USC at Notre Dame
I’m not what you would call a sports statistics buff. If you needed statistics for any purpose whatsoever, you probably wouldn’t come to me. I know just enough about the sport of football statistically and historically to get by, but I would never wow you with my ability to call up the rushing yardage of any random player.
Unfortunately, for you the reader, I’m going to try to figure out who will win this game. I mean, I know in my mind that USC is the better team from an athletic standpoint. They’ve got speady backs (Bush, White) and receivers, and a pretty good quarterback in Leinart.
BUT
They had fallen behind in two of their last three games before they even had a chance to score.
At Oregon they were down by 13 points before they fired off 45 unanswered points (W 45-13). I guess this one wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. It was a nice, large margin of victory.
However, two weeks ago against Arizona State they were down 21-3 at the half; a lamentable position for any team to overcome. They eventually came back and scored 21 unanswered points to take the lead, but fell behind before scoring two more touchdowns to take the win right out of Arizona State’s collective mouth. (W 38-28) (Take a look at Arizona State’s record after losing to Oregon. They look a lot like Michigan, yet they’re still ranked.)
So What?
What does any of that mean? It makes me wonder if USC’s defense can stop Brady Quinn and the Irish and can the Irish stop the very potent Trojan rushing attack?
What this game comes down to in my book, which is a very limited book of sports, is who can pass on who. I’m going to go with USC on this, they just have too many weapons for the porous Irish secondary to overcome (They give up over 300 yards a game).
One other usually important factor is the running back factory that USC is running right now. They have two powerful weapons in White and Bush, who both have over 600 yards rushing. If they cannot be stopped, we might not see Leinart at all, and boy wouldn’t that be some good football? I love a powerful rushing attack.
Of course everyone is talking about that 31 point difference USC has won by the past few years, but I don’t think it’ll be a factor. ND isn’t going to be shocked and awed into submission this year, Weis is too good a coach to let his team think that way.
Again, I’m just throwing some numbers and ideas out there; I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but watch the game, it’ll probably be a good one for a few quarters.
USC 45 – ND 35
Don’t miss this one.
Location: South Bend
Game Time: 3:30 ET NBC
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