Trojans tabbed second in Pac-12 South

Heading into the season with a new coach, a new system and a new attitude, the 2014 Trojan football team was picked to finish second in the Pac-12 South in the preseason media poll.

The Trojans are coming off of a 2013 season in which they won their first bowl game since 2009 — a 45-20 beatdown of the Fresno State Bulldogs in the Las Vegas Bowl last December. Their 10-4 campaign served as a rebound from USC’s disastrous 7-6 season in 2012 that culminated in a 21-7 loss to Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl.

USC wound up in a second-place tie with UCLA in the Pac-12 South after being picked to finish third behind the Bruins and the Arizona State Sun Devils last year. The Trojans went 6-3 in conference play and 3-2 against Pac-12 South opponents.

This year, the Bruins were chosen to win the South for the second year in a row, tallying 37 first-place votes. The Trojans, meanwhile, received one first-place vote, as did the Sun Devils.

USC also received one vote to win the Pac-12 title game, which will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara for the first time this December.

The Oregon Ducks were selected to win the Pac-12 for the second straight year, garnering 37 of 39 votes for the top spot, and are overwhelmingly favored to win the Pac-12 title game.

With all of the emphasis the fans and the media place on the preseason rankings, USC’s representatives at Pac-12 Football Media Day this year appeared blissfully unaware of their spot in the poll.

“I didn’t know that until now,”  said redshirt junior quarterback Cody Kessler when prompted about being chosen to finish behind UCLA.

The signal-caller was quick to praise the program across town and justify the teams’ rankings, though.

“They beat us the last two years, so that doesn’t surprise me that they’re ahead of us,” Kessler said. “You know, they’ve got a great team out there and [UCLA quarterback] Brett [Hundley]’s doing a great job with those guys.”

When junior defensive end Leonard Williams was caught off guard by a similar question, it became clear that the Trojans made a point not to focus on their ranking.

“Second?” Williams asked, then laughed. “Well everyone knows that ’SC has high expectations … so it’s kind of a downer to be the team that’s not the dominant one in the Pac-12 these past few years. But at the same time I like being the underdog and just coming from the bottom and showing everybody that they shouldn’t have ranked us low. We’re just gonna come out and be ready to play anybody.”

USC will have to be ready to play to have success in the Pac-12 this season. The Trojans’ 2014 schedule features trips to Stanford, Arizona, Utah, Washington State and UCLA, teams against which USC posted a 3-2 record at home last season.

USC’s 10-7 loss to the Cougars in the second game of last season was the first sign of the tumultuous year that was to come in Troy, and the 35-14 loss to the Bruins was USC’s first home loss to UCLA since 1997 and marked UCLA’s largest margin of victory over USC since 1970.

USC’s conference slate includes three teams ranked in the Amway Preseason Coaches poll: UCLA (No. 7), Stanford (No. 11) and Arizona State (No. 18). USC came in at No. 15 in the first poll of the year.

First-year head coach Steve Sarkisian acknowledged the difficulty of the Trojans’ Pac-12 schedule this season.

“UCLA, obviously, with Brett [Hundley] coming back is going to be a tough team to beat,” Sarkisian said. “Taylor Kelly at Arizona State, tough team to beat. The wide receivers at Arizona, tough team to beat. Utah, getting Travis Wilson back, going up there, tough team to beat. Here comes Colorado with their true freshmen. So it’s going to be very challenging every week in our conference.”

Missing from USC’s conference schedule for the second straight year are Oregon and Washington. These teams will reappear on the schedule in 2015 and 2016.

Though Trojan fans will not see the Ducks or the Huskies this year, they will see a brand new up-tempo offensive system under Sarkisian, who promises that it will be electrifying.

“We’re going to go fast, and that is something that will be very different than has ever been seen at the Coliseum,” Sarkisian said. “The schemes are going to look similar, but we are going to go fast. … Hopefully [it’s] a more exciting game for our fans, one that captivates them and keeps them into the game and utilizes the home-field advantage the Coliseum can give you.”

USC gets its first chance to show off its new up-tempo system at home against Fresno State on Saturday, Aug. 30, and Sarkisian said his team is going to be fully prepared to make a run for the Pac-12 title.

“We’ll play good football and be a well-conditioned team,” Sarkisian said. “We’ll be tough-minded. We’ll use sound schemes, and we’re going to play with amazing effort. Ultimately the ball has to bounce our way a couple times, but I think we’re going to have a good football team. We’ll see what happens.”