Autzen Stadium

EUGENE, Ore. -- This is not the comfortable familiarity of the Coliseum. It is far from the staid, mostly quiet environment that was Notre Dame Stadium. After comparatively unchallenging tests at home against Arizona and on the road against Notre Dame, USC quarterback Mark Sanchez makes his third start at one of college football's loudest venues: Oregon's Autzen Stadium.

EUGENE, Ore. - The clanks and booms of heavy machinery interrupt an otherwise quiet, gray morning. This is what winning football sounds like at Oregon. A few hundred yards from where the Ducks practice, construction crews are erecting yet another athletic building, a team complex that - bound in black metal and glass - will rival anything the NFL has to offer. It is easy to view this program's recent success in terms of brick and mortar, to credit Nike co-founder and university alumnus Phil Knight for funding an array of facilities and a stadium renovation.

As a Trojan living in Oregon since 1990, I have had to live with the "sham dynasty" of Oregon and Oregon State. I've had to wear Trojan colors over some tough years and listen to a boring litany of Oregon football history from local residents. My vindication came with a Trojan victory from the stands of Autzen Stadium surrounded by a sea of green Oregon fans. Please tell my wife that I need no Christmas present. The Trojans are back and Notre Dame should know that their real challenge is coming.

Mike Bellotti saw the future of Oregon football almost a decade ago. The spread-option epiphany did not tap him lightly on the shoulder. "It just hit me right in the face," Bellotti, now an ESPN analyst, said this week. You can credit Oregon's former coach for making possible Saturday night's anticipated showdown of Arizona at Oregon. The game features two of the spread's most cutting-edge masterminds, Oregon Coach Chip Kelly and Arizona's Rich Rodriguez. If Rodriguez is the godfather of the offense, Kelly might be the godson.

Chip Kelly likes to shave time. He's the kind of guy who seeks the quickest route to work and probably could have already edited four words out of this story. "Gone With the Wind," under Kelly's direction, might have won the Academy Award for best film short. "It would have been really fast," Kelly joked Monday in his office. "Get right to Atlanta, burn the buildings and yell 'time!'" The objective is getting Oregon to play football as fast as its second-year coach talks, and he's already machine-gum Kelly.

How does a school build a 17-game home winning streak? Start with talented players, of course. And, in Oregon's case, give an assist to a great crowd and a tricky artificial playing surface. The Bruins wanted to start fast to silence the notoriously loud crowd at Autzen Stadium. Instead, UCLA started its first possession at its 14, practically deafened by noise from seats along the sideline and behind the end zone.

USC, spooked by Oregon's home crowd on Halloween night at Autzen Stadium last season, is hoping that Trojans fans will make the top-ranked Ducks feel similarly uncomfortable Saturday night at the Coliseum. The combination of homecoming, the presence of ESPN's "College GameDay" and a social network-driven "Red Out the Coli" campaign, urging fans to wear Cardinal-colored clothing, could be the right combination, junior linebacker Chris Galippo suggested. "Hopefully, that ignites our fans a little bit," Galippo said.

His first visit here made him a starter, his second made him a redshirt and his third left him yearning for one last shot at victory in Autzen Stadium. USC quarterback Carson Palmer gets it today when the 15th-ranked Trojans play No. 14 Oregon in an apparent make-or-break Pacific 10 Conference game for both teams. Because of quirks in the Pac-10's scheduling format, this will be Palmer's fourth appearance before one of the toughest and noisiest crowds in college football.

Oregon's thorny start has come up roses. Redshirt freshman LaMichael James ran for 166 yards and three touchdowns Thursday night to send No. 7 Oregon to the Rose Bowl with a 37-33 victory over No. 13 Oregon State in the Civil War. Oregon (10-2, 8-1) claimed the Pac-10 championship with the victory, ending USC's seven-season hold on the title. The Ducks, who have not been to the Rose Bowl since 1995, will face Ohio State in Pasadena on New Year's Day. LeGarrette Blount, who hadn't played since throwing a punch after Oregon's season-opening loss to Boise State, returned to the field and scored on a 12-yard run in the third quarter.

From Eugene, Ore. They haven't invented anything fast enough to keep up with the likes of Oregon versus Stanford, which played Saturday night at break-neck speed in front of a sell-out crowd of 59, 818. Twitter seemed as slow as Morse Code. Autzen Stadium and a nationally televised audience were treated to the Pacific 10 Conference "warped-speed game of the week," a beat-the-play-clock glimpse into modern-day modem football. No. 4 Oregon, the defending conference champion, raced back from a 21-3 first-half deficit to defeat No. 9 Stanford, 52-31, in a marquee matchup that didn't disappoint.

