Everything falls apart for USC in the weirdest loss of the year

Oregon State 36, USC 7. Last week, Oregon State flopped and twitched its way to a 31-17 home loss to lowly Washington State, snapping the Cougars' nearly two-year, 16-game Pac-10 losing streak. The humiliating defeat was the Beavers' third in four games and, following their 17-14 flop at UCLA on Nov. 6, their second in a row to one of the two teams residing at the bottom of the conference standings.

Naturally, then, they met USC's two-game winning streak tonight in the only logical fashion: By forcing two early turnovers, racing out to the game's first 20 points, shutting out the Trojans for the entire first half and finally slamming the door on the most lopsided Oregon State win ever over USC in the series' nearly 100-year-old history. In fact, the 29-point margin tonight in Corvallis was wider than USC's first three losses this year combined, including the debacle against Oregon. Who couldn't have seen that coming on the heels of the Beavers' worst game of the year, and the Trojans' best?

To ensure the night was a total loss, the fates also took out USC quarterback Matt Barkley with a frightening-looking injury in the second quarter, eventually diagnosed as a high ankle sprain. Barkley had already thrown a pick-six for Oregon State's first touchdown prior to the injury, and backup Mitch Mustain wasn't much better in relief: 8 of 17 passing, 60 yards, zero completions of 20 yards or more, against the nation's 104th-ranked pass defense. The bum ankle could keep Barkley out for both of the Trojans' rivalry dates with Notre Dame and UCLA to close the regular season.

College football basically consists of wild pendulum swings over the course of a season, but a swing from losing to Washington State by 17 one week and demolishing USC by 29 the next, on the same field, defies all attempts at logical explanation. Sometimes, lightning strikes where you least expect. But the final BCS pushes at Stanford and Oregon are officially on notice over the next two weeks.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

Source: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/Everything-falls-apart-for-USC-in-the-weirdest-l?urn=ncaaf-287739

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