USC-Cal: It Might Not Be the Glory Days, but It's a Glorious Day for the Trojans

For the third consecutive Saturday, USC left their fans muttering in exasperated disbelief.

First came a home debacle against Washington, a crisis of third down conversions and the now familiar late-game defensive collapse. Then came the Stanford game, a more spirited effort and a breakout offensive performance that nevertheless ended in another last-minute defensive fold, the sting of which was intensified by the aiding and abetting of the officiating crew.

Then came the Cal game: a vintage USC performance which brought a collective murmur from the crowd asking, "Okay, where has THIS been?"

Now one can never underestimate the revitalizing tonic that the Cal Bears can provide. Not since Dr. Feelgood rolled his covered wagons through the hick towns promoting his latest cure-all for baldness, obesity and erectile dysfunction has a team been able to cure so many opponents' ills in so short a time.

In the early going, before the USC tsunami had crashed inland, open Cal receivers conveniently dropped passes, Cal defenders missed tackles as though they were auditioning for last week's Trojan defense and of course Kevin Riley made his usual poor decisions—that is, when he managed to come out of his frozen state and make a decision at all.

Still, the soothing Cal balm aside, no one can say that this was the same USC team we've seen this year—not in effort, not in intensity and certainly not in attitude. This was the USC of Pete Carroll's heyday, a hard-knocking, rollicking bunch that made a lot of plays and, more importantly, shrugged it off when they missed one.  

All season, the USC defensive mantra has seemed to be "Oscillate-Vacillate-Way-Too-Late". Even "Observe and Report" would have been an aggressive upgrade, and for the most part, Seth Rogen looked a lot more agile covering the edge than USC defenders.

So after six games of the Mall Cop defense, sans the neat scooter, Monte Kiffin decided to dial up a defense that didn't look quite so much like two opposing groups of grade schoolers fearfully navigating a crosswalk.

Chris Galippo, seeing his first extensive action of the season, moved seamlessly between weak side linebacker and stand up defensive end, providing solid positioning and sure tackling, two commodities in short supply this year.

Shane Horton provided speed on the blitz and aggressiveness coming across the line of scrimmage, disrupting Cal's wildcat before it could get started.

Devon Kennard was even allowed to creep up to the A gap, showing in one lightning thrust why this should become a staple for the USC defense. Jawanza Starling still looked a bit like a toddler who's lost track of his Mom in the grocery store, but you can't have everything.

The USC offense, which has been good all along, was masterful, with Matt Barkley orchestrating a receiving group that constantly seemed to have too many men on the field. Defensive coordinators are already looking longingly at the calendar, marking the day when Robert Woods declares for the draft.

Ronald Johnson continued to gash on underneath crossing routes, and even bit players like Brandon Carswell and Blake Ayles roamed as freely through the Cal secondary as Julie Andrews singing her way through the Austrian alps. Marc Tyler took some effective turns in the Wildcat, probably more to keep Barkley's pitch count from getting too high than to confuse an already befuddled Bear defense.     

It was so bad for Cal that even the ill-fated Barkley to Ausberry connection got on the same page. Through six games, I would have thought this would require a scroll large enough to contain the edicts of all the Pharaohs, but against Cal a 3x5 card sufficed.

The long-failing fade finally connected for a touchdown, and Ausberry added a brutish, tackle-shedding run on a screen and a slant where the defender made a huge hit and proceeded to sink down and reconsider the wisdom of his effort. For a USC offense already bristling with weapons, watching the emergence of a huge, physical receiving target cannot be comforting to defensive coordinators.

By midway through the second quarter, even the announcing sideshow of Barry Tompkins and Petros Papadakis, usually the horn section of the Beat-the-Trojans marching band, was reduced to plaintive piccolo wailing.

When it became solely a question of how bad it was going to get, Riley was there with the answer, somehow missing 300-pound DaJohn Harris standing between him and his outlet receiver.  

They played the second half, but there was really no need. Jeff Tedford made his entry for coaching quote of the year by saying "We won the second half."

Yeah. I'm sure a few Japanese reservists threw some rocks at an American flag after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I don't know that I'd have commemorative tee-shirts made up to capture the moment.

But just like that, the Trojans' season is revived.  On Friday, the bowl sanctions seemed irrelevant since there was no certainty that this USC team would even win the requisite 7 games to qualify. Only moribund UCLA seemed incapable of putting up huge numbers on the Trojans. Oregon was coming in, and it was certainly looking like a situation where they could name their score.

Suddenly the scenery has shifted. USC has the Ducks away from Autzen, coming onto the slower Coliseum turf and armed with an offense that can go toe-to-toe with anybody in the country. The defense, while certainly not ready to be called a strength, has shown they are capable of competence—that just might be enough.

For one afternoon at least, USC could again feel like USC.