USC-OREGON: Here Come the Ducks—No Blinking Allowed

Oregon is coming to the Coliseum next Saturday.  They may take a charter flight or simply sprint down the Pacific Coast Highway.  That will probably be faster than dealing with all the congestion at LAX.

To say that the Ducks play fast is a gross understatement.  My head is still spinning from watching their 60-13 massacre of the hapless UCLA Bruins.

Did I say massacre?  It was more like the Daytona 500 with speed everywhere you looked.  The Bruins were nothing more than road kill.

Instead of tread marks, LaMichael James and Darron Thomas left cleat marks on the backs of Bruin jerseys.

These are the Dramamine Kids.  Opposing defenses need to take a large pregame dose to prevent severe dizziness.

Remember the “Greatest Show on Turf,” Mike Martz’s St. Louis Rams of the late 90's with Kurt Warner, Issac Bruce and Tory Holt?

Well, Chip Kelly’s “Greatest Show on College Turf” will race into the Coliseum sporting a first-time ever No. 1 ranking to face Lane Kiffin’s 5-2 Trojans.

No doubt the Ducks fully intend to race right through the Trojans like they did in Eugene last year 47-20 piling up 613 yards against Pete Carroll’s bewildered defense.

The question is: Can Monte Kiffin’s defense slow them down?  Forget stopping them.  That’s impossible.  But USC fans hope the Trojans’ defense can limit Duck scoring so that Matt Barkley and the offense can put up enough points to come out ahead.

There are a few statistics in USC’s favor.  First of all, Matt Barkley has matured and is much more efficient than last season. 

So far this year he has thrown 20 TDs against only four picks for a total of 1869 yards and a 167.3 rating.

His Duck counterpart, Darron Thomas, has thrown 17 TDs against five picks for 1539 yards and a 108.7 rating.

Oregon only beat Arizona State 42-31 and needed seven Sun Devil turnovers to do it.  Cal just rolled over Arizona State 50-17, and the Sun Devil offense could not cross the goal line.  Their two TDs came on a blocked punt and a fumble return.

Last week, USC ripped Cal 48-17 (42-0 at halftime) and a few weeks ago they easily handled Washington State 50-16 while Oregon beat the Cougars by a narrower margin, 43-23.

Of course, Duck fans will quickly point out that Oregon beat Stanford 52-31 while the Trojans lost to Stanford, 37-35 and that Darron Thomas runs an option-read spread and has rushed for 269 yards on 42 carries and two TDs.

So, let’s turn to that paragon of college football wisdom—Scott Wolf and his Inside USC blog. 

There is a poll on the blog asking about USC’s chances of beating the Ducks.  When I last looked, there were 1208 votes.  The largest sector was “No chance: have you seen Monte Kiffin’s defense against the spread?”  That received 445 votes or 37 percent.

Next was “Not great, how will the defense stop Oregon?”  That received 303 votes or 25 percent. 

“Very good, Oregon has not faced a team like USC yet” received only nine percent of the votes—110.

I’m sure more than a few Bruins contributed to those totals. But how do you fans feel?

How will the Trojan defense match up against Oregon’s speed?  Can an old pro like Monte Kiffin come up with a scheme that will slow down the Duck spread option?

Can Lane Kiffin’s play-calling keep the Duck defense off balance?  Can Matt Barkley be as accurate as he was against Cal? 

What about the Trojan ground game?  Can Allen Bradford and Marc Tyler outduel LaMichael James and Darron Thomas?

And finally, will the officials take the standard amount of time in setting the ball in play or will they speed it up to match the fast pace of Oregon?