USC Trojans @ California Golden Bears Thursday Night Football Pick

USC Trojans @ California Golden Bears Thursday Night Football Pick: I’ve never been a big fan of the Trojans’ betting value, but I think it looks decent here. Despite being suspect-central defensively (and I by no-means am saying that the Trojan secondary is full of suspects) USC has enough talent to get it together and take it to the Cal Bears pretty good. In back to back games, the Trojans have given up 43 and 41 points respectively. They were nearly doubled up by Arizona State, and just slipped by a pretty bad Arizona team.

That being said, California just isn’t very good. They only decent teams they’ve beaten are Fresno State and Colorado (overtime) and lets face it, I’m being really freaking generous when I say those two teams are “decent”. Cal got trounced on the road last Thursday Night, so at least they’ve had a full week to prepare. Then again, the Trojans are coming off a bye week – so they’ve had more time.

Despite giving up 41 and 43 over the last two games, the Trojans have still out-passed each opponent they’ve faced all season. Their secondary will give up some big plays to a Cal team that puts the ball in the air pretty well (out-passed each of their last 3 opponents) but the Trojans will run the ball effectively against a blah run defense from Cal.

USC Trojans (-3) @ California Golden Bears