Breathe a sigh of relief, Buckeye fans: Matt Barkley is still the quarterback of the USC Trojans. If there is anything we're all hanging our collective hat on heading into this game, it's that USC's signal caller is a true freshman making his first road start in one of the 5-most hostile environments in college football. If Ohio State hangs tough with the Trojans for a quarter or two, the 'Shoe is going to rock for the whole game. Barkley comes into the game as one of the most polished freshman passers we've seen in the last five years, but he goes up against one of the top-3 pass rushes he'll play in the regular season. USC will probably be able to get its running game going, but it'll have to move the ball through the air consistently if it wants to beat Ohio State. Can they do it?

How they might beat us

USC's offense is an admirable one. It doesn't have a whole lot of bells and whistles, as they say, and it excels primarily based on exceptional amounts of talent. Similar "West Coast" offenses have failed to take flight at other schools recently - Nebraska and Miami immediately come to mind - but at USC, it's literally just about plugging in the right QB and watching him work wonders. Usually, a solid running back needs to be found, but at SC, it's tougher to find a bad running back than a good one. As you have undoubtedly heard, the Trojans run five-deep at running back - Stafon Johnson, CJ Gable, Joe McKnight, Marc Tyler, and Allen Bradford each. I had this to say about two of the Trojan tailbacks in my previous USC Early Look:

Well, if you watched last year's game and didn't immediately drown your sorrows afterward, you probably remember a darting, shifty little bastard by the name of Joe McKnight. McKnight carried the ball 12 times for 105 yards against Ohio State last year, but ended the year with just 89 carries for 659 yards. Stafon Johnson actually ended up being the Trojans' leading rusher last year in their surprisingly-effective committee approach to the ground game.

The Trojans will be relying even more on this committee approach as they attempt to shepherd along a true freshman in a rowdy environment. Expect Marc Tyler and Allen Bradford both to see a carry or two as USC tries to feel out the Ohio State front seven, seeing what works and what doesn't.

USC might have four first-round draft picks on its offensive line. You know they're going to run the ball between the twenties. Last year, the Trojans could not close the deal in the red zone on the ground, so they went to the air. That's where Barkley comes in, and here's how the Trojans might get Ohio State: play-action. This is where those of you who watched Anderson Russell struggle so mightily against play-action in Ohio State's last two games might start getting antsy. USC runs the play-action like no one else in college football. What they really, really do well: the play-action boot.

I personally expect to see this play on at least three separate occasions come this Saturday, and it scares the bejesus out of me. Kurt Coleman will probably be able to come up and make that tackle if it goes right, but can you say with any confidence that Austin Spitler - last seen getting burned by the Navy FB - can cover Blake Ayles or Anthony McCoy? Chris Brown from Smart Football chimes in on this play, and others, over on Dr. Saturday:

The other trends in the offense, evident under Chow but omnipresent once he left, were the rise of misdirection passes -- i.e. bootlegs, half-rollouts, and the like -- and an increased use of vertical pass patterns. Now, some of this was to take advantage of the fact that USC had suddenly become a talent juggernaut: Why not get vertical when all your receivers, running backs, linemen and quarterbacks are headed to the NFL? But this still was a change from Norm Chow's more measured, methodical style of playcalling. The best way to observe this is to simply watch USC play and get a feel for it.

Play-action with the talent USC has at RB can be particularly brutal, especially with Ohio State's inexperienced RBs.

How we might beat them

Most would expect the clear-cut answer to be "with the pass rush" here, but with USC's talented OTs, I'm not sure how easily Ohio State will be able to bring pressure with four. Obviously, blitzing is going to play a major factor, but last year, Ohio State was blitzing aplenty and the blitzing guys were simply getting blocked. There are two reasons for this:

1) Mark Sanchez proved to be excellent at diagnosing blitzes, manipulating the pocket and throwing to his checkdowns. Whether Barkley is uncannily good at this too remains to be seen.

2) USC is a well-oiled machine when it comes to using its tight ends in RBs in blitz protection

This year, Barkley has such an excellent line that pressure with four won't be a concern. However, when Ohio State brings the pressure - and its strategy against redshirt freshman Colt McCoy leads me to believe it will - Barkley is going to have to do all the things Sanchez did as a junior to avoid taking the sack. Thaddeus Gibson is improved. Brian Rolle is faster that James Laurinaitis. This is Ohio State's one great hope to stop the USC aerial assault, because honestly, I don't have much faith in the secondary to contain someone like Damian Williams. But duh, of course Ohio State has to blitz if it wants to win. You knew hat.

The real way Ohio State might throttle the Trojan offense is simply by occupying its guards. If USC's guards can't get to the second level with any consistency, even Joe McKnight will have trouble moving the ball. Personally, I'm hoping Cameron Heyward sees a lot more time on the inside this weekend, because it's clearly his best position and he's a rock against the run in ways that Doug Worthington and Dexter Larimore are not. On USC's first few offensive possessions, watch this battle closely. If Ohio State is consistently getting a push on the interior of the USC offensive line, it should be able to keep the score manageable, which means the offense may only have to put up three or four touchdowns at the most to win.

Speaking of the Ohio State offense and, by association, the USC defense, I'll be going over that tomorrow.