A dominant performance by USC buried Cardinal in Coliseum

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USC's 42-24 win Saturday night was the Trojans' most decisive victory over Stanford since 2008, and their performance featured a number of characteristics familiar to Stanford's recent run of wins over USC.

Stanford lost the line of scrimmage decisively and it didn't take long for that to be apparent. USC's first scoring drive of repeated hammer blows in the run game, and expert passing by Sam Darnold, was the theme throughout the night.

The Heisman hopeful quarterback delivered several passes that almost certainly had NFL scouts and some GMs hoping he'll be available for their teams to draft. He was 21-of-26 for 316 yards and four touchdowns.

Up and down the stat sheet there are no numbers that will look good to Stanford's defensive players or defensive coordinator Lance Anderson. It's an experience that clearly didn't sit well with junior safety Justin Reid in the post-game press conference, who said the loss hurt bad enough that it can be a positive.

"Honestly, though, this could be the best thing that happened to our team," he said. "It gives us a chance to lock in and see the details. All the preseason hype, this lets us know exactly where we are. It gives us an opportunity to be critical of ourselves and give us an opportunity to get better."

For head coach David Shaw, the post-game assessment started up front on both sides of the ball.

"First and foremost, their offensive line played extremely well," Shaw said. "They ran the ball very well. I thought we ran it pretty well and they ran it better than we did tonight. I'm not used to saying things like that. All the credit goes to them."

USC running backs Stephen Carr (119 yards) and Ronald Jones (116) broke arm tackle after arm tackle and routinely had to be brought down by linebackers and defensive backs. Stanford's defensive line wasn't able to be a play-making force in the Coliseum.

Not to be lost in the pain of a physical thumping to a rival, Bryce Love was a star of the night for the Cardinal. He finished with 168 yards on 17 carries and had a 75 yard touchdown run.

"He played extremely well," Shaw said. "Bryce was outstanding tonight. He still ran hard and I thought we blocked for him pretty well."

It wasn't enough and Stanford couldn't keep going to Love nearly as much as you have to imagine that Shaw and offensive coordinator Mike Bloomgren wanted. A big part of the problem was how quickly USC went ahead and turned the game into a track meet. Also, Stanford's pass offense struggled for much of the night and couldn't protect the running game.

"I thought we could have pass protected better and gotten more out of the passing game," Shaw said. "Defensively they had a really good scheme for us and we had opportunities to make some plays, we made some and some we didn't make. But the bottom line today is we weren't good enough on the field."

Keller Chryst finished 15-of-28 for 172 yards and two touchdowns. But many of those yards and the second touchdown came with the game all but decided. The greatest positive in the passing game was the play of JJ Arcega-Whiteside.

For all of Stanford's defensive struggles the Cardinal picked off Darnold twice thanks to spectacular individual efforts by Justin Reid and Alijah Holder. But Stanford only scored three points off those turnovers

"Those have to come away in points," Shaw lamented. "We weren't able to do that. Those have to be game-changing plays. Offensively we have to punch those in, make them touchdowns and keep this game close and win it at the end."

USC only punted once, which further highlighted both the rareness of stopping USC and how costly it was to not take advantage of the interceptions. USC's long drives were powered by converting 10-of-12 third downs.

Shaw credited USC's offensive line for setting everything up for the Trojans.

"They just came out better than us today," said redshirt junior defensive tackle Harrison Phillips. "We definitely got their best. We have a lot to improve on and a lot of weeks to get there. We'll see who is the better team at the end of the season."

Phillips finished with 11 tackles despite being repeatedly double teamed and shook off getting banged up in the fourth quarter.

But Stanford managed only one tackle for a loss.

"I would say ... it's hard to say we played to our standard," Phillips said. "I know we had guys fighting and competing. You'll see a better player at each position next week because everyone is so hard on themselves."

Reid added: "This will be motivation for us the rest of the year. We're going to let this feeling sit in our mouths for the rest of the season because we don't ever want to go through this again. We are a team that has motivation and we're going to use it to drive us the rest of the year so that way nobody takes a play off, no one takes a practice off (and) we will be driven for the rest of the year to go out and accomplish what we intend to do. So that we don't have this feeling again."

Phillips referenced the crushing loss to Northwestern to open the 2015 season as an example of a major setback early that the team overcame. A lot will have to change on defense for that to be true again and the Cardinal will likely need help in the conference race.

But first, Stanford needs a convincing win at San Diego State to start the process of correcting what happened in the Coliseum.

"I think we can play better," Shaw said. "The challenge is to play better. It's the second game into the season and we're 0-1 in the conference. I'm not going to make more of it than it is. We have a lot of football left and hopefully a lot of improvement to make."