Christian McCaffrey must have a lot of pull with oddsmakers because he's the only reason why Stanford would have such a bloated perception as to make them a 9 point favorite in this spot.
I'm not particularly impressed with this year's Cardinal squad and, to me, the line feels like it should be more like -3 or -3.5. Granted, Stanford's only played one game, but they had to replace their quarterback, Hogan, and three starters along the offensive line. McCaffrey didn't have a ton of running room in that first game and was kept in check for the most part.
USC returns nine starters on offense, and, although they too have to replace their quarterback, he's the beneficiary of operating behind an offensive line returning all their starters from last year and a JuJu Smith-Schuster at receiver.
Stanford has had the Trojans' number in recent times, but I think the talent level has evened out a bit between these two teams and I wouldn't be surprised to see USC win this game outright. You can throw out the thrashing by Bama because Bama makes a lot of teams look terrible.
USC +9
I'm not particularly impressed with this year's Cardinal squad and, to me, the line feels like it should be more like -3 or -3.5. Granted, Stanford's only played one game, but they had to replace their quarterback, Hogan, and three starters along the offensive line. McCaffrey didn't have a ton of running room in that first game and was kept in check for the most part.
USC returns nine starters on offense, and, although they too have to replace their quarterback, he's the beneficiary of operating behind an offensive line returning all their starters from last year and a JuJu Smith-Schuster at receiver.
Stanford has had the Trojans' number in recent times, but I think the talent level has evened out a bit between these two teams and I wouldn't be surprised to see USC win this game outright. You can throw out the thrashing by Bama because Bama makes a lot of teams look terrible.
USC +9