Will USC Blink? Part 4

Our next to final installment and we'll be comparing the receivers and the DB's.  Tomorrow we'll take a look around the nation and what the experts are predicting.  I've taken the top five receivers for each team and then I'll have totals as a team.  The breakdown is, name, vitals and the stats are catches-yards-td's.

USC	Damian Williams	Stanley Havili	Joe McKnight	David Ausberry	Brice Butler
	6-1, 195, Jr	6-1, 230, Jr	6-0, 190, Jr	6-4, 235, Jr	6-3, 200, Fr
	34-525-3	14-207-0	12-101-0	10-106-0	8-130-1
OREGON	Ed Dickson	Jeff Maehl	DJ Davis	David Paulson	Jamere Holland
	6-5,243, Sr	6-1,175, Jr	6-1, 205, Jr	6-4,233, So	6-1, 188. Jr
	27-362-4	21-252-1	10-114-1	9-142-0	7-105-0

It is interesting to note that in USC's case two of the top five are running backs, which might indicate that they have no other short receivers.  It is my understanding that McCoy is out so I have not included him in this breakdown.  USC has 1,695 yards receiving with 8 TDs (with McCoy), while Oregon has 1102 yards with 6 TD's.  While Oregon doesn't have as many yards as USC, they are very close in TD's.  

The breakdown of TD's is that USC has scored 18 TD's rushing and 8 receiving, whereas Oregon has scored 19 rushing to 6 receiving.

What does all this mean Verne?

It means that USC's Williams gets the lion's share of the catches with 34, with everyone else taking up 42 catches between 4 players.  It also means the Oregon's receivers are more tandum in that Dickson and Maehl are near the same in number of catches but like USC they drop off from there, but not as much as USC.  Dickson and Maehl account for 48 catches while the other three have only 26.
Part of that is simply because of the make up of the two teams.  Both teams have excellent receivers and while I don't at the moment have any stats for yards after the catch, it would appear that the bottom four for USC, while having much fewer catches have either 10 yards per catch or nearly so.  The same could be said about the bottom three for Oregon and in fact their per catch seems to be a little better.
Advantage here seems nil, though I would think that if the conditions are right both Williams and Dickson may have a big day.


Now, let's look at the DB's and for a lot of reasons, this is the core of both USC and Oregon's defense.  This is the same set up as with the receivers and the bottom stats are Tackles-Sacks-Int's.

	CB	FS	SS	CB
USC	Kevin Thomas	Taylor Mays	Will Harris	Josh Pinkard
	6-1, 190, Sr	6-3, 235, Sr	6-1, 210, Sr	6-1, 215, Sr
	31-1-0	49-0-1	28-2-0	24-1-1
	LCB	FS	Rover	RCB
OREGON	Anthony Gildon	John Boyett	Javes Lewis	T Jackson III
	6-1, 175, So	5-10,190, Fr	6-1, 185, So	5-10,182, Jr
	5-0-0	43-0-2	44-0-1	26-1.5-2

With the following backups which are vitally important:

	CB	FS	SS	CB
USC	TJ Bryant	D. McAllister
	6-0, 180, So	6-1, 195, So
	14-.5-0	13-0-0
	LCB	FS	Rover
OREGON	Cliff Harris	TJ Ward	Marvin Johnson
	5-11,160, Fr	5-11,208,Sr	5-11.200,Jr
	6-0-1	16-1-0	10-0-0

As one can easily see, the DB's here account for the vast majority of the D for each team.  Interestingly, USC's DB's have 5.5 sacks among them while Oregon's DB's only have 2.5.  This is very much in keeping with what the LB's do for USC, they like being in the offense's backfield, where as they only have 2 ints.  Oregon likes to be in their own backfield, thus they have fewer sacks but they have 6 ints.

What does all this mean Verne?

What it means is that in the passing game, Oregon's DB's look to be better than USC's while in the run game, USC's DB's look to be better.  However, the problem with crowding the line or blitzing with a spread offense is that the DB's have further to run to get to the QB and that gives the QB (in this case Masoli), enough time to burn the D.

On the other hand, if Oregon's front four and LB's don't stop the run, there is a lot of daylight between the LB's and the DB's for them to make some big gains.

The bottom line here is who wins in the trenches.  I am of the thought that the trench war will completely dictate the outcome of this game.  I also don't see a high scoring game, but then I'm being a little pessimistic too.

All week I've been playing around with Oregon 29 - USC 19 and today I think I am going to stick with that.  If the Ducks get the first TD, Chip Kelly will go for two.  The way I see the game is this:

	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
USC	3	10	3	3	19
OREGON	0	10	10	9	29

Tomorrow I will post a listing of what all predictions I can find and then it will be GAME ON!

Till then, be safe.



NOTE:  Fixed score.