Here’s an interesting situation to remember:
USC walks into a stadium packed with more than 86,000 fans on national television and shuts out previously ranked No. 5 Auburn, 23-0, on Saturday.
“We didn’t do a lot of fancy things,” USC coach Pete Carroll told the Daily Trojan. “We just played ball.”
It was USC’s first opening shutout in 30 years and first shutout of a top-10 team since 1962. Now, USC returns to Los Angeles Coliseum on Saturday to face unranked BYU in its home opener.
BYU does not have a single player on its roster who was alive the last time the Cougars were shut out.
The Cougars have an NCAA record streak of 351 games without being shut out, dating back to 1975 when they were shut out by Arizona State, 20-0.
So could BYU’s 28-year record be broken Saturday at 5 p.m. by the Trojans, whose top-notch defense held Auburn to 43 yards rushing? Maybe.
The two teams have never met. USC and Stanford are the only two Pacific-10 Conference teams that BYU hasn’t yet faced. The Cougars have a .357 winning percentage against Pac-10 teams and USC has an .801 percentage in home openers.
The quarterback matchup should be one to watch as sophomore Matt Berry connected on 31 of 46 attempts for 276 yards, the third-best performance of his career.
And for USC, sophomore Matt Leinart didn’t appear to miss a beat in trying to replace former quarterback Carson Palmer. Leinart went 17 of 30 for 192 yards and one touchdown in his first career start for USC. He threw his first career passes against Auburn after taking just three snaps last season.
“Jason played hard,” Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville told the Daily Trojan. “He was running around for his life.”
Contact the sports reporter
at [email protected]