ESPN College Football

1. Rick Neuheisel's last hurrah: It's the swan song for coach Rick Neuheisel on the UCLA sideline, so emotions are sure to be running high for the Bruins. They would like nothing more to send their leader out with a victory. Neuheisel teared up after his team carried him off the field following his final practice, and you can only imagine how emotional he will be after the game is over and there is no more UCLA football for a former UCLA walk-on quarterback whose dream job was to coach UCLA. If the Bruins should somehow pull off the miracle, it would make for a storybook ending. That's something to which Neuheisel is no stranger, and true to his relentlessly optimistic character, he is holding out hope that UCLA can, indeed, catch lighting in a bottle.

2. Quick strike: Speaking of lightning, the Oregon offense has been described as just that. It's a mile-a-minute, machine-gun spread they have dubbed "The Blur" because it moves so quickly. The Ducks rarely huddle and get to the line of scrimmage and run a play about every 20 seconds. And they are devastatingly efficient. Oregon ranks last in the country in time of possession at 24:46 per game, yet is third in the nation in scoring at 45.9 points per game. Of the Ducks' 68 touchdown drives this season, 38 have lasted two minutes or less, and 12 have taken a minute or less.

3. Speed thrills: Part of the reason Oregon has had so much success with the fast-paced offense is because it has the athletes to make it work. Running backs LaMichael James, Kenjon Barner and De'Anthony Thomas are all speed burners who have helped Oregon rank No. 5 in the nation with 291 yards rushing per game. Because each is equally dangerous, the Ducks are able to rotate them in and out and keep them fresh, though James is clearly the leader as he leads the nation with 147 yards rushing per game. Thomas is so valuable that he's been starting at receiver just to get him on the field. He's also returned two kickoffs for touchdowns.

4. Home cooking: Eugene, Ore., is home to several notable beer makers, but what the Ducks have brewing at Autzen Stadium is enough to make opponents feel drunk. Oregon has had 81 consecutive home sellouts, a streak that dates to 1999. Their fans are not shy, either, turning their home field into one of the most difficult places to play in the country. When USC defeated Oregon, it ended a 21-game home win streak for Oregon. That isn't much of a confidence booster for UCLA, which is 2-10 on the road over the past two seasons -- a span that includes a 60-13 loss at Oregon last Oct. 21.

5. Trick or treat: UCLA is a 32-point underdog in the game, and because of that is approaching the game as if it has nothing to lose. Nobody thinks the Bruins deserve to be in the game, because they finished second in the Pac-12 South, so they intend to play with controlled abandon. Neuheisel, who won't be coaching another game for the Bruins, said he might pull out a few surprises from deep in the playbook. UCLA normally plays a conservative, ball-control game, so don't expect anything too crazy. But seeing as how Neuheisel really has nothing to lose in this game, don't be surprised if he does have a trick or two up his sleeve. Pulling off the upset would be the greatest trick of them all, and wouldn't that be some way to go out?

PASADENA -- The strange saga of UCLA’s football season has taken twists and turns, featured highs and lows and introduced more questions than answers so it seems only appropriate that the season and the Bruins’ beleaguered coach will ultimately be judged upon the results of a high-drama final week.

UCLA defeated Colorado, 45-6, Saturday at the Rose Bowl, setting up a showdown against crosstown rival USC next week, with the winner claiming the inaugural Pac-12 South division title.

The Bruins, left for dead three or four times this season, kept kicking and screaming long enough to get in position to play themselves into the Pac-12 title game. Coach Rick Neuheisel, nearly sent to the unemployment line after a mid-season debacle at Arizona, rose to lead his troops to the brink of what would have to be considered a successful season.

The roller coaster ends next week at the Coliseum with city-wide bragging rights finally taking a backseat to some real consequences in a rivalry that hasn’t had serious consequences for quite some time.

“Playing ‘SC for the championship? That’s the way it should be,” Neuheisel said. “That’s the way it used to be. When I was in school, this was the game that you always pointed to that if you won, great things were going to ensue … That’s the nature of the beast. When I first got back here, that’s what I longed for. Not just playing for the championship of L.A., but playing for much bigger stakes.”

The situation now is this: If UCLA (6-5, 5-3 in Pac-12) wins against USC (9-2, 6-2), the Bruins will be undisputed champions of the Pac-12 south. A loss to USC and the Bruins could still back-door their way into the Pac-12 title game, but would need help in the form of losses by Utah and Arizona State.

But the Bruins hold all the South division cards heading into the final week, a position that seemed very unlikely for the Bruins just four weeks ago.

Then, the Bruins were coming off of an embarrassing loss to Arizona that figured to derail the season, but they somehow rallied to play their best football the next two weeks in victories against California and Arizona State.

