If you’re a Stanford fan and you’re not worried about USC this Saturday, then you have no idea what’s coming.

USC scares me, and USC should also scare you. The Trojans’ depth is precariously thin due to their scholarship reductions, but this team has, in all likelihood, the most talented 22 players that Stanford will face in a game this season. Oregon boasts speed and talent, but has gotten clobbered in the trenches by Stanford in the last two years. Last season, the Trojans showed that they have not only the speed and talent to match up against the Cardinal, but also the physicality, which might be the most important quality in an opponent hoping to beat Stanford.

What’s also scary is the uncertainty. It is only week two of the college football season, and this huge game is way too early in the season for us to know much about the 2014 versions of the two teams. As crisp as Stanford may have looked for most of last Saturday, the UC-Davis game only told me that the Cardinal offensive line needs to gel faster and the Stanford defense can shut down an FCS opponent.

The only thing I am fairly confident in is that Saturday’s outcome will be close and most likely a one-possession game. The last four games between the two teams were decided by one score — and one of them was an epic triple overtime marathon. The chances that someone picked all four of those games correctly were lower than the likelihood of David Shaw converting Stanford’s offense to the spread. This Saturday is no different, and my stream of consciousness looks something like this:

The Trojans offense ran a Pac-12-record 105 plays against Fresno State. 105?! Not sure if that was Cody Kessler playing quarterback for ‘SC or Matt Leinart in 2004. Well, the performance did come against a porous defense that gave up six first-half passing touchdowns to San Jose State last season. Man, the Cardinal defense sure looked great in the first game. But how well can you actually distinguish between average and great when you’re playing an FCS opponent?

What about the schemes? With coach Steve Sarkisian and his up-tempo style now at the helm in L.A., analyzing last year’s more pro-style USC offense is essentially useless. Shouldn’t be a problem for the Cardinal defense, right?  They have shut down the best up-tempo offense in the country the last two years. Wait a second. Didn’t the deadly combination of Keith Price and Bishop Sankey give Stanford fits last year when Sark was head coach at UW? Oh yeah, that was the Cardinal’s worst performance on defense last season statistically. Come to think of it, that was also Kevin Hogan’s worst showing in a home game by far — defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox was definitely playing some Jedi mind tricks on Hogan. It was one of those if-Ty-Montgomery-doesn’t-get-open-then-Stanford’s-going-three-and-out kinds of games. Don’t tell me that defensive coordinator Wilcox will be back in Palo Alto on Saturday…

Then there is the personnel. Stanford fans may breathe a little more easily with Dion Bailey gone, but defensive lineman Leonard Williams is one physical specimen. Watching left tackle Andrus Peat go against Williams would be one of the most intriguing battles of the day, but with Williams more likely to be lined up on the other side, right tackle Kyle Murphy better be ready. Speaking of big guys, is USC right tackle Zach Banner actually 6-foot-9 and 350 pounds? And guard Damien Mama…he’s…no he can’t be…6-foot-5…and 370 pounds. It’ll be interesting to see if Henry Anderson and David Parry can use their quickness to attack those big offensive linemen.

With so many factors at play, it is tough to say which team has a clear-cut advantage. Predicting the outcome of Stanford-Oregon was much easier — if you believed that Stanford’s speed could match up with Oregon’s, and that the Ducks’ physicality still lagged behind the Cardinal’s, then the pick was straightforward. That is not the case for this Saturday’s matchup. Stanford and USC are deadlocked in nearly every major category and any apparent advantage one team may have over the other seems to be negated — even if the Cardinal have more depth, for example, you could argue that the Trojans have more talent on the field in their first-string players.

There could be one comforting thought for Cardinal fans, though. Since 2009, Stanford has lost to the same team in back-to-back years only once, and that team was Oregon in 2010 and 2011. When the gauntlet has been thrown, Stanford most often responds — Hogan is 10-1 against ranked teams, after all.

But then again, isn’t some talented team bound to beat Stanford two years in a row?

Good luck sleeping between now and Saturday.

Contact George Chen at gchen15 ‘at’ stanford.edu.