The Stanford Cardinal have won four of five meetings with the USC Trojans and are 5-1 ATS in their past six conference games. They'll try to add another win to those records as a 3.5-point home favorite hosting USC on Saturday afternoon. Both teams need it to solidify their Pac-12 aspirations.
USC vs. Stanford betting odds, preview, matchup report
USC has been terrible on the road but may be great value here at Stanford in Week 2 college football betting. (ABC, 3:30 p.m ET.)
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Each of the last four games in this series have been decided by one score, with two of those games being decided by a field goal or less. Despite Stanford’s recent success against USC, getting the Trojans at +3.5 might be too good to pass up on.
Sure it was only the Fresno State Bulldogs, but the USC Trojans looked excellent in their 52-13 home opener last Saturday. Gone are the sanctions that were holding this program back, and gone too is Lane Kiffin and the lackluster performances that the team gave under him.
This week’s game against Stanford will be a much better indicator of how much the Trojans have improved under new head coach Steve Sarkisian, but game one was a promising start. Can they reverse a terrible 3-10 ATS road trend over the past two seasons?
Stanford has emerged as one of the nation’s best programs in recent years, and the team is likely to compete for the Pac-12 title again in 2014. But this could also be an off-year for the Cardinals, who lost a handful of great players on defense, four offensive linemen and leading rusher Tyler Gaffney this offseason.
The team and its new starters are likely to gel as the season moves forward, but this test against USC may be coming too quickly out of the gate.
Then again, Stanford has proven to be extremely tough to beat at home. The Cardinal are 17-0 SU in their last 17 home games and are 4-0 ATS when favored by a touchdown or less. None of those games have come in a season with so much turnover on both sides of the ball, however.
There are plenty of question marks for both teams coming into this game. But considering that this rivalry game always seems to go right down to the wire and the fact that this looks like a game that could easily go either way, the value seems to be on taking the points with USC +3.5.
