We’re taking a look at the can’t-miss games of the 2013 Pac-12 season. The Ultimate Road Trip continues.
Welcome to Week 10.
Thursday, Oct. 31
Arizona State at Washington State
Friday, Nov. 1
USC at Oregon State
Saturday, Nov. 2
Arizona at California
Colorado at UCLA
My choice: USC at Oregon State
Why: How does spending an extra week in Oregon sound? After watching a great game last week between UCLA and Oregon in Eugene, where (your team) beat (the other guy's team) and (your favorite player) did (something awesome), we're going to keep the road trip in-state this week. But we're changing cities -- making Corvallis our ninth different city in 10 weeks. While in Oregon, there's camping, rafting the Clackamas River, and breweries and wineries to tickle the taste buds. Plus, that no sales tax thing is pretty sweet. As for the other games in Week 9, don't worry, your teams all won.
So after a relaxing week communing with nature, it's back to football. And for Week 10, we'll see if the Trojans can conquer the Curse of Corvallis, where they haven't won since 2004.
For a refresher, here are the past few meetings between the schools:
2006 at Oregon State: OSU 33, USC 31
2007 at USC: USC 24, OSU 3
2008 at Oregon State: OSU 27, USC 21
2009 at USC: USC 42, OSU 36
2010 at OSU: OSU 36, USC 7
2011: DNP
2012: DNP
The shocker in 2006 stopped USC's streak of 38-regular season wins, 27-straight conference wins and 13-straight conference wins on the road. The schockiest (yes, we make up words at the Pac-12 blog) in 2008 came when the Trojans were ranked No. 1 -- OSU's first win against a top-ranked team in 41 years. And 2010 was simply a beat down.
In their past three games at Reser Stadium against the Trojans, the Beavers are winning the turnover battle 8-0. That explains a lot. And let's give credit where credit is due. Aside from the 2011 season, where the Beavers went 2-4 at home, they have been pretty tough in Corvallis, going 31-14 over the past seven seasons. They have been better than .500 at home every year except for 2011.
This game comes at a very precarious time for the Beavers. Assuming they get stable quarterback play, there is a very good possibility they start the season 7-0 before closing out the schedule against Stanford, USC, ASU, Washington and Oregon. At 7-0, they'll be ranked -- possibly in the top 10. During this final stretch, we'll learn if that ranking is warranted.
The Trojans will be a little more battle-tested by this point in the season, having already faced ASU and Notre Dame. By this point, you probably wouldn't expect the Trojans to have more than a couple of losses -- if any -- so this also turns into a showdown of probable top 20 teams.