Instant Analysis: USC-Nebraska

If this is how USC's offensive line is going to play for the rest of the season, the Nebraska Cornhuskers will feel a lot better about tonight's non-event in Lincoln's Memorial Stadium. Why? Because the Trojan Empire of College Football will make Bill Callahan's team look good by comparison.

When greatness steps between the white lines and sinks its teeth into athletic competition, the inferior opponent becomes--if not invisible--certainly secondary. Just as Tiger Woods and Roger Federer play against themselves more than anything else, and just as the 1995 Nebraska juggernaut played against itself more than anything else, so it is also true with the 2007 USC Trojans: they will be their own worst enemy, and perhaps their only enemy. In a road environment that would be intimidating for most teams, Pete Carroll's colossus showed a combination of power and speed that will make the rest of America flinch. (LSU and Florida would be the only two definite exceptions at this point.) The Men of Troy appear to be playing against air more than against specific adversaries; after the nation wondered about the credentials of this latest L.A. lineup, the Trojans put to rest almost all the doubts that accompanied them heading into this prime-time showdown against a Husker team that badly wanted a revenge-producing, statement-making win in the Callahan era.

The fact that Nebraska fell far short of its intended goal should not be too great a disappointment for the members of Husker Nation. When you consider the way USC played Saturday night, 99 percent of all FBS teams would have been drubbed by double digits against that kind of effort. With wave after wave of swarming defenders and chiseled ballcarriers, equally supported by superior front lines on both sides of the ball, the Trojans simply steamrolled. An offensive front anchored by a freshman center--yeah, you heard that right: a freshman center--named Chris O'Dowd rekindled the memories of 2005, when SC's big uglies decimated opposing defenses and opened up yawning gaps for Reggie Bush and LenDale White. John David Booty's passing game was a tame decoy in light of the potency of his rushing attack. Whereas most teams will run for show and throw for dough, the Trojans flipped the script in a demolition of Nebraska's front seven. A program that basks in the L.A. spotlight has speed to burn on the edges, but the secret of USC's long-term success has been its ability to display old-fashioned, blue-collar power on a relentlessly consistent basis. If you think USC is just a souped-up version of a track team that embraces "California cool," you couldn't be more wrong. The Trojans might be adjacent to Hollywood, but the stylistic irony of Pete Carroll's program is that it always plays football with the old-school simplicity befitting a 1960s Big Ten team or a 1970s SEC team. USC's formula isn't a complicated one: when you block and tackle much better than the other guy, football becomes pretty simple. When you blast open holes and smother opposing ballcarriers, winning will take care of itself.

USC--as is the case with Florida and LSU--simply plays college football at an exalted level right now. The story of this game was not that Nebraska was deficient; the bottom line is that the Trojans played their typically dominant brand of ball. Nothing Bill Callahan did was going to change the ultimate outcome.