LOS ANGELES - They are all coming now. Oregon's Dennis Dixon and Jonathan Stewart. Cal's Marshawn Lynch and DeSean Jackson. Notre Dame's Brady Quinn and Jeff Samardzija.
Some of the finest playmakers in college football are lining up to take their best shot at USC in one withering, three-week span. The big question of the month, or maybe the season, is this: Can the Trojans' defense handle them? Forget what happened last week at Stanford. That doesn't count. The 2006 Cardinal outfit, your basic Pac-10 punching bag, might be the worst team the conference has fielded in 25 years. Think back to all the other USC games, against the Arizona States and Washington States, when what used to be Pete Carroll's signature unit failed to generate any pass rush and provided few, if any, turnovers. Now what happens, nervous Trojans boosters are asking, when the real gunslingers arrive in town?
"We're going to see some new game plans, some new styles (of offense)," Carroll said. "It's a big challenge for us." What they won't say at USC is that most of the defensive experiments the coaches attempted in the first half of the season didn't work. The new 3-4 alignment that was supposed to create a big-time pass rush was a dismal failure. Brian Cushing, playing a new hybrid position, virtually disappeared. Defensive end Lawrence Jackson, widely hailed as a preseason All-American candidate after registering 10 sacks last year, has yet to collect his first sack this season.
That touted collection of highly regarded young linebackers has alternated between terrific and mistake-prone. And the secondary has missed the leadership and consistency of injured Josh Pinkard, the safety Carroll described as the team's "best football player" before the season. The result has been an immature unit that has taken time to develop. Oregon State's Matt Moore picked apart the Trojans with his quick passes early, but eventually, linebacker Dallas Sartz and Co. started getting to him two weeks ago. There was more improvement in Palo Alto, but beating up Stanford isn't really significant. Everybody beats up Stanford. "We've definitely seen some signs of jelling," strong safety Kevin Ellison said. "A lot of our guys are now learning how to play. "We still have a long way to go, but we're improving." But are they, for starters, improving enough to keep Oregon's 36-point-per-game offense from ruining USC's dream of a BCS bowl bid? Oregon has its - ahem! - Texas-style spread offense and the athletic Dixon, with his Vince Young-type penchant for running the football even better than he throws it. "He takes off in a heartbeat," Carroll said of Dixon, the Ducks quarterback. "He doesn't stay in the pocket at all." Oscar Lua, the senior middle linebacker, remembers. "It's the same offense Texas ran," Lua said. "A lot of our younger guys will be nervous playing against that offense."
The story of November for USC will be how quickly those younger guys on defense mature. As long as Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith, America's best pass-receiving duo, are healthy, you know the Trojans will score their share of points. What you don't know is how many the opposition will score. "We're young, very young," Lua said. "Only myself and Sartz have really been around awhile. The sophomores are getting most of the playing time. "I think we're one of the fastest defenses around. And I think eventually this will be one of the best units they've ever seen at USC." But eventually probably means sometime in 2008. The big problem is up front. Carroll has been unable to replace the inside surge Shaun Cody and Mike Patterson, both now starters in the NFL, gave him, especially in the 13-0 perfect 2004 season. Sedrick Ellis has come on some, but it really hasn't been the same since Cody and Patterson left. It is no coincidence that many of the names highest on Carroll's next recuiting list are defensive linemen, including 6-foot-3, 300-pound Marvin Austin from Washington, D.C., regarded by some as the No.1 high school player in the country. With no consistent inside push, USC is an uncharacteristic eighth in the Pac-10 in sacks, with just 17 in eight games. Oregon State, by comparison, has 32. That's also why the Trojans' turnover ratio had been lurking in the minus range all season, until they managed to knock the ball loose a couple of times against sickly Stanford. "It felt nice to finally get some turnovers," Ellison said.
But he and his teammates know it won't be as easy against Oregon, Cal and Notre Dame. Lua, the senior, has never played in a losing game at the Coliseum, where USC has won a remarkable 30 in a row. He said the team is taking that streak personally. "We own L.A.," the linebacker said. "We want to keep it that way." In order to retain ownership, they'll have to defend the heck out of it in the next three weeks.
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