If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

As USC gets ready to leave the confines of the Los Angeles for the first time this season, Pete Carroll is warning his team and the anyone else that will listen that USC’s Pac-10 schedule is “ridiculously difficult.” Essentially, Carroll is trying to get his team in the mindset to avoid any Stanford-style upsets. It’s either that or he’s trying to get the excuse-mobile ready in case SC does happen to lose to a conference opponent, something no one expects to happen this season.

Consider this, not counting SC’s 2-0 record, the rest of the Pac-10 is a combined 15-17. Furthermore, every team in the Pac-10 already has at least one loss — except USC. This doesn’t mean every game on the Trojans schedule is a gimme. It’s not. If they don’t play to the abilities, SC could lose to teams like Arizona, Stanford and perhaps even UCLA; all of which represent road games for the Trojans.

For their part, the LA Times writers are certainly buying into Carroll’s warning about a “brutally tough” Pac-10 — if, by buying, you mean “trying to convince their readers it is so.”

It doesn’t matter that USC, a 25-point favorite against the Beavers, is expected to run the table. It doesn’t matter that Oregon, Arizona State and California have tumbled from the national rankings, leaving the Trojans as the lone Pac-10 delegate in the Associated Press poll.

History provides one cautionary tale after another, highly ranked USC teams falling victim to the weekly grind of conference play.

Oregon State is a good place to start. In 1967, eventual national champion USC slipped and slid to its only defeat on a muddy field at Corvallis.

Do you know who USC plays tonight? Why, look! It’s that pesky program from Corvallis, Oregon; the same school the LA Times is trying to warn us about.

Considering the overall strength of the Pac-10, that is, no ranked teams except Southern Cal, it’s a damn good thing USC doesn’t reside in the Big 12 or the SEC. Both conferences have teams prominently ranked throughout the top-25. In fact, both have a combined eight teams in the top-10 alone — four for the Big 12 and four for the SEC. This means if the Pac-10 is “ridiculously difficult,” the SEC and the Big 12 must be “absolute murder.”

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to check out Southern Cal, their trip to Oregon State will be on ESPN tonight. From where I’m sitting, it looks like another USC/Ohio State game. Or perhaps even another USC/Virginia outcome.

Just don’t tell Pete Carroll that.

Tags: Big 12 Football, Oregon State Beavers, Pac-10 Football, Pete Carroll, SEC Football, USC Trojans

You Might Also Enjoy:
• Trojans Get Ripped By Beavers
• Georgia On My Mind
• As Expected, BCS Doesn’t Clear Anything Up