Nick Toon knew what he was getting into when he signed on with Wisconsin. The senior receiver, the son of former Badgers and NFL receiver Al Toon , recognized he would play for a run-first program. "That's something you kind of have to have in the back of your head when you get involved with Wisconsin," Nick Toon said. Still, Toon caught 54 passes and scored four touchdowns as a sophomore two years ago. Last season, a toe injury sidelined the 6-foot-3 Toon for three games, his production dropping to 36 catches and three touchdowns.

As parting gifts go, perhaps the only thing UCLA players could have done better was pull off one of the biggest upsets in college football history. Or make it a bit closer at the end. That did not happen Friday night at Autzen Stadium, but the Bruins sent fired Coach Rick Neuheisel off with an effort worth remembering in the inaugural Pac-12 Conference title game. The Bruins, 31-point underdogs, hung with No. 9 Oregon through part of the third quarter before losing, 49-31.

If there is a contemporary poster player for UCLA's "Gutty Little Bruins" reputation from long ago, it is senior linebacker Sean Westgate. Westgate arrived at UCLA as a 5-foot-11, 205-pound linebacker and helped launch Rick Neuheisel's tenure as the Bruins coach by scooping up a blocked punt and running 13 yards for a touchdown in a first-game upset over Tennessee. Now, with UCLA a heavy underdog to Oregon on Friday night in the inaugural Pac-12 Conference championship game at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore., he will try to prevent the Neuheisel Era from ending with a whimper.

Matt Barkley was 12 years old on that blustery fall day in Eugene, Ore., when Carson Palmer effectively won the Heisman Trophy. Here's hoping somebody showed Barkley the film this week. It was 2002 and the college football world wasn't quite sure about USC. Or about Palmer. The Trojans entered the game ranked 15th, Oregon 14th. The game was played in Autzen Stadium, where then, as now, great visiting players go to become ordinary. Just before that season, the stadium's capacity had been increased from 41,698 to 54,000.

Reporting from Eugene, Ore. — Just to be clear, Michael Clay does not want to sound like a complainer. The linebacker understood when he signed with Oregon he was joining a program known for its rapid-fire offense. For outracing opponents, not stopping them cold. Defense is something of an afterthought. "Can't deny that," Clay said. "We kind of fly under the radar. " But this fall, with the fourth-ranked Ducks sneaking back into the national championship hunt, scoring almost seven touchdowns a game, Clay and his defensive teammates are starting to get noticed.

Matt Barkley has proved adept at making adjustments this season. USC's junior quarterback was at it again Tuesday, though the pocket in which he displayed poise was created by reporters and camera operators, not offensive linemen. Barkley had said last week that while Oregon was very good, he believed that Ducks teams he played against in the past were better. That caused Trojans Coach Lane Kiffin to run interference Sunday, saying Barkley would have "a very different opinion" after watching film of the Ducks, who are No. 4 in the Bowl Championship Series standings.

So much for the notion of taking it easy during a bye week. USC's philosophy of pulling back a bit with an open date looming changed dramatically with top-ranked Oregon coming to the Coliseum on Oct. 30. The Trojans on Wednesday will continue a series of 6 a.m. workouts that are conducted at a breakneck pace to condition players for the Ducks' high-speed tempo. "This is definitely the hardest bye-week practice I've had since I've been here," junior defensive lineman Armond Armstead said after Tuesday's practice.

Only one current USC player knows the joy that comes from defeating Oregon. Fullback Malaefou MacKenzie, a sixth-year senior, was a true freshman playing for Coach John Robinson in 1997 when he started at tailback in the Trojans' 24-22 victory at the Coliseum. USC has since lost four consecutive games against the Ducks.

It's hard to duck the obvious these days. Oregon is the current 500-pound gorilla in the Pac-10. For the moment, the power in major sports has headed northwest. Pete Carroll was cutting edge, and we didn't even see it. Those of us in egocentric, population-centric, movie-star-centric Southern California need to call a trend a trend. The Pac-10 currently does not revolve around us, as we have assumed and demanded forever. Yes, this too shall pass, ideally with the quickness of Coach Chip Kelly's spread offense.

USC, long the giant of the Pacific 10 Conference, is hoping to play spoiler against an Oregon team that not only is the defending conference champion but has designs on a Bowl Championship Series title. This is the first time since 1988 that the Trojans have hosted a No. 1-ranked opponent. Notre Dame won that game and went on to win the national title. Staff writer Gary Klein looks at the game's key issues and matchups: Turf differential Much has been made of Oregon's team speed and the breakneck pace with which the Ducks run Coach Chip Kelly's spread-option offense.