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No. 11 USC Football Faces No. 14 Stanford In Pac-12 Championship Game
November 26, 2017 | Football, Features
*No. 11 USC, the Pac-12 South Division champ, is playing in its second Pac-12 Football Championship Game and will look to defeat North Division representative No. 14 Stanford for the second time this season. It's a rematch of the 2015 Pac-12 Championship Game.
*USC aims to be the first South team to win the Pac-12 Championship Game, which began in 2011.
*USC is coming off a bye (its first of 2017 after playing 12 games in a row) following its regular season-ending victory over crosstown rival UCLA. Stanford, on the other hand, ended its regular season this past Saturday with a non-conference win over Notre Dame, a team that defeated the Trojans in 2017.
*This will be the 15th time that USC has played the same team twice in a season (most recently, Stanford in 2015). It also is just the eighth time since 1990 that Troy has played on a Friday. And it is the fourth consecutive year that the Trojans have played a game in an NFL stadium (other than the Coliseum).
*Stanford, USC's oldest current rival (dating to 1905), has won 7 of the last 10 meetings versus Troy. It's almost a home game for Stanford, located about a dozen miles north of Levi's Stadium.
*Head coach Clay Helton's Trojans sport their most potent offense in a dozen years (488 yards and 35 points per game) behind a balanced attack featuring QB Sam Darnold (19-3 as a starter and currently Top 25 nationally in passing yards/completions/TDs and total offense), TB Ronald Jones II (2 straight 1,000- yard rushing seasons, 8 100-yard rush games in 2017 and sixth on USC's career rush list with just Heisman winners and runnersup above him) and WR Deontay Burnett (73 receptions, 9 TDs in 2017 and on the verge of a 1,000-yard season). USC's defense leads the nation in sacks (41) and has 24 takeaways, thanks to the likes of ILB Cameron Smith (leading Troy in tackles--95--for the second year in a row), sack-hunting DLs Rasheem Green and Christian Rector (15.5 sacks between them in 2017), OLB Uchenna Nwosu (13 deflections in 2017, the most by a USC linebacker since 1998) and pass-picking defensive backs like CBs Jack Jones (4 in 2017) and Ajene Harris (3) and S Marvell Tell III (3).
*Stanford, under head coach David Shaw (whose uncle was an All-American at USC), showcases one of the game's premier runners in RB Bryce Love, who is second nationally in rushing (168.0 yards a game) and third in all-purpose running (171.0). QB K.J. Costello has taken over the signalcalling duties since the last time Stanford faced USC in September when QB Keller Chryst was at the helm. Top Cardinal receivers are WRs J.J. Arcega-Whiteside, Trenton Irwin and Connor Wedington (106 catches between them). Stanford's defense, which is fourth in the nation in turnover margin (+1.2), features S Justin Reid (5 interceptions in 2017), DT Harrison Phillips (16.5 tackles for a loss this season) and ILB Bobby Okereke.
*The game will be shown live on ESPN.
