While USC holds a decisive 60-31-3 series lead against Stanford, the last seven regular season meetings have been intense, featuring nailbiting, upsets and overtime. Since 2010, each regular season matchup between USC and Stanford has been decided by an average of just 5.5 points.
USC's Homecoming game vs. Stanford on Nov. 14, 2009 is the catalyst that helped the rivalry become what it is today. Jim Harbaugh's 25th-ranked Cardinal came to town and upended the 9th-ranked Trojans, 55-21. Harbaugh's decision to attempt a 2-point conversion with his team up 48-21 prompted the infamous, "What's your deal?" post-game exchange between he and then-USC head coach Pete Carroll.
The next year, Stanford rubbed salt in the wound by erasing USC's go-ahead score with just over a minute to go by hitting a game-winning FG on the final play of the game.
Come 2011, the Trojans were ready to be back on the winning end of the rivalry. Though the Cardinal entered the match-up ranked No. 4 in the nation, No. 20 USC played fearlessly --- leading by 10 in the third quarter and retaking the lead on Nickell Robey's pick-six with just three minutes to go in the game. But that's when Heisman hopeful Andrew Luck showed his strength, engineering a 76-yard, game-tying TD drive. The game would go to triple overtime, and the Cardinal stole a victory when USC fumbled into the end zone on its last opportunity to score.
It was Matt Barkley who was campaigning for a Heisman in 2012, and the Stanford game that year was a defining moment in the season. Though USC at No. 2 was ranked 19 spots ahead of the Cardinal, Stanford captured its fourth straight win in the series.
The tables finally turned on a November night the next year when unranked USC toppled No. 4 Stanford. Andre Heidari came through with a 47-yard FG to put USC ahead 20-17 with moments to go, and the sold out crowd rushed the field at the L.A. Coliseum.Heidari earned the nickname "Cardinal Killer" when he hit a career-high 53-yard FG to put the Trojans up 13-10 the following year at Stanford. J.R. Tavai forced a fumble on the Cardinal's final drive to seal another win for USC in the rivalry.
In 2015, USC couldn't get it done against Stanford, as Christian McCaffrey racked up 249 all-purpose yards in the Coliseum. The teams met again in the Pac-12 Championship, and the Cardinal were victorious again.
"That should never happen at USC: losing to Stanford twice in a season, let alone one time," said USC RB Justin Davis recently. "To have those two losses in our mouth right now, against a team that we could have very easily beat, it's driving us crazy right now."
USC has a chance to change that this Saturday in Palo Alto. For the third straight year and the fourth out of five years, the Trojans open conference play against the Cardinal. With Stanford ranked No. 7 and USC currently outside the Top 25, the Trojans have the opportunity to pull off an upset and make a statement following a 1-1 start to the season.
The Trojans take the field at 5 p.m. on Saturday to write the next chapter in the USC-Stanford story.
