USC vs. Colorado preview: Trojans return home ready to eat buffalo

5-1. Let’s call it a successful first half of football.

The USC Trojans (5-1, 3-1) were expected to be undefeated leading up to the final game of the season in the BCS bowl. After the devastating loss to Stanford in Palo Alto, USC had huge wins against Cal, Utah, and Washington.
Now; the real test begins. But first, an easy pop quiz.

The Colorado Buffaloes (1-5, 1-3) visit the Coliseum this weekend hoping to get a win. The spread, according to Vegas, is that USC will win by a hefty margin of 41 points. The good thing for the Buffaloes is that USC is currently 1-5 against the spread. The bad part is that the Buffaloes have already lost this game.

Out of 124 FBS teams, CU is currently 120 in scoring defense. They are allowing 41.3 points to their opponents. It does get a little better for the Buffs on offense, ranking them 104 out of 124 FBS teams in scoring offense, averaging 20.8 a game.

Buffaloes quarterback Jordan Webb has eight touchdowns to four interceptions, which is a respectable 2-1 TD-INT ratio. It gets ugly when you see he’s been sacked 25 times and has completed passes at a 56.5% clip.

Yikes.
Fortunately for CU, they will go up against USC’s defensive line, which is the weakest area of… Oh wait a minute, never mind.

Basically, it will be an astronomical loss on USC’s part if they lost this game at home after starting 5-1 to the season and having the talent they have. Remember Stanford 2007? Yeah, if the Trojans somehow lose this game, it will be approximately 53556476456 times worse than that night, or around it.

Let’s just skip to the notes:

CORNERBACK

If you missed it on Saturday, cornerback turned safety turned back to cornerback Josh Shaw played a great amount of reps against Washington in their win last week against the Huskies. Shaw also intercepted a pass from Keith Price on a brilliant heads up play. If he’s not starting against the Buffaloes on Saturday, then USC head coach Lane Kiffin has some "splain’in to do".

I don’t believe USC will take Saturday’s game lightly as Kiffin will mix together a few things to begin their tough stretch of the season. Look to see Shaw, Torin Harris, and Kevon Seymour all to get even amount of reps on Saturday.

MARQISE LEE AND ROBERT WOODS

Two players that value more than the Colorado Buffaloes.

COLORADO TOUGH STRETCH

After Saturday’s game in Los Angeles, the Buffs will travel to Eugene, Ore. to face No. 3 Oregon Ducks, then play Stanford at home, then at Arizona against Rich Rodriguez’s offense, then Washington and Utah.

Poor Jon Embree. After assembling a suitable staff to help revive the Buffaloes to a respectable team again, it’s possible that he won’t pass four wins in his two years with the Buffs.

USC’s OFFENSE

If there’s any game to work on game time offense, it’s this. USC hasn’t been comfortable offensively in the first six games of the season and it has reached its climax. Matt Barkley was 10-20 in Saturday’s win against the Huskies and only threw fewer than four passes in the second half of the game. Could a player/coach feud be brewing?

Whatever problems the offense and Kiffin have together, Saturday’s game against the Buffs is the perfect game to call it truce.

GAME TIME

Saturday; Kickoff at 3:00 p.m. PT, TV: Pac-12 Networks