USC Trojans 1-0 Overall (0-0 Conference)

This Week’s Score: USC 56 – San Jose State 3

Next Week’s Opponent: @Ohio State

Sam’s Take:

The Matt Barkley era got off to an ultra-smooth start, with the SC coaches putting the true freshman in a great position to succeed against San Jose State. He was not asked to do much, but his bootleg roll-outs were still very well executed and he showed no nerves in his debut.

The running game and offensive line were outstanding, and even without Kristofer O’Dowd the o-line looks better than any that I watched all weekend. Joe McKnight may have fumbled (which irritates a lot of SC fans), but he also looked like the highlight reel runner that he is. The other two offensive players that stood out for me were RB Marc Tyler and TE Anthony McCoy.

On defense, the unit looked fast and relentless as usual, albeit with mostly new players. I thought Chris Galippo played extremely well, along with DT Jurrell Casey and the entire secondary.

Now it’s on to the first of many tough road trips, and while the running game will still be a big part of the offense, the Buckeyes will try and force Barkley into much harder throws than the comfortable roll-outs that he had against San Jose State. I am very curious to see how Terrelle Pryor handles the speed and aggressiveness of this Trojan D, especially since the OSU o-line looked susceptible against Navy.

Dave’s Take:

With the game sitting at 3-0 at the end of the 1st quarter, I nodded knowingly. I did, after all, guess that the offensive fireworks wouldn’t be there this week, and USC would just play a nice, conservative game that didn’t result in a whole lot of scoring.

Oops.

I was right about the conservative gameplan; run the ball, easy safe passes. But the extreme talent discrepency over San Jose State made even the safest of play calling a wild success.

The team looked great all around, and there are just too many great performances to try and reel them all off. Even though it was only San Jose State, giving up only 121 total yards was impressive. Matt Barkley had a mistake free day and let his supporting cast take care of the rest; a recipe that should have plenty of success here in 2009.

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