It's just Oregon vs. USC

Sitting in the chiropractor’s waiting room, I thumbed through a recent issue of Sports Illustrated where I found a little sidebar about how the Pac-10 would offer no challenges to USC this year. It was yet another in a long line of dumb articles that get written with the idea that anyone actually knows anything about what’s going to happen through the rest of the season.

Alabama is going to lose this season. I’ll bet Oklahoma does, too. In fact, all my money’s riding on nobody going undefeated. For some reason, though, media and fan opinions are largely shaped by what happens today. If it happened a week ago, it’s irrelevant. There’s no care or caution used in analyzing a team’s potential. Alabama’s bandwagon is overloaded right now. Georgia’s is empty. Florida is looking for believers and so is USC. Oklahoma is untouchable. Next week? Who knows.

Forgive my wordiness, I’m getting to the point. No amount of roller coasting hype can persuade me that Oregon’s challenge against USC on Saturday is any different than it was one, two or even three weeks ago.

Losing to Oregon State does not make the Trojans a lesser foe. Likewise, their domination of Ohio State was never going to make the upcoming game anymore difficult. It’s Oregon vs. USC and that’s it.

You’re going to hear that USC is mad as hell, and my God, take pity on the next opponent. You probably are even thinking it yourself, but it doesn’t matter. Ask Michigan how being angry helped them against Oregon last year. Once the first hit gets made, it’s just two teams playing football.

There’s no reason for Oregon to fear the Trojans. USC has their vulnerabilities and can be exploited. Yes, USC should win. It’s in the wretched Coliseum (what a dump¹) and they don’t lose there unless the opponent is Stanford. Still, if Oregon wants to be Pac-10 champions, this is where the road goes. The Ducks can either worry about all the preseason All-Americans they are facing or remember that a year ago, they beat these guys straight up. It’s not about Oregon State, ESPN pundits, fan opinions or anything else. It’s USC vs. Oregon. That’s it.

¹USC fans, if you take issue with me calling your stadium a dump, too bad. Tell your administration to give me a better seat than the one I had three and a half miles away from the field behind a concrete wall that blocked the scoreboard and all sound. Sure, the fading, crumbling wooden benches were a real treat and not knowing the difference between 4th and 13 and 2nd and 1 was pretty special. Sorry, though, even with those splendid features – as far as I’m concerned – yeah, the stadium is a dump.