NCAA Football

Oh, the Humility for Trojans

Posted Nov 01, 2009 12:32AM By Brian Grummell (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Oregon, USC, Pac 10, General CFB Insanity

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There's no other way to put it. Oregon's football program unequivocally demolished longtime Pac-10 overlord USC 47 to 20 on Saturday, effectively putting the brakes on two major, likely never to be repeated feats the Trojans had accomplished.

USC's record streak of seven Pac-10 championships is likely done, as is its even more impressive run of never losing by more than 11 points in the Pete Carroll era (and never by more than seven points once things really got rolling in 2002).

The Ducks finished with a 27-point winning margin and it easily could have been more. It was a two-sided wholesale destruction few outside of Autzen could have reasonably anticipated given the nature of USC's run these last few years. As a USC guy I knew it had to happen eventually, but I was thinking something like a 14-point loss, something reasonable.


But 27? That's put-your-head-in-a-blender inexplicable. That's just not how USC has ever handled things under Carroll, rarely surrendering 30 points thanks to unprecedented hauls of talent and a system Carroll (and mentor Monte Kiffin) developed to be the vanguard of NFL defenses. Oregon didn't give two hoots and went out there and sent USC's entire aura packing.

Needless to say, the Ducks are now Pac-10 favorites and USC is left likely scrambling to secure a Holiday Bowl or Sun Bowl berth, its first non-BCS appearance since an embarrassing Las Vegas Bowl defeat to Utah after the turnaround 2001 season.

If you're looking for some long-term prognosis here, good luck. At first impression, it sure looks like Oregon's coaching and system is plain better than USC's at this point. Football is a game that constantly evolves but certain fundamentals hold true over time. USC's generally clung to those fundamentals in running straightforward pro-style offenses and defenses. But perhaps that's just a little old school for the moment; even as the trendy spread offenses appear to have waned, here comes Oregon.

Coach Chip Kelly's spread and shred approach has worked wonders since the opening week embarrassment at Boise State, notching a 39-point victory against California, a 46-point victory over Washington State, a 14-point victory at UCLA, a 24-point victory at Washington and now Saturday's 27-point thrashing of USC.

Oregon has violently and aggressively lashed out since the Boise State defeat, emerging as the best non-USC Pac-10 team since the Cal Bears of 2004 who were wrongly left out of the BCS thanks to shameless politics out of Texas coach Mack Brown.

They must now soldier forward with a level head and not embarrass themselves in a tough final stretch again Stanford, Arizona State, Arizona and Civil War rival Oregon State. This is too rare a treasure to squander.

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