USC Beats OSU Despite Trying To Beat Themselves

USC won tonight against OSU despite doing their best to beat themselves early on in the game. Sure they played the game, and they played it well. They just never seemed to click until that last drive in the 4th quarter.

The offense really didn't show up in the 1st quarter (second game in a row, lets hope this changes... and soon!). The second quarter they showed up, but they still didn’t click. They made some of the plays they needed to, but never had that break out run or pass that we are all so used to.

The second half started off even worse... the offense still wasn't clicking for USC. If that wasn't bad enough the Special Teams decided that they wanted to help OSU out a little bit . That hike over the head of O'Malley and through the end zone about killed me as I sat there and watched... this was not Carroll's team that we are so used to watching. Mistakes were not tolerated from SC, and a mistake that resulted in a safety was just not acceptable!

I can only imagine the noise that was in the horseshoe during the 4th quarter. OSU was up by 5 and USC was at it's own 5 facing second and 19. There was only 6min and a handful of seconds left of the clock. The fans expected a win, and it sure looked like they were going to get it. But I remember as I watched that screen, that something just looked surreal... McKnight and Barkley seemed almost calm, like this is what they expected, they planned this from the beginning.

Then it began a quick 11 yards here. Then Barkley hit McKnight for another 21. You could see the fans become uneasy, and USC was starting to smile. This is what they live for, they were finally clicking on offense and when they click there are few that can stop that. OSU for damn sure was not going to be able to, Barkley and McKnight both knew this and loved it.

USC faltered slightly again, it was 4th and 1. Here was the biggest difference in the game however, Carroll trusted his team. He knew they could make it. A sneak was called and sure enough, it worked. This is when I knew it was over, it was just a matter of going through the motions. McKnight did what he had to and after three runs had USC inside the 10. Once again Barkley was called on to do a sneak... first down!

Then Johnson punched it through with a sweep around the end. The crowd was silent, they knew... It was over.

Seconds later McKnight converted a 2 point conversion, making it so that a field goal would only tie the game and not win it for OSU.

Pryor came out with 1:08 left on the clock and no timeouts. Pryor did his best, but it was just too late against a high powered USC defense.

Pryor came out saying "We should have beat them. Point blank, we should have beat them." I completely agree with this. USC beat themselves until that last drive. However OSU's offense still couldn't compete with USC's defense, not could anyone expect them too really. USC kept them under 300 yards and really took Pryor out of the game.
USC had just over 300 yards in the game with an offense that really did not click at all until the end of the game. They relied on their defense to stop Ohio State after giving them excellent field position on almost every possession. Had USC’s offense been playing with anyone else’s defense this game would have been long over, OSU would have killed them. However this was not the case.

Pryor wants to believe that his team should have won, maybe they should have with the way the offense started off. However had USC’s offense clicked the whole game it would have been a huge blowout.

Had USC lost, it would not havebeen because OSU played with more heart, was the better team, or even that they played a better game. It would have been because USC beat themselves.