USC Trashes Arizona State, 44-24; Rose Bowl Within Reach
We called out John David Booty in Wednesday's newspapers, and darn if USC's quarterback didn't respond.
To the tune of a season-high 375 passing yards and four touchdowns on 26-of-39 accuracy in a 44-24 nuking of Arizona State. Which was seventh-ranked and plotting a course into the national championship game -- until the Trojans got their hands on them and beat them senseless.
With Booty fully healthy, some seven weeks after suffering a broken finger in the Stanford game, and with 12 days to work since the Trojans won at Cal, USC coaches overhauled the offense, putting in a bunch of play-action passes and some new screens that paralyzed the ASU defense, heretofore considered to be solid.
Then USC scored on eight of its first 10 possessions, and it was 44-17 before the third quarter was over, and the game was done-done-done.
"This was a really sweet win," USC coach Pete Carroll said. "We've been looking forward to a time where we really felt we were all together and had everything going in the right direction.
"We had a sense it would happen and it is just a great statement for our guys that they know we're capable of playing great football. That's a heck of a team we just beat there."
USC, 11th-ranked in the latest polls, is now 9-2, 6-2 in the Pac-10 with the UCLA game left, at the Coliseum.
ASU also is 9-2 and 6-2, with a home game against arch-rival Arizona.
If those two finish tied for first, USC goes to the Rose Bowl on the basis of the head-to-head score. If not the Rose it will go to SOME BCS game, as long as it beats the Bruins.
Oregon is still in the mix. The Ducks are 8-2 and 5-2, and can finish 7-2 in the Pac-10 by defeating UCLA at the Rose Bowl on Saturday and winning over Oregon State next week.
In that scenario, Oregon goes to the Rose Bowl because it holds head-to-head victories over both USC and Arizona State. But it's going to be tricky, for the Ducks, because their star quarterback, Dennis Dixon, is out for the season with a knee injury.
More about the Trojans and the polls:
Their No. 11 BCS ranking leaves them just too deep in the standings to aspire to the national-title game. Let's see if I can even come up with a scenario.
OK, here it is: No.1 LSU loses to Arkansas this week, No.2 Kansas loses to No. 4 Missouri, No. 3 West Virginia loses to Connecticut, No. 7 Georgia loses to Georgia Tech, No. 8 Virginia Tech loses to Virginia, No. 9 Oregon loses either to UCLA or Oregon State, No. 10 Oklahoma loses to Oklahoma State.
And then next week, Oklahoma or Texas defeats Missouri in the Big 12 title game, Georgia defeats LSU in the SEC title game, and West Virginia loses AGAIN, this time to Pitt.
For USC to get into the top two, that assumes USC jumps ALL those losers (and one of them, Kansas, will have only one defeat), including Arizona State, which was No. 6.
The BCS title game then would be Ohio State (11-1) and USC (10-2). Which almost certainly won't happen, anyway, because the Trojans' strength of schedule has been awful, thanks to the Notre Dame and Nebraska meltdowns. So, idle speculation, really. I mean, it's hard to imagine USC jumping one-defeat Kansas or two-defeat Missouri. Not to mention that perfect storm of upsets (above) to get all the other contenders out of the way.
More about Thursday's game.
USC kicked ASU's butt, basically. If not for a kickoff return for TD, a blocked punt that set up a TD, and a semi-specious unsportsmanlike conduct call on Sedrick Ellis after his ultra-modest celebration of a sack fueled another ASU TD drive ... this could have been a blowout of epic proportions. Something like 47-10.
Rudy Carpenter was sacked six times for 40 yards, four of the sacks by Lawrence Jackson, who also forced a fumble that Booty turned into a TD drive.
Fred Davis was huge, again, at tight end, catching five balls for 119 yards and a touchdown, a tackle-busting 34-yard TD that may have secured him all-America status and the John Mackey Award for the nation's top tight end.
Joe McKnight caught five balls for 71 and a touch, Patrick Turner caught five for 70 (and had only one quasi-drop, a major improvement for him).
And USC's running game, stunted early by an ASU defense primed to stop it, eventually accrued 133 yards on 37 carries, with Chauncey Washington slugging out 80 on 22 carries.
If nothing else, this game demonstrated what a good team can do when all its players are available, and the Trojans had literally EVERYONE available on offense for the FIRST TIME this season.
As Booty told me after practice on Tuesday, "when we've got everyone out there, we're pretty potent."
Arizona State could tell you about it.
Comments
That was seriously the best game I have seen in Sundevil Stadium all year.
I agree. Unhealthy players = weak players. I've been saying it all season long "Just wait til we get healthy."
UCLA is shaking in their pants :-D
Fight on!
Posted by: K | November 23, 2007 8:36 AM