BERKELEY, Calif. (AP)—With every punishing run, defensive stop or other big play in Southern California’s latest dominating victory, the Trojans sent a message back home to Stafon Johnson on his hospital bed.
“We were talking about him, before and after. He was a big motivator for us, and we might go see him later tonight, I’m not sure,” freshman quarterback Matt Barkley said. “Stafon knew we were on a mission tonight. I’m proud of our guys and how we played.”
Joe McKnight ran for 119 yards and two scores, Taylor Mays and the defense shut down Jahvid Best and No. 7 USC re-established itself as a national contender with a 30-3 victory over No. 24 California on Saturday night.
Getty Images - Oct 3, 11:47 pm EDT
Getty Images - Oct 3, 11:48 pm EDT
Getty Images - Oct 3, 11:48 pm EDT
Getty Images - Oct 3, 11:48 pm EDT
The win capped an emotional week for the Trojans (4-1, 2-1 Pac-10) that started with a frightening weight-room accident that sent Johnson to the emergency room with a crushed larynx and throat after a weight bar fell on his neck. With Johnson watching from his hospital room, his teammates delivered against Cal.
“Stafon is a leader and a big brother in the (locker) room, so I wanted to come out and win the game for him,” McKnight said. “We were thinking about him the whole time tonight, and we know he was liking what he saw back home.”
Damian Williams caught eight passes for 101 yards and also returned a punt 66 yards for a score, and Jordan Congdon kicked three field goals to give USC its second straight win following a 16-13 loss at Washington two weeks ago.
Mays set the tone with an interception on the first drive of the game for Cal (3-2, 0-2), and the defense kept it up all game, not allowing a point until the fourth quarter for the second straight week.
“That’s how we play,” Mays said. “We know what we have in the locker room, and we’ve been playing close to our potential for the last few weeks.”
With the defense playing this well, the Trojans are making it easy on freshman quarterback Matt Barkley. Barkley was inconsistent in this game, completing 20 of 35 passes for 283 yards and an interception. He moved the ball down the field with ease but struggled to punch the ball into the end zone.
“If our defense is playing like that, then we don’t need a whole lot of offense,” Barkley said. “I thought we executed well when we had to.”
The Trojans had the answer for whatever trick Cal coach Jeff Tedford tried. Best had five runs off direct snaps in Cal’s version of the wildcat and the Bears went for it twice on fourth down. But with a passing game that can’t click, there is no room to run for Best and no production for a Cal team that was held out of the end zone at home for the first time since 1998.
“We had a chance to make plays in the passing game and didn’t do a good job of it,” Tedford said. “We can’t be one-dimensional. We’re going to have to be able to throw the football to be successful. We were zero-dimensional today because we couldn’t run it and we couldn’t throw it.”
Even trick plays didn’t work. In the third quarter, Cal came out of a timeout with Shane Vereen standing next to its sideline, just on the field of play. With no defender near him, Vereen went out for a pass, but instead of a big play, Kevin Riley threw high for an incompletion. The next play was a screen pass that left tackle Mike Tepper caught for an illegal touch penalty.
That was the kind of day it was for Riley, who was 15 for 40 for 199 yards and an interception in his second straight sub-par performance. He was just 12 for 31 for 123 yards in last week’s 42-3 loss at Oregon.
Riley’s interception in the end zone on the opening drive was his first of the year. Six plays later, McKnight dived into the end zone at the end of his long run. Williams’ 66-yard punt return made it 17-0 in the second quarter and the rout was on. Williams caught eight passes for 101 yards.
After scoring 146 points in its first three games, Cal has just six the past two weeks. Cal has failed to score a touchdown just three times in eight years under Tedford, with two of them coming the past two weeks. The other was against USC in 2007, the last time Cal lost at home before Saturday.
“We have athletes all over the field. That’s the hardest part is how we’re not getting the ball in the end zone with everyone we have,” Riley said.
Even the speedy Best couldn’t get going against the Trojans. On one play in the first half, he was chased down by Mays for no gain on a third-and-2 run.
Head to Head - Week 5
| Team | Total Yds | Pass Yds | Rush Yds | First Downs | 3rdD% | Pen./Yds | Turnovers | Time of Poss. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USC | 457 | 283 | 174 | 20 | 40.0% | 5/55 | 1 | 36:46 |
| California | 285 | 199 | 86 | 17 | 31.3% | 3/25 | 2 | 23:14 |
139 Comments
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I find it unbelievably strange that Tim Tebow gets so much coverage behind his injury but this kid from USC who could've died and whose football career might be in jepordy gets little to no coverage. Tim Tebow's injury is an injury that we see every week in football, he got his bell rung. Now people are talking about is football safe, and wanting to look in to concussions and all of this other foolishness, but fail to talk about something else thats dangerous that all of these kids do, Lifting Weights. In my opinion Stafon Johnson's injury should've gotten more coverage than the hyped up Tebow injury. Tebow might be able to play this week, we dont know when or if Stafon Johnson will ever play again."
