The Stanford Cardinal will take on the USC Trojans on Saturday night in the Pac-12 Championship game. Stanford comes in at 10-2 and ranked seventh in the nation while USC is 8-4 and ranked 20th in the nation.
USC doesn't have any chance of making the College Football Playoffs while Stanford does but they will need some help. Stanford has two losses this season while all of the teams ahead of them have one or less so they will likely need a win on Saturday night and a loss from Clemson, Alabama or both to have a shot to qualify.
Stanford comes into this game off of a thrilling win against Notre Dame last week as they won 38-36 on a last second field goal to keep their playoff hopes alive. Quarterback Kevin Hogan's career at Stanford is winding down but he has had quite the successful run. He already has the most wins of any starting quarterback in program history with 34 and has had a nice season as he has thrown for 2,500 yards and 23 touchdowns.
The Cardinal also have one of the top Heisman candidates in running back Christian McCaffrey. This season McCaffrey leads the entire FBS in all-purpose yards with the closest player being 52 yards away and he has a chance to break Barry Sanders' all-time record. McCaffrey has run for more than 1,600 yards and has added more than 400 yards receiving so far this season. The sophomore running back has 11 offensive touchdowns this season.
USC has had a tumultous season to say the least as head coach Steve Sarkisian was fired in the middle of the year but interim head coach Clay Helton has led them to the Pac-12 Championship game with a shot to earn a spot in a New Years Six bowl. The Trojans lost two of their first three Pac-12 games but recovered to win the South division. USC enters this Championship game off of a blowout win over rival UCLA last week.
USC doesn't quite have the star power that Stanford has but they have been winning with their ground game as they have outrushed their opponents in every single game this year by an average of more than 100 yards. The Trojans use a two headed monster in the backfield of Justin Davis and Ronald Jones II and both have had great seasons as they are averaging 5.5 and 6.4 yards per carry respectively. As a team USC is averaging 4.5 yards per carry and will likely rely on their running game again in this one.
USC quarterback Cody Kessler is no slouch either though, as he too has had a nice season throwing for more than 3,100 yards with 27 touchdowns to just six interceptions. Kessler has found his top receiver Juju Smith-Schuster very often this year and he leads the Trojans in every receiving category by a long shot. Smith-Schuster has 74 catches for more than 1,300 yards and 10 touchdowns.
These two teams met up earlier in the year as each team was opening up their Pac-12 schedule and Stanford won that game 41-31. Both Kessler and Hogan played very well in that game so this should be another high scoring, exciting game to watch.
The game is scheduled to kick off at 7:45 P.M. Eastern time and to watch the live broadcast go here. For the Stanford radio broadcast go here and for the USC radio broadcast go here.