Last week at Utah, another setback, but a few hours later came another reason to believe: Arizona State lost to Washington State and kept control of the south division race in UCLA’s hands.

“The way our season went, not a lot of people thought this was going to happen, but we never lost hope,” said safety Tony Dye. “Along the way, it was always, ‘we still have a chance, we still have a chance, we still have a chance.’ So we just kind of stuck to that and kept believing and so far it’s kind of been working out for us.”

It wouldn’t have worked out so well if UCLA had lost focus this week and looked past Colorado (2-10, 1-7). And UCLA’s season has been such that a loss to a team battling to stay out of the conference cellar wasn’t exactly far-fetched heading in.

The Bruins have had enough lackluster performances this season to warrant worry. The game at Arizona comes to mind as does a close home victory against San Jose State and a loss to Texas. But the Bruins took care of business Saturday, racking up 553 yards in offense and getting touchdowns from five different players.

Kevin Prince passed for 225 yards and a career-high four touchdowns and ran for 84 yards in 10 carries. Johnathan Franklin added 162 yards rushing and a touchdown as UCLA rushed for a season-best 328 yards and posted their largest margin of victory since 2005 against Rice (63-21).

“It was big to win in the fashion that we did,” said cornerback Andrew Abbott, who had two interceptions. “Now we’ve got to use this momentum and finish the season. People are going to say we can’t do it, but they are going to say what they say. They aren’t the ones between those lines on Saturday, just us.”

The task is clearly monumental. UCLA has defeated USC only once in the past 12 meetings and hasn’t own at the Coliseum since 1997. Not only that, but the Trojans are riding high off of a road win at No. 4 Oregon.

But the only thing that matters to the Bruins is that they get to play USC with some serious stakes on the line for UCLA, something that hasn’t happened in more than a decade.

“As if this game didn’t have enough on the line with the rivalry and bragging rights, now there is much more on the line,” Dye said. “It’s awesome to have something to play for in that kind of game. This is why you come to UCLA. This is why you play football.

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If they measured college football coaches' approval ratings, Lane Kiffin's would be at an all-time high right now.

He just beat Notre Dame for the first time as a heavy underdog to get to 6-1 in his second season at the helm of the Trojans. His team's hosting College GameDay all day and the 5 p.m. PT matchup with the No. 4 Stanford Cardinal has been the talk of the country this week.

But, for better or for worse, all of that will change Saturday.

Based on what happens at the Coliseum tonight, Kiffin's approval rating -- or just the way he's viewed by the USC fan base -- is going to change dramatically. Win, and he's got a top-12 team in the country and the entire Trojan Family behind him. Lose, and he's back out of the Top 25 and hearing last season's grumbles all over again. This game -- this pregame feel -- is as big a crossroads as you can get in the regular season.

In high-stakes college football, the second loss of a given season is usually the most telling. Few teams' seasons can be considered disasters with only one loss on the schedule, and even two is typically acceptable for most programs around the country. But three -- three is nearing mediocrity in many fans' eyes.

Why is that relevant here? Most would say that, at this point in the season, the Trojans have one more sure loss on their schedule in Oregon next month in Eugene. That game is a lot less winnable than this one, on the surface. If it were today, the Ducks would probably be double-digit favorites. You can't count on USC winning, obviously.

Finishing 10-2 would be a success. 9-3? It depends on your viewpoint. So, then, to preserve the inarguable success of the 2011 season, Kiffin needs to beat Stanford.

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In football, like in life, you're usually either moving downhill or uphill. There's very little in between.

Notre Dame middle linebacker Manti Te'o is definitely a downhill mover. Or so says USC freshman fullback Soma Vainuku, in charge of emulating Te'o in Trojans' scout-team drills this week, and Trojans head coach Lane Kiffin -- and just about everyone else who talks about Te'o for any amount of time, for that matter.

They always bring it up. Te'o, they say, plays football fast, diagnoses plays quickly, and, above all, plays downhill.

So, what exactly does that mean on the field, and what does that mean for USC's game against the talented Te'o and Notre Dame in two days' time?

It means he's going to bring a lot of Trojans down. The junior from Hawaii is averaging just short of 10 tackles per game this season, tied for 21st in the country, and 8.5 tackles for loss, tied for 25th in the country. Both numbers are better than anyone USC has faced this season and, currently, better than anyone it will face in the second half of the year.

He also leads the Irish in sacks with four after posting just one sack a year ago. His overall tackles numbers are slightly off his pace from a year ago, but all the other figures represent significant improvements from his first year in coordinator Bob Diaco's 3-4 system -- or at least it appears so.

