USC 10  7  7  7 31
STA  7 21  0  0 28

I love going to USC games. I haven't been to any home games, but their games at Stanford are great events. There are enough USC fans that it seems like a home game, and the USC marching band does performances both before and after the game to keep the USC fans entertained. You also have to like a team where even the head coach is playing catch during warm-up, and the football players come over the USC section to salute them.

Last time I saw USC play Stanford in person, USC stomped the Cardinal 49-17 (2002), and given that today's line was 22 points, I was expecting a similar experience as two years ago. Man was I wrong.

USC went up early, but Stanford picked away at the lead with a pass attack and good punt returns. USC also made its share of mistakes, including allowing an 82 yard touchdown on the final play of the first half on a run where Stanford was just trying to run out the clock. Even when USC forced fumbles, Stanford seemed to recovered (3-0). As the game went into halftime I was shocked to see Stanford up 28-17.

The second half was a different story. Reggie Bush seemed to wake up -- his punt returns looked like someone was hitting the spin button on Madden and his running game went from backwards to 5+ yards/carry. USC scored two touchdowns in the second half and could have scored three (they ran the clock out), and their offense gained control over the game.

It helped that Buddy Teevens seemed eager to coach Stanford out of the game. Despite having no evidence of a running game in the first half, Stanford kept going to the running game in a failed attempt to run some time off the clock. If he had stuck with the successful passing game, who knows, but instead Stanford kept going three and out, which gave USC plenty of time and opportunity to catch up.

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