Cardinal deliver beatdown at the Coliseum

I have had a permanent grin tattooed on my face since Saturday afternoon.

Fresh off a big home upset over #8 Oregon, Stanford rolled into Southern California looking for more.

It's tough living in SoCal with the one-sided dominance of the South over the North this decade. In a July post titled "The Freeway Series from Hell" about the possibility of an Angels-Dodgers World Series I highlighted this problem with one caveat: "At least Stanford 24, USC 23 happened."

On Saturday, Stanford 55, USC 21 happened.

Both were startling. Back in October of 2007 Stanford was 41-point underdogs and that win was dubbed the "Biggest. Upset. Ever."

It was a remarkable victory for a team that won just one game the year before and had been mired in one of its worst periods of ineptitude in school history.

But without Saturday's dominance that game would simply be a historical footnote - a magical fall day where the unthinkable happened - not the full-fledged revival Palo Alto is undertaking.

Stanford won three more games that year - Coach Jim Harbaugh's first on the farm.

They won five in 2008, again falling short of that elusive bowl bid (they haven't played in one since 2001.) They lost three straight after starting 5-4 including a 45-23 home loss to the Trojans.

It was an up-and-down start to 2009 that included blowing big leads on the road to Wake Forest and Arizona and three weeks ago they looked once again headed for mediocrity and facing a really difficult final stretch to try and get the six wins necessary to keep playing into December.

Now they could play in January.

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I was reading a Scouts, Inc. ESPN Insider position-by-position breakdown before the game and there was a startling revelation. Stanford was better at each of the offensive skill positions.

Stanford had better athletes than USC?

This sure seemed at odds with the "it's hard to recruit guys that have a 4.4 (GPA) and run a 4.4 (40-second dash)" comment I always make.

But the Cardinal do, and with USC WR Damian Williams sidelined, the edge was even greater and it was evident from the opening kick-off.

After the game Carroll was asked about this exact point and he didn't shy away from drinking the Cardinal Kool-Aid.

"Doesn't USC have the better athletes? 'That's obviously not the case,' Carroll says. Are you saying Stanford has better athletes than USC? 'It sure looked like it today.'" (T.J. Simers - LA Times)

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I've been saying for weeks that Toby Gerhart belongs in the Heisman conversation and with 401 yards and SIX touchdowns in back-to-back 50-point outbursts by the Cardinal offense he is finally getting the national recognition he deserves.

It's hard to imagine him unseating the Tebow/Ingram/McCoy trio that all plays for currently undefeated teams but he should at least garner enough support to be in New York.