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Wednesday News and Notes

LB Keith Rivers was named Pac 10 Defensive player of the week. He had a great game with 8 tackles, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Congratulations Keith.

Scott Wolf reports in his USC football notes that freshman Taylor Mays will replace Josh Pinkard at the Free Safety spot with Pinkard being done for the season with a torn ACL. Others vying for the spot are Garrett Green and Antwine Perez. You can guarantee that Nebraska will try to exploit the secondary when they see us on the 17th.

The icle_1265018.php">OC Register's Mark Whicker has a great column on SC receiver Steve Smith. I found this statement in his article interesting:

The USC opener did what it was supposed to - it made the Trojans hungry for Game 2, which is Sept. 17 at home against resurgent Nebraska.

Neither USC nor UCLA gets enough national credit for walking down mean scheduling streets. USC plays Notre Dame each year. This year, so does UCLA. Generally, each team schedules no more than one blueberry smoothie per season. It means the victories actually tell you something.

Certainly both teams can't wait to see their quarterbacks play again. UCLA's Ben Olson gets to cook Rice this week.

That's a good observation. The MSM never really sees the big picture. While the SEC embarrassed the Pac 10, outside of SC, this past weekend, the Pac 10 always tries to book some quality opponents in their OOC Scheduling.

CFN's Matt Zemek's instant analysis of SC's win over Arkansas is really a great write-up on placekicker Mario Danello. This guy was stone cold and really deflated the Razorbacks morale at the end of the first half.

After Robert Johnson quarterbacked the homestanding Hogs to a touchdown to bring Arkansas within six points of the Trojans (13-7), momentum was yelling, "Woo Pig Soooeeeey!" in the final moments of the first half. With USC on the Hogs' 27 and just five ticks left on the clock, Razorback head coach Houston Nutt sensed that Danelo's upcoming 44-yard field goal try was a very big deal. The Boss Hog chose to ice Danelo not once, not twice, but three times, exhausting his full supply of timeouts to ensure that Danelo would miss, leaving the game a one-possession affair and sustaining momentum for the home team. Whichever way the kick went was going to shape the emotional landscape in the second half. It was as big a pre-halftime field goal as you'll ever see in a college football game. The opening night emotions made it so.

Sometimes it's the little things that make the biggest difference.

There is  a new poll question posted on the right, please give it a read and make your pick.