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.