Amen.
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http://www.secsportsfan.com/top-college-football-bowl-conference.html
This webpage will get some good arguments going. LOL
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SEC 348 190 149 9 .559
Pac-10 193 103 88 2 .539
Big Ten 209 97 111 1 .467
ACC 166 81 83 2 .494
Big 8 127 63 63 1 .500
Southwest 151 63 80 8 .444
Big 12 92 45 47 0 .489
Big East 76 42 34 0 .553
WAC 101 42 58 1 .421
Just some interesting numbers for folks to chew on. Note - Big Ten numbers are skewed somewhat since they used to only send one team a year to a bowl but probably by no more than 50 games.
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Mark Ingram had a really good game-- as did Greg McElroy. I am writting to you to explain that USC's
schedule really includes only two teams that you call "cupcakes"-------a non-conference game with San Jose
State and a conference game with Washington State. USC's non-conference schedule also includes games with Ohio State at the Horseshoe (a win) and a game yet to be played with Notre Lame at South
Bend (not an easy task!) . Who is going to win, LSU or Florida? GOD BLESS
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USC is now officially underrated again.
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2. The Bears played badly, their fans were really disrespectful, and the coach seemed indifferent.If the Bears redeem themselves, someone is going to have to light a fire in their bellies first.
3. Good point about the PAC-10 conference not sending many players to the pros...but over the past eight years 58 players from USC have been drafted by the NFL. In the Spring 2009 NFL draft, 11 players from USC were first and second round picks. USC has also had 7 11-1 seasons and 7 PAC-10 conference titles. Say what you will about the conference, but the Trojans are NOT the weak link in the chain.
4. The ranking system is totally ridiculous, and I agree that there should be a playoff system to determine the National Championship.
5. It never fails to amuse me when anti-USC people get pride of accomplishment comfused with arrogance. As for paying the players to win-balls! USC takes the "be true to your school" mindset to extremes.True, the endowment fund is in the billions, but the team brings far more $$$ to USC than the university spends on all of the sports teams put together. The money coming in from jazzed-up alumni is spent on little things like academic AND need-based scholarships.
I received both along with an excellent education,and I've never regretted choosing to attend USC ( a 1rst tier school) on a scholarship/loan/workstudy program. I couldn't attend a single home game for my first two years because the work-study job I had at the time included 8 bours on Saturdays.
I remain a grateful Trojan.
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0miken
122. Posted by 0miken Sun Oct 4 1:46pm EDT
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For all of you who talk about the Pac10 being down, there is nothing to really say once intraleague play starts. This is true of any league. Until leagues play each other at bowl time, you can't say too much about each league. All we know is that there is less dominance in the Pac10, and teams are more evenly balanced.
0miken...less dominance in the Pac-ONE?!?! You have ONE team that has won the conference title EVERY year for the last SEVEN years. In the SEC...NOBODY knows who will win the SEC EACH AND EVERY YEAR!!!! Will it be Florida, Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Tennessee, etc.? It changes each year b/c there are many great teams that are challenging for the conference title each year. What is with the dumb comments I keep seeing on here? Do you have ANY working brain cells?
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We need a playoff system rather than the current Bowl system. We'll see what happens if Boise St ends up playing for the championship just because they are undefeated. We do know that a team is pretty good if they can go undefeated while playing in a BCS division.
By the way, I know that football is all about what happens on the field, but schools need to start working on graduation rates more. In yesterday's game, they mentioned that Tedford has gotten Cal's football graduation rate up to 88%. It used to be embarrassing (
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Big East: Cincy and the rest are cupcakes.
Big Ten: Ohio State, Iowa, and Penn State, the rest are cakes.
Pac-10: USC and Oregon, maybe Stanford and the rest are cakes.
Big 12: Texas and Oklahoma and the rest are cakes.
ACC: Virginia Tech and Miami, the rest are cakes.
SEC: Alabama and Florida, the rest are cupcakes.
I have no doubt Ohio State, USC, and Texas could run over all those teams in the SEC besides maybe Alabama and Florida.
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Sure Florida is going to be #1 since they always play the lowly teams. Match them up with a rated team and see how well they play. Tebow is overrated! He won't make it in the NFL. He'll be just like any other QB from any school in Florida- forgotten.
They "always play the lowly teams"?!?! You are truly a dumba$$!!!! Last year the Gators had the THIRD most difficult schedule in the nation playing ELEVEN (out of 14) bowl teams, 6 teams in the top 25, 3 of those were in the top 10, including TWO #1 teams and you think they always play the lowly teams. I think we have found proof that a person CAN survive with no living brain cells. Are you really that stupid?!?!? If so, can I use you as the subject for some medical experiments?
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Until our facilities match USC and Oregon's....We will lose Big Time
Recruits. The coaches are coaching the players that they have.
jg Cal Bears DB 90-93
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