Here we go. USC versus Oregon State is a huge challenge for the Trojans. USC football fans know that Corvallis has been a graveyard for very good Pete Carroll-coached teams. It has been a hard place for USC to win when the Trojans had a chance to pursue a national championship.
Maybe USC isn’t a realistic national title contender this year, with Georgia existing, but it remains that USC needs to beat Oregon State in order to have a successful season. The Trojans might be able to lose this game and still meet their goals, but a loss on Saturday would force the Trojans to run the table in the Pac-12 the rest of the way. They can’t realistically go 7-2 in the conference and expect to play in the conference title game. This one is huge.
We look at 10 different keys for Lincoln Riley when he tries to figure out the best line of attack against coordinator Trent Bray’s Beaver defense: