Stanford at USC Line

Written by Steve Janus

The No. 4 Stanford Cardinal will visit the No. 20 USC Trojans in a huge PAC-12 showdown on Saturday. The Cardinal improved to 7-0 overall and 5-0 inside the conference with a dominant 65-21 win over Washington, while the Trojans jumped to 6-1 overall with an impressive 31-17 win at Notre Dame. Stanford beat USC 37-35 on a last second field goal in 2010, and have won three of the last four meetings overall.

Taking a look at the week 9 college football lines, oddsmakers currently have the Cardinal favored by 7.5-points over USC with the total set at 60 points.

Stanford Cardinal:

The Cardinal haven’t been just beating their opponents, they have been killing them. The Cardinals 44-point win over Washington was their 7th straight win by at least 26-points this season. In order to win like that you have to be playing some pretty good football on both sides of the ball. The Cardinal are 2nd in the nation averaging 48.6 points per game and 4th in scoring defense allowing just 12.6 points on average.

Junior quarterback Andrew Luck is the leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy. He has already thrown for 1,888 yards with 20 touchdowns to just three interceptions. Luck finished with just 169 yards and two touchdowns against Washington, snapping three straight games of at least 225 yards and three touchdowns.

The only reason Luck didn’t do more damage throwing the ball, is because the Cardinal had their way running the football. Stepfan Taylor and Tyler Gaffney each had over 100 yards, as Stanford rushed for 446 yards and five touchdowns as a team.

A lot has been made of Luck and the Cardinal 25th ranked passing attack (284.7 ypg), but the ground attack has been just as strong. The Cardinal average 219.4 rushing yards a game, which is why it has been so hard for opposing defenses to keep this offense from putting up ridiculous numbers.

Luck and the passing attack figure to bounce back with a huge performance against the Trojans. USC ranks 11th in the country against the run (91.1 ypg), but are 101st against the pass (265.1 ypg).

USC Trojans:

The Trojans come in playing their best football of the season. They were 8.5-point underdogs against Notre Dame last week, but they were clearly the better team. USC piled on 443 yards of total offense behind 224 passing yards and three touchdowns from junior quarterback Matt Barkley. On the other side of the ball, a USC defense that wasn’t getting a whole lot of respect, held Notre Dame to just 267 total yards and forced three turnovers.

Barkley isn’t as hyped as Luck, but a lot of people believe he is going to be a strong NFL quarterback. Barkley struggled in USC’s only loss of the season against Arizona State. He threw for just 227 yards with one touchdown to two interceptions, but has rebounded to throw for 887 yards with 9 touchdowns to just one interception over his last three games.

USC is also starting to get the ground game going. Curtis McNeal led the way with 118 rushing yards, as the Trojans piled on a season-high 219 yards on the ground against Notre Dame.

The Trojans could have trouble keeping that rushing attack going against the Cardinal on Saturday. Stanford is 3rd in the country against the run, allowing just 76.6 ypg. However, USC figures to be able to throw the ball against a Stanford defense that is 79th against the pass (238.6 ypg). Last year, Barkley completed 28 of 45 attempts for a career-high 390 yards and three touchdowns.

Betting Trends:

Stanford is 5-0-1 ATS in their last 6 games as a road favorite of 3.5-10.0.

USC is 7-1 ATS in their last 8 games as an underdog of 3.5-10.0.

The UNDERDOG is 8-2 ATS over the last 10 meetings between these two schools.

Be sure to stop back and check out who Steve Janus has picked to win this week in college football.

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