College Gameday picks up USC vs Stanford for week 12

Does anybody outside of Los Angeles realize just where the USC Trojans sit at this point in the season? I guess in Berkeley they understand after USC crushed the Bears 62-28 behind three punt return touchdowns.

That performance propelled the Trojans right back into the national spotlight and ESPN took special notice, giving L.A. a nice Sunday morning message about their match up with Stanford next week.

Of course Stanford is flying high off of their 26-20 victory over the Oregon Ducks on Thursday. The win has propelled them into the national championship picture for sure, but it’ll become more clear just how much help they’ll need later on today.

Looking ahead to the game, Stanford will have a little bit of advantage because they had a bye-week heading into Oregon and then a couple extra days to recover and prepare for USC. It’s once against the power and grind of a top ranked Cardinal team against the explosion and big-play ability of the Trojans.

USC may be on their way back into the rankings. They have responded in a major way to the head coaching change, playing easy and free since getting blown out at Arizona State. That game provoked the change and Ed Orgeron is making it tougher and tougher for USC to pass him up on the list of candidates for the job in 2014.