A Rose Bowl berth

On Thanksgiving Day where most are eating turkey and celebrating the holidays, a game is being played with Rose Bowl implications. An 8 P.M. start in Tempe, AZ where the USC Trojans traveled to take on the Arizona State Sun Devils.

USC received the ball first, and Ronald Johnson made the most of it taking off down field and picking up 49 yards on the opening play. From there the Trojans marched 51 yards in 7 plays, 6 through the air finishing the drive with a 4 yard TD to Vidal Hazelton from John David Booty. The Sun Devils answered right back, Rudy Burgess received the kickoff and got an excellent block. From there he cut across the grain and it was a foot race, David Buehler the USC kicker almost tripped him up before he reached the endzone. The 98 yard return had the game at a 7-7 tie 2 minutes into the game. The next two scores came from the Trojans, Buehler from 42 yards out and on the next drive Booty throwing his 2nd TD of the quarter. He hit Stanley Havili, USC's fullback who was lined up in the slot for a 5 yard strike. Halfway through the first quarter and the score is 17-7 USC. The Sun Devils answered with a 74 yard, 12 play drive that evaporated 5 minutes off the clock. The drive was capped off with a 4 yard pass to Michael Jones from Rudy Carpenter. After getting the Trojans to punt, ASU put together another sustained drive for 60 yards and 10 plays, resulting in a 25 yard field goal by Thomas Webber, a Lou Groza finalist. With the score tied at 17, the Trojans went 58 yards behind 8 plays and finished the drive with a Buehler 20 yard field goal. After stopping the Sun Devils, USC again marched 54 yards in 6 plays finishing the half with a 1 yard plunge by QB Booty, going into the half up 27-17. Though down by 10, Arizona State didn't panic as they are used to coming from behind in most of their games.

After kicking to the Sun Devils and eventually stopping them, the Trojans received the ball and went 35 yards on 6 plays, capped off with a Buehler 37 yard field goal. After that, the third quarter would belong to the Trojans as they rattled off two more scores. The first came behind the arm of Booty, as he fired a pass towards the goaline to Joe McKnight and the freshman walked in from 7 yards out. The second TD came with a well designed play to get Fred Davis, USC's star tight end who is leading the team in receptions and receiving yards. Davis motioned left and stopped behind the left guard and tackle, almost as if he was going to help block down for a wham play. As soon as the ball snapped Davis went across the field towards the right flat and caught a bullet from Booty, then sprinted past two defenders and ran into another and bounced off him and continued onto the endzone. From 34 yards out capping a 71 yard, 7 play drive putting the Trojans up big 44-17. Arizona State did score one more time, with a short field they where able to get the ball in from 2 yards out. it was their easiest rushing play of the night as Dimitri Nance walked in untouched with 8 minutes to go. The score would eventually lead to the final score of the game, 44-24 USC.

This game was part of the key to win a trip to the historical Rose Bowl. USC came into the game needing to win out and a Oregon loss, so far they are a third of the way there. Arizona State came into the game only needing to win out, now they need a Oregon and USC loss to make it to the Rose Bowl. They finish their regular season game with in state rival Arizona. USC controls their destiny alot more, yes they still need an Oregon loss too, but before they can think about that they need to beat crosstown rival UCLA as the Bruins beat them last year 13-9. UCLA handing USC that loss stopped any talk of them entering the BCS title game, and sent them to the Rose Bowl.

This game was not won by a turnover battle, as the score may indicate. USC was just to dominate in the end for the Sun Devils. ASU only had 1 turnover, a lost fumble while USC didn't commit a single turnover. The Trojans held ASU to 16 yards rushing on 35 attempts. Yes Carpenter did result in -23 yards from all the sacks he had taken, but they held their top rusher Keegan Herring to 5 yards on 11 attempts. At one point he was in the negative yards, Dimitri Nance was the team's leading rusher with 19 yards on 9 carries. Arizona State had given up 43 sacks coming into the game, USC added six more before the night would end. The Sun Devils where over matched facing such a strong front 7, lead by defensive end Lawrence Jackson with 4 of the 6 sacks, who now has 10 sacks on the year. The pressure they got on Rudy Carpenter, eventually knocked him out of the game for a series. As his lip was busted and he received medical attention to slow the bleeding. On the other end USC QB had his best game of the season, throwing for 375 yards going 26 for 39 for 67 completion percentage. Ending the game with 5 total TD's, 4 TD's through the air and 1 on the ground. Arizona State and USC are both now, 9-2 overall and 6-2 in the PAC-10.