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Sanchez Scramble: Mark Sanchez scrambles to avoid Oregon defenders. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)//–>

The game plan was simple. The USC defense was to limit Oregon’s stellar offense; the Trojan defense would do the heavy lifting. All the Trojan offense needed to do was keep the field for as long as possible, keep control of the ball, and keep pace with the Ducks scoring.

The Trojan-D played their part, limiting the Ducks total offense to 339 yards. That doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment, until you take into consideration that Oregon had been averaging more than 200 yards plus that amount previously this season. Still, everything seemed to start in the Trojans favor. Two Oregon first-half special teams turnovers, one on the opening drive, gave USC near red-zone field position. All the Trojans needed to do was put the ball in the end-zone and dance.

But USC’s offense, led by backup Mark Sanchez, couldn’t capitalize on Oregon’s mistakes. Those two turnovers led to a mere 3 points for the Trojans. Not enough when trying to match the juggernaut yardage of Oregon. And unfortunately for USC, Oregon didn’t have the same problem capitalizing on Trojan turnovers.

The deadly duo of Oregon quarterback Dennis Dixon and top conference-rusher Jonathan Stewart gave the USC defense all they could handle in Oregon’s 24-17 victory over the Trojans. Not surprisingly the duo combined for Oregon’s three touchdowns. But it was Oregon’s stronger-than-expected defense that deserves the most credit, stopping USC on key downs, holding the Trojans to 3.1 rushing yards per attempt, forcing a Stanley Havili fumble and intercepting Mark Sanchez twice.

It wasn’t that Mark Sanchez had a particularly bad game. He completed 26/42 for 277 yards and two touchdowns, one to Patrick Turner and a second to David Ausberry. Most of those yards belonged to Turner (107 yards) and Vidal Hazelton (88 yards). Late in the fourth quarter Turner and Hazelton rallied behind Mark Sanchez, marching some 80-yards in four plays down the field to make it a one score game. The Trojan defense held Oregon to a punt and Sanchez was back on with 3:10 left on the clock. At first it looked like Sanchez would be the comeback kid. Sanchez took the Trojans from their own 18 yard line to the Oregon 33. Then, with some 10 seconds left in the game, Sanchez threw away the game-ending interception and any hopes of a national-title along with it.

Big Questions:

Why couldn’t the Trojan offensive line open up some damn holes? Finally healthy, USC had the offensive-line that they had originally wanted. Why then did the Trojans rush for 100 yards less than their per-game average? Oregon’s rush defense should have been nothing to write home about. Nor write an article about. Come on guys…

On a similar note, where oh where has Stafon Johnson gone? One of the Trojans top rushers, Johnson has been hampered down by a sprained foot. Still, Johnson was healthy enough to play against Oregon. But it was an issue of too little too late, as Johnson only saw three carries for 9 yards late in the game.

Is Booty coming back? Sanchez obviously wasn’t ready to play on this level. Would John David Booty have done better? No one can say for sure. What’s easy to see is that Mark Sanchez isn’t the miracle-child USC fans were expecting. At least not this year.

The million dollar question: How do you stop the turn-over monster? USC may be the most productive, self-destructive team in college football. Although the Trojans may statistically out perform the majority of the Pac-10 in offense and defense, the USC Trojans are a turn-over machine. And not the good kind. They are so horrid at ball-control, that USC now trails the entire Pac-10 in turnovers lost at -5. Oregon is now 11 turnovers up on the Trojans at +6, and Arizona State leads the pack at +7. What this means? If USC wants any chance of even smelling Roses, they have to keep control of the ball. And when they force turnovers, they have to capitalize. It doesn’t matter how productive USC is if they keep playing turnover-Russian-roulette.

*stats from ESPN-U