Orange County Register

Just how far USC gets down the road to recovery Saturday against Arizona State will likely depend on Tailback U.’s ability to get through the Pac-10’s stingiest defense against the run.

“They’re difficult and challenging,” USC coach Pete Carroll said Thursday.

How challenging?

The Sun Devils held California tailback Jahvid Best, not so long ago a Heisman Trophy candidate, to 63 yards on 18 carries in the Golden Bears’ last minute 23-21 victory last Saturday. That’s 3.8 yards per carry and Best’s longest run against ASU was just 8 yards.

Not that Best is alone in struggling against the Sun Devils. Oregon State’s Jacquizz Rodgers, the 2008 Pac-10 Player of the Year, was limited to 81 yards by ASU earlier this year. Rodgers averaged 120.1 ypg in his other seven games In fact only Stanford’s Toby Gerhart has broke the 100-yard barrier against the nation’s No. 4 rushing defense in 2009.

“We want to run the ball on these guys and that’s our challenge this week is to be able to run the ball and run the ball effectively and they’re going to give us a great game and that’s what we want,” Trojan center Jeff Byers said.

ASU is allowing just 80.1 ypg on the ground, a 26.5 ypg improvement over 2008. The difference is not so much schematic as it is a change of attitude.

“They’ve really just focused on attacking the line of scrimmage and hitting the running game with really great energy,” USC coach Pete Carroll said. “They’ve just been very physical. They haven’t changed their scheme much but they just hit the line of scrimmage and they keep attacking and attacking and causing things to happen and it’s helped them in a lot of ways.”

Like turnovers.

ASU leads the Pac-10 in both take aways (21) and interceptions (13).

“We just have to play with poise,” Trojan tailback Joe McKnight said. “They’ve got a lot of players on their team that get in your face.”

More from the USC blog:

• USC football: Everson Griffen will play. Or won’t he?
• USC football: D.J. Shoemate’s quiet contributions
• Poll: Is Carroll’s USC dynasty about to end?
• USC football: Devon Kennard goes home
• USC football: ‘Our mission is to score seven on every drive’
• USC football: Are Trojans still king of Pac-10?
• USC football: McCoy unlikely to play at ASU
• USC football: Debating the demise of the dynasty
• Reading between the hash marks: Rick

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.