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Southern Cal-Arizona St. Preview

Nov 3, 2009 - 11:59 PM By BRETT HUSTON STATS Writer

No. 12 USC (6-2) at Arizona State (4-4), 8:00 p.m. EDT

Southern California is already out of the national championship picture, and coach Pete Carroll's team is a longshot to win its eighth consecutive Pac-10 title.

Beating Arizona State, though, has been all but a sure thing for the Trojans under Carroll.

The 12th-ranked Trojans look to bounce back from their most lopsided loss in 12 years and extend their winning streak over the Sun Devils to 10 on Saturday night in Tempe.

USC (6-2, 3-2) had two losses going into November once in the past six seasons, but after being upset at Washington on Sept. 19, knew it had little margin for error if it wanted to compete for the national title.

Last weekend's performance put an end to those hopes. USC was pounded 47-20 on the road by then-No. 10 Oregon, as the Ducks rolled up 391 yards on the ground in dealing the Trojans their worst loss since a 35-7 defeat at Arizona State since 1997.

Oregon's 613 total yards were the second most allowed by USC in school history. Afterward, Carroll tried to downplay the magnitude of the defeat to his team.

"When you get beat, you get beat. You have to deal with it," Carroll said. "If we want to give it style points and all that, it tasted a little different. ... You can't do anything about things that have already occurred. You can only do what's ahead of you and have an opportunity to control what's right in front of you. That's how we've always focused."

USC has not lost consecutive games since a four-game skid from Sept.8-Oct. 6, 2001 - Carroll's first season - and the Trojans should feel pretty good about their chances of getting back in the win column Saturday. USC has won eight straight games over Arizona State (4-4, 2-3) under Carroll by an average of 22.0 points, pushing its win streak in the series to nine.

Extending their Pac-10 title streak - the Trojans won or shared the last seven - should be considerably more difficult. USC needs to win out and have Oregon lose twice.

"The biggest thing is realizing that there's nothing we can do about this loss," freshman quarterback Matt Barkley said last week.

Barkley was 21 of 38 for 187 yards and two touchdowns, but threw an interception for the fourth straight contest. His 246.7 passing yards per game rank second in the Pac-10.

"He's a talent and one of the better young guys around," Arizona State coach Dennis Erickson said. "He's young and got a great arm, great release, he has tremendous composure. He's got an aura about him that all of the good quarterbacks have."

Erickson certainly has reason to worry about Barkley and USC leading receiver Damian Williams after what California's Kevin Riley did to his defense last week. The Sun Devils lead the Pac-10 in rush defense at 80.1 yards per game and held the Golden Bears' powerful ground game to 57 yards, but Riley threw for 351 in a 23-21 win.

While Arizona State's run defense has been excellent this season, it wasn't during the visit to USC last season. Joe McKnight accounted for 143 of the Trojans' 210 rushing yards in a 28-0 victory.

Sun Devils quarterback Danny Sullivan sat behind Rudy Carpenter for three seasons, but the first-year starter does have some experience against the Trojans that he would like to forget. Sullivan relieved the injured Carpenter in the third quarter of last season's rout, going 4 of 17 for 28 yards and two interceptions.

"Last year was last year," said Sullivan, who's completed 54.4 percent of his passes with eight touchdowns and seven interceptions. "We have got to find a way to get back on a winning track right now."

The Trojans gave up 238.6 yards per game over their first five contests, but allowed 40 more yards than that through the air alone in the past three contests. USC forced two turnovers in that stretch, its fewest over a three-game span since Oct. 7-28, 2006.

Arizona State is 0-13 at home against opponents in the top 15 since the start of the 1998 season.