LOS ANGELES -- No. 1 Southern California looks to be super strong, the Pac-10 appears pretty weak, so the Trojans should have an easy time of it Thursday night in their conference opener at Oregon State.
Or should they?
"We look at this game knowing that it's Pac-10 time," USC coach Pete Carroll said Tuesday at his weekly meeting with reporters. "Pac-10 games have always been challenging and difficult. It doesn't matter which week or who you're playing or where you're playing, they're just hard, difficult challenges.
"We've had difficult times with Oregon State in years past, in particularly playing there. We have great respect for their program. We'd love to play a nice football game and get out of there with a win and get on back home."
The Trojans (2-0), who have beaten Virginia 52-7 and No. 14 Ohio State 35-3, are favored by 25 points and have a 58-9-4 record in the series. But the Beavers have won two of the last three games between the teams at Reser Stadium including a 33-31 victory in 2006 that snapped USC's 38-game, regular-season winning streak.
"I remember it being cold, loud," USC defensive lineman Kyle Moore said. "It's different, you have the sports turf. The fans are very enthusiastic.
"We just can't let teams that are not supposed to beat us beat us this year."
Oregon State also beat USC 31-21 as the home team in 2000 -- the year before Carroll became the Trojans coach -- and led 13-0 before losing 28-20 on a cold, foggy night in 2004.
Carroll downplayed the difficulty of playing at Oregon State, although he added: "I don't think anybody could ever anticipate what it's like to play in fog like we played a few years ago."
That kind of weather is unlikely at this time of year, although Oregon State coach Mike Riley, when asked on a conference call about fog machines, said playfully: "They should be arriving tomorrow."
Carroll pointed to four USC turnovers in the game two years ago as the determining factor.
"That didn't have anything to do with the stadium, didn't have anything to do with anything," he said. "The ball came out of our hands a couple times. You do that no matter where you play in the game of football, you jeopardize your changes to win. They played an extremely efficient football game against us that day, and they got a great win."
Maybe what happened didn't have anything to do with the stadium, but that doesn't mean the players haven't been reminded about the past.
