In a top-15 battle between two Pac-12 heavyweights, one emerged as the tougher, more dedicated team and the other covered in stereotypes.

USC isn’t tough or Big Ten enough; it was clear during Oregon’s 42-27 win, and it’s even clearer now, reflecting on the scoresheet. 

Late November football is decided in the trenches. Oregon rushed for 179 yards on the ground; the Trojans rushed for 52. Yes, 52, on 28 tries. 

Some tribute to Troy that was: nearly two seasons into their time in the conference, USC is still not tough enough. They’re not Big Ten-enough.

Now, this is an Oregon newspaper, and yes, my disdain for the Trojans is based solely on USC’s departure from the Pac-12, starting the spiral that college football is today. 

But now that we’ve had nearly two years of Big Ten football, does anyone really enjoy the style of football Oregon’s been forced to play this year compared to what Saturday entailed? 

Nearly 600 yards of passing, 69 total points — it was awesome. And while playing Iowa in early-November may be good for a buck, the fan in me misses shootouts with Arizona State and Utah. Plus, some of the lesser Oregon sports going on the road to take on teams like Rutgers and Maryland still makes no sense. 

Listen, no one should feel bad for anyone involved in moving to the Big Ten, and Oregon isn’t exactly a saint in this situation. The Ducks saw their opportunity and the writing on the wall and made the smart financial decision. The thing is, football was already making the school millions, and fans aren’t exactly seeing the benefit in the team playing their away games across the country. 

As any sibling would say, the Trojans started it. Oregon followed them off that cliff, and while both are guilty, it’s a heckuva lot easier to blame USC.

That’s why it’s so much sweeter that Oregon won. The Trojans couldn’t hang with the Ducks, and really, any of the superlatives you want to pick could be used to define an undisciplined USC team. 

“This is USC — the standard here is incredibly high,”  head coach Lincoln Riley, who has lost all five of his games against top-10 teams at USC, said. “We’ve won a bunch of games this year. The ones we haven’t won, we’re right there.”

Well, USC will again be right there in some other bowl game, all while Oregon is a win away from the College Football Playoff. 

“Well, we just played a really good team. We beat them,” Oregon head coach Dan Lanning said. “And a lot of times we play really good teams that become unranked all of a sudden. That’s not our fault, right? Maybe it is our fault. But all we’re worried about is playing the teams that we play and doing the job that we need to do. And we did that job today, right?”

Fight on, home, Trojans. At least this time it’ll be a shorter, more familiar flight.