In 2005, Zack Follett arrived in Strawberry Canyon as a freshman with an agenda. "To tell you the truth, the whole reason that I came to Cal, I looked at it and figured who had the best chance to beat USC," Follett said on Tuesday. "Back then I thought it was Cal, and that's why I came here." Now a senior, Follett is still waiting. It's something that is shared by all but one of the players who will don the blue and gold Saturday at 5 p.m., for the No. 21 Cal football team's 5 p.m. collision with No. 7 USC at the Coliseum. Except for sixth-year senior wideout Sean Young, not one of them-not All-American center Alex Mack, not the senior linebacking trio of Follett, Anthony Felder and Worrell Williams, not storied quarterback Nate Longshore-knows the feeling of conquering the Trojans.
"After the Oregon game (last weekend), I got home that night and I was like, 'This is the last time I get to play these guys,'" Williams said. "I gotta have these guys under my belt." Doing so involves the Bears bucking a couple of nagging trends that they have built up over recent years. Despite emerging as arguably USC's top conference rival, Cal hasn't defeated the Trojans since its three-overtime thriller at Memorial Stadium in 2003, and hasn't won a single road game in Los Angeles since 2000-two years before the beginning of the Jeff Tedford era. Speaking specifically to 2008, both USC and the Bears enter Saturday's game as two of three remaining one-loss teams in the Pac-10. In short, it's the same scenario that the two teams faced in 2006: The loser waves goodbye to lingering Rose Bowl hopes. "It's going to be a really big game," Mack said. "We're kind of playing for the Pac-10 championship right now."
Still, players have stressed the importance of remaining level-headed in the charged, primetime atmosphere of the Coliseum. "When you watch film, guys do all types of things that they would never do to normal teams and 'SC's got them going crazy just by being out there on the field," Williams said. "It's hard not to get hyped. But the team that's able to do that the best and the fastest, and hold that for the longest, should come out to a victory." Whether or not it's by sheer intimidation, the Trojans' defense is one of the nation's best. USC ranks first in the country in both scoring and total defense, giving up just 7.1 points and 211.6 yards per game. In eight games this year, the Trojans have allowed seven touchdowns., and they've shut out three of their last four opponents. "They have a good defense, so we know that our offense is going to be going up against a great matchup," Follett said. "We know every mistake that we make on defense, or if they get a touchdown, we really can't give those up against a team like 'SC." For a defense that has really emerged as the strength of this year's Cal team, USC provides a number of challenges. Quarterback Mark Sanchez is the most proficient passer in the Pac-10, having totaled a conference-high 1,884 yards and 22 touchdowns. The Trojans are also averaging over 200 rushing yards per game, despite the fact that not one of their running backs has over 410 yards for the season.
Tailbacks Joe McKnight, Stafon Johnson and C.J. Gable split most of the carries, but the division of labor between so many weapons doesn't have Williams worried. "They're gonna have to run the same plays," he said. "It's nothing really special. They have to run the same plays, and we have to do our job to defend it."
And despite all talk about keeping calm going into Saturday, Williams couldn't deny the importance for both teams in the grand scheme of the conference. "I think we're right up with those guys," Williams said. "I think in the back of their minds, when they see Nov. 8 on their schedule, and they see 'Cal Bears,' that's one of those things that makes their heart pound as much as ours."
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