Early Preview—USC and Cal Fight for Early Pac-12 Supremacy in North vs. South Battle

USC, coming off a victory over the Texas Longhorns (which may have been too close for comfort), now gears its attention towards a Golden Bears squad looking to continue to make some noise in what has been a surprisingly successful season for them thus far.

We've seen the Trojans roll against a good Stanford Cardinal team but struggle against teams like Western Michigan and Texas. This Week Four matchup provides us with an opportunity to see if the USC offense can find rhythm against an up-and-coming Cal defensive unit—if it can, and the Trojan defense continues to show signs of improvement as it has on a week-to-week basis, this game should end with a USC victory.

The USC Trojans should win this game.

They should.

But this is a markedly improved Cal team, one that just won't let USC waltz in and take what they want.

Cal is going to put up a fight. Last week the Golden Bears' defense was led by the efforts of sophomore outside linebacker Cameron Goode who impressed with an interception returned for touchdown.

In addition to Goode, sophomore cornerback Camryn Bynum had a few impressive pass breakups as well as Devante Downs, who had a career game by recording a stellar interception early on and, later sealed the win by sacking Shea Patterson —finishing the game with 14 total tackles, two sacks, and an interception.

USC cannot sleep on this opponent. They are playing inspired football and Justin Wilcox has seemingly flipped the culture in Berkeley. We could be a season or two away from seeing Cal really make strides towards being a top Pac-12 team.

As the week goes on and Clay Helton readies the troops, make sure to keep it locked here for all the pregame analysis and predictions you need leading up to the game.

Fight on!