible exception of Washington in Seattle, look like absolute gimmes, especially considering the atrocious play of Arizona and Notre Dame so far. Unless USC sleepwalks through one of these games (which has been a problem in recent years), it looks like the Trojans now have a five-game season starting at Oregon on October 27, with a bunch of dress-rehearsal scrimmages until then.

The nervous anticipation I was feeling last week has turned into eager excitement for the rest of the season to unfold.