"I don't think it's that much different," Kiffin said this week. "I just think it's his second year in the system, even though he's started before. Now he's playing extremely fast. He's off-the-charts physical, downhill, aggressive, and he plays every snap like its third-and-one.

"He's a great player. I wish he was here."

Well, yeah -- he almost was. Everyone expected Te'o to sign with USC until the morning of signing day back in 2009, when he spoke with former Trojans coach Pete Carroll at length on the way to making his announcement that he was attending Notre Dame.

It was the surprise of the year at the time, and the decision's followed Teo throughout his first two-plus years in college. In the past he has admitted to feeling a different combination of excitement and nervousness in the week leading up to Notre Dame's annual game against the Trojans. But he says that feeling is no longer.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- Asked after the game how he thought he performed in USC's 30-9 win over Cal at AT&T Park on Thursday night, Trojans quarterback Matt Barkley cut right to the chase.

"Alright," Barkley said. "Just alright.

"Not good enough to win big games, but always stuff to improve on."

That tells the majority of the story right there. Barkley wasn't terrible -- it's hard to be terrible at the college level if you don't throw a pick. But he wasn't good, either -- completing only 19-of-35 passes for a 54 percent completion percentage, his worst rate in a win since November 2009 against Arizona State. He didn't have a game worse than 53 percent all last season.

Barkley knows the meaning of what happened in the San Francisco Giants' stadium Thursday night. He knows that, while the Trojans won comfortably over Cal, they may actually have regressed on offense heading into what could end up being the most important game of their season. He knows that another 54 percent clip against the Irish in eight days will almost certainly mean a Notre Dame win in South Bend.

That's sort of the short-story-told-long of his initial comment, and that's why he was so perturbed about the way he played.

"When you play football, you play to win," Barkley said Thursday. "If we're winning, I'm fine with that.

"But we just can't let mistakes happen over and over again against better teams because then that will hurt us. We really have to get it more fine-tuned."

Unlike earlier points this season, most of the mistakes this week were his. The offensive line wasn't great, no, but it's not going to get any better than it was Thursday. And there were only one or two notable dropped passes from receivers as opposed to the usual four or five.

The biggest errors: two overthrows of Robert Woods, both on deep balls for what would probably have been touchdowns and at least would have been 40-yard gainers. There were also some uncharacteristically off passes to other options, too, making for a quite-bad quarterback day all-around combined with Cal's Zach Maynard's poor play.

Altogether, it just wasn't very impressive. And Barkley didn't even remember the best throw he made all game afterward, the 39-yard scoring pass to Marqise Lee.

"Little things were off," Barkley said by way of explaining went wrong. "Some plays I would throw downfield to a receiver who was tight and then the X receiver wound up wide open on the other side and he could have scored or different things where I put a little too much air under it or not enough or I had to step one way or the other and it threw the timing off on the play."

Asked for his own evaluation of Barkley's play Thursday, Kiffin deferred to his signal-caller and captain, but it was clear he wasn't overly pleased either.

The two men often see eye to eye, and, although it's going to go unsaid in public, they both know that he needs to be better to beat (1) Notre Dame this upcoming week and (2) Stanford the next week.

Get this: Talented first-year freshman receiver George Farmer, redshirting the 2011 season, has begun practicing at running back and could play the position long-term, Trojans coach Lane Kiffin said Wednesday.

Farmer, a five-star prospect from Gardena Serra (Calif.), was thought by many to be a potential starter at receiver this season before he arrived on campus over the summer. But he was bothered by nagging injuries in fall camp and never got much of a chance to audition for a starting spot, losing out to high school teammate Marqise Lee.

Of late, though, Farmer has practiced well -- especially on service team, emulating different opponents -- and impressed the Trojans' coaching staff with his resolve to get on the field sooner rather than later.

"He's been playing quarterback, tailback and receiver, and we've actually been putting him at running back in individuals and he looks great there," Kiffin said. "That could work out. That's something he did before he got to Serra, played running back.

"That could be real exciting. It would give us a big, physical guy and one of the fastest guys in the country."

At 6-1, 205, Farmer doesn't have the ideal body type for the tailback spot. But he could craft himself a niche as an upright runner in the mold of an Adrian Peterson, or he could simply become a dual threat running back/receiver for the Trojans, which they would obviously love.

The main motivation behind the move appears to be big-play potential. USC doesn't have another player as quick as Farmer at running back, save for maybe D.J. Morgan, who has had problems with keeping control of the ball so far this year.

"As we look at that position, we're still lacking in game-breaking speed back there as we continue to see in games," Kiffin said.

In any case, Farmer will most likely not be suiting up this season. Kiffin said there was a thought to pull off his redshirt and play him this season once he started heating up in recent weeks, but the Trojans decided to stick with the decision to keep him off the field.