OSU 27 - (1) USC 21 F

My first reaction after watching the number one team in college football lose to Oregon State on Thursday night was that Tony Kornheiser was right on PTI when he chose the under for whether or not USC would score 50 points.

I also kept wondering why my OSU, Ohio State, couldn't attack the line of scrimmage on either side of the ball the way the Oregon State players did, especially in the first half of their game. Oregon State had those two little running backs, James and Jacquizz Rodgers, who combined for 296 total yards and scored all four OSU touchdowns. But they really won the game because their offensive line opened running lanes and gave their QB time to throw passes to his receivers. On defense, OSU limited USC to just 86 yards total rushing. 86! Given the stable of RBs that USC has, that was pretty amazing.

But my biggest question now is this: how far will USC drop in the polls now? Ohio State went on the road, played in a hostile environment, lost 35-3 to the Number 1 team in the land, and dropped from 3 to 14 in most polls. I thought that drop in the polls was probably well justified, given the egg laid by the Ohio State team. After that game, it would have been really hard to say that Ohio State was better than the 13 teams then ranked ahead of them.

However, USC went on the road, played in a hostile environment, and lost 27-21 to an UNRANKED TEAM (and one that wasn't even picked to finish well in its own conference). Should USC fall farther than Ohio State did? That might be hard to justify. However, given that Oregon State lost 45-14 against #12 Penn State, I think USC has to drop no less than past Penn State when the revised rankings come out next Monday.