The USC Song Girls will be up early this weekend, as ESPN's College GameDay crew comes to L.A. for USC-Stanford
The USC Trojans will host ESPN’s College GameDay crew on Halloween weekend for the second straight year, as the show heads to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a primetime Pac-12 showdown.
The Trojans are back in the BCS standings (20th) after a 31-17 win over Notre Dame in South Bend. They’ll face the #4 Stanford Cardinal, in L.A. after a 65-21 shellacking of the Washington Huskies.
USC played its best, most complete game last weekend against the Fighting Irish, in front of a primetime television audience and a large contingent of uncommitted football recruits. They put on a great show, but the spotlight will be even brighter this weekend.
The Trojans were nearly 9 point underdogs at Notre Dame; at home against Stanford, the odds against them will be even greater, but last weekend was the best they’ve looked all season. If they can build on it and stop Stanford, they could derail the Cardinal’s title hopes and prove to the nation that, regardless of sanctions and no shot at a postseason, the Trojans are still a college football force to be reckoned with.
Many are expected USC to be far overmatched, but the team that showed up in South Bend last Saturday looked good, better than the 2010 Trojans – and last year’s team nearly beat Stanford, losing 37-35 on a late field goal.
A few weeks after almost beating Stanford, GameDay was at the Coliseum for Oregon-USC, and in that game, the Trojans were certainly overmatched, losing 53-32. There was a lot of hype leading up to the game, including a fan push to “Cardinal Out the Coliseum” by wearing red, which looked great from the aerial shots but didn’t do anything to help the team from becoming a mere speed bump on the Ducks’ mad dash to the BCS Championship game.
USC will need to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen this time, and according to head coach Lane Kiffin as reported in the L.A. Times, the focus will be on the game, not GameDay.
“They finally understand it’s not about the hype. It’s about the preparation,” Kiffin told the media after the show’s location was announced.
While USC players will have their minds on nothing by beating Stanford, Trojans’ fans are encouraged to come out early to show their support for the team. Last year’s GameDay crowd at the Coliseum was paltry compared to the numbers that regularly show up for SEC and Big Ten games – the team hopes to come out bigger and better than last year, and so should the fans.
The festivities will start before dawn on the West Coast, with Erin Andrews anchoring the first hour of the three-hour broadcast from 9-10 a.m. – or 6-7 a.m. local time before turning it over to Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, and Lee Corso. Last week, Corso picked Notre Dame to beat USC, and he was wrong. Who do you think he’ll take this time?
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