USC Football: 3 reasons the Trojans will beat Stanford in Week 2

Stanford versus USC football used to be one of the nation’s best rivalries, but in recent years, the luster in this matchup has gone away. With USC struggling to get back to relevance and Stanford slipping further from where they were a decade ago, the significance of this game has largely gone away.

However, I think the team with the most opportunity in this game would be USC.

USC’s offense sputtered against San Jose State last week, but because their defense dominated, the Trojans walked away with a 23-point victory.

Stanford had a neutral-site game against Kansas State last weekend and the Cardinal looked completely outmatched vs what is supposed to be a middle-of-the-pack team in the Big 12. The Cardinal struggled to run the ball and this offense has turned into one of the nation’s worst under head coach David Shaw.

The Pac-12 as a whole had a bad week as a conference and both of these teams played a part in that. Stanford was dominated by Kansas State. Washington lost to Montana, Oregon struggled to put away Fresno State, Cal lost to Nevada, Oregon State lost to Purdue and Arizona lost to BYU. The PAC-12 has become a punchline across the country and the only team garnering any respect right now is UCLA.

One thing that would help get the conference back to respectability is that USC starts to dominate and that could start on Saturday. The Trojans have shown flashes and they have the most talent in the conference outside of Oregon.

USC needs to start showing that they can be the team that this conference needs and I think that they will take care of Stanford and do so convincingly this Saturday.

Here are three reasons that USC will beat Stanford in Week 2.