Carroll says Corp’s the starter.

As the Urban Poet might say, now they actually have something to avenge.

Good news from spring practice, delivered by a beat writer who’s never been accused of being overly optimistic.

Perhaps you noticed that we haven’t posted in a while. It would be nice if we had a good explanation for that, but frankly we don’t. Things just got busy. Anyway, now we’re back, for better or worse.

Makes sense, considering that most coaches were probably busy coaching Saturday and didn’t, you know, actually watch that third quarter vs. ASU.

The Wall Street Journal wants to see a USC-SEC matchup in the BCS championship game:

With universal No. 1 Southern California seemingly certain to reach the national championship game — those Arizona State and Oregon obstacles look smaller and smaller all the time — the real drama lies with the unfolding derby between the Southeastern and Big 12 conferences. Which of these leagues, each stocked with multiple top-10 teams, will supply the Trojans’ competition?

With no offense to the great offenses of Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, here’s hoping it’s the SEC.

Although we generally agree with the sentiment—in other words, we’d love to play in the title game against an SEC opponent—we always get a little nervous when the Trojans’ appearance in said title game becomes a foregone conclusion. Especially when that happens in September.

From Mr. Maisel:

UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel has measured up to USC coach Pete Carroll. The Trojans’ 14 losses over the course of Carroll’s seven-plus seasons have been by a total of 59 points. The Bruins needed only one 59-point loss for Neuheisel to tie Carroll.

He should be catching up on total losses here pretty soon as well.

Austin Murphy has an excellent article on the Trojans’ recent early-season dominance. First, the recap:

The makers of these odds have clearly taken the “Stun Factor” into consideration. That’s my coinage for the strange spell that settles on USC’s early-season, non-conference opponents. It explains why quality teams with terrific athletes come into these September epics looking to make a statement, but end up looking like dynamited fish, belly-up and wondering what concussive force just rocked their world in yet another Trojans rout.

A brief history of the Stun Factor: In 2003, the Trojans dispensed with Auburn, BYU and Hawaii by the combined score of 109-50. A year later, Va. Tech, Colorado St. and BYU were outscored by the men of Troy, 115-23.

And then things got really ugly for ‘SC’s early-season cultural-exchange partners. Recall the Leinart, Bush and White-led vivisections of Hawaii (63-17) and Arkansas (70-17) in ‘05. So morale-killing was the latter beatdown that it was likened by Reggie Herring, then the Razorbacks’ defensive coordinator, to “having your dog run over, your wife left you and your house burned down.” So when the Trojans hung only half a hundred on Herring & Co. the following season, Arkansas’ sports info office celebrated the “vast improvement” of the defense, which had yielded a stingy 472 total yards (down from 736!) If only Arkansas had played the Trojans a couple more times, the Hogs would’ve held them to negative yardage!

Then he offers a plausible explanation for why SC has performed so well against early-season opponents—and why they’ve stumbled against lesser foes.

What Small didn’t discern, and I don’t blame him, was the method to this madness. In the end, says Carroll, the ritual is about trust. “The preparation [for the upcoming opponent] is done. We want them to trust that everything’s OK, that we got everything right. There’s no need to be all uptight or afraid of making mistakes, cause that part’s done. Now it’s time to go out, relax, have a little fun, play a little Trojanball.”

This explains, for me, why the Trojans under Carroll have been so adept at taking the pressure that attends huge games, national games, and making it their ally. The bigger the stage, the better they play.

Their problem is the converse: The smaller the stage, the greater the likelihood that the Trojans get caught sleepwalking, as happened against Oregon St. in ‘06 and Stanford last season.

Hopefully this’ll hold true against OSU but not against, say, Washington.

Now watch that line jump to 13 or 14.

Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time.

In addition to six straight seasons of 11 wins and a BCS bowl, this is a nice little stat that sidesteps controversies over AP championships and whatnot.