It's official.  Jonathan Stewart definitely has game.

For the second week in a row, Oregon's superstar RB simply refused to be stopped.  And that refusal was never more apparent than on the final play of the third quarter in the Ducks' 24-17 win over USC at Autzen Stadium on Saturday.  Stewart, who had shredded Washington's defense for a career-high 251 yards just a week earlier, got the call on a crucial 3rd-and-14 and ran directly into the Trojans' nationally-ranked run defense.  Churning straight upfield, Stewart appeared to be stopped well short of a first down.  However, appearances can be deceiving, because they tend to discount the extraordinary.  And Stewart's third down run was extraordinary.

Oregon's junior RB took the contact of no less than seven USC defenders, dragging a number of them forward to a fresh set of downs for the Ducks.  A seemingly impossible first down suddenly became reality, and, on a day full of momentum shifts, it shifted again.  Oregon, with a 7-point lead over USC at the time, was looking to pull away.  Fittingly, Stewart, who had 103 rushing yards on the day, finished the job with a 1-yard TD plunge to give the Ducks a 24-10 lead.  

However, with the Ducks up 24-10 and just over 10 minutes left in the game, Oregon's coaching staff took their foot off the gas, and the team's high-octane offense stalled.  Lamborghini's are simply not supposed to idle.  However, the guys wearing the headsets had spoken - time was now more important than scores - and that seemed to be that.

Oregon's defense, which had shown itself to be both stifling and pedestrian in alternate weeks leading up to the USC game, had dug itself in nicely against the Trojans.  In the first half they had allowed just 3 points despite the fact that a pair of special team turnovers had given USC the ball deep in Oregon territory.

And, ultimately, it was what was done or not done with those gifts that defined the game.  That pair of Oregon turnovers, which included a fumble on the opening kickoff, only led to three points for the USC.  In fact, the Trojans further compounded matters with a self - destructive holding penalty on a separate series that nullified a long TD run by freshman sensation Joe McKnight. 

Meanwhile, USC had committed a pair of turnovers themselves in the second half, and the Ducks converted both into touchdowns.  The first, a Stanley Havili fumble at the USC 16, was a backbreaker, because it happened with the game tied at 10-10 and led directly to a TD run by Stewart just two plays later.  The second, a Mark Sanchez interception, ended a promising USC drive that could have re-tied the game and set the scene for Stewart's dramatic third quarter run.

So, down by 14 and time, a thundering crowd and an equally thundering defense against them, USC needed to make something happen quickly.  Just how quickly they did stunned not only the big partisan crowd and the Oregon defense but probably themselves just a little as well.

In just 48 seconds, Sanchez fired five passes, completed four of them, and drove the Trojans 85 yards to a startlingly efficient score - a beautifully thrown 14-yard TD pass to David Ausberry.  In fact, a pass interference penalty was called on the play.  Such was the methodically unstoppable nature of that drive, it couldn't even be denied by illegal contact.

With the Ducks reeling just a little and the Trojans definitely rolling, Oregon needed to string together some first downs to drain what was left of the game clock.  Oregon QB Dennis Dixon had been showing his versatility all game long.  He'd completed nearly two-thirds of his pass attempts, hadn't turned the ball over a single time and had escaped USC's defensive pressure time and again on the way to 76 yards running.  His elusiveness had been maddening to the Trojans.  Every time they thought they had him pinned down, Dixon simply outran the pursuit to either buy time for his receivers or to get positive yards himself.  

However, among the Oregon receivers, only two had really distinguished themselves.  In the wake of season-ending injuries to star WR's Brian Paysinger and Cameron Colvin, TE Ed Dickson had elevated his game and established himself as a dangerous pass threat.  Against the Trojans, Dickson became Oregon's most reliable pass catching weapon, hauling in five throws for 69 yards.  Freshman WR Aaron Pflugrad also showed some grit.  The undersized young wide-out, who's more Wayne Chrebet than Reggie Wayne, somehow found open spaces and made a pair of big catches despite getting creamed on both.

Unfortunately for Oregon, the team's most talented WR, big Jaison Williams, simply hasn't turned his seemingly limitless potential into performance often enough for the Ducks.  The USC game was no exception.  With the game on the line and Oregon starving for time-consuming first downs, Williams had a chance to make a big play but didn't.  On third-and-5 with less than four minutes to go, Dennis Dixon once again escaped USC's pass rush and made a perfect throw to Williams.  However, Williams, whose problems with dropped passes are becoming the stuff of legend among the Duck faithful, literally let the ball hit him in the numbers before bouncing to the turf.  Goodbye, game-sealing first down; hello, frantic nail-biting finish.

With USC's confidence soaring, the Trojans got the ball back with plenty of time and a pair of timeouts to take a legitimate shot at tying the game.  And Mark Sanchez had found a groove.  However, the team's leading receiver, TE Fred Davis had been effectively shut down by Oregon's defense.  Davis, who entered the game with a team-high 34 catches for 538 yards and 5 TD's, had been held to just a single catch for 11 yards against the Ducks.  Instead, WR's Patrick Turner and Videl Hazelton had been Sanchez's go-to guys.  Turner finished the game with 7 catches for 107 yards and a score, while Hazelton paced USC with 8 receptions.  

So, with the team’s young QB now throwing the ball with some authority and 82 yards to go for a game-tying score, the Trojans curiously called two straight running plays that netted just 4 yards.  A short pass to Hazelton on third down set up a 4th-and-2 at the USC 26.  Although McKnight converted with a 7-yard run, another short pass on first down only brought the Trojans to their own 37, and they had burned nearly two minutes off the clock in gaining just over 20 of the 80-plus yards they needed to extend the game.

With a new sense of urgency, Sanchez started to throw the ball downfield.  He found Hazelton for 17 and McKnight for another 10.  They were on the Oregon side of the field now, but the clock was running dry.  They needed a big play. So, Sanchez turned to USC’s big play guy, Fred Davis, to make something happen.  However, the Oregon defense knew how much Davis meant to the Trojans offense and had held him in check all day long.  So, when Sanchez decided to force a pass to Davis, he threw into triple coverage.  Nickel DB Matthew Harper jumped the route and made the interception, sealing the game for Oregon.

It was a big win for the Ducks, who have been surging in recent weeks (jumping all the way to #5 in the BCS rankings), but they have little time to savor the victory.  The undefeated Arizona State Sun Devils come to Autzen Stadium this weekend for a game that will likely determine the Pac-10 race and have some significant influence on the BCS Title Game picture.  So, any breaths that need to be caught had better be done as such quickly, because one big game begets another.

Oregon is just fortunate that their star running back has found his game and that it appears to be unstoppable enough to make running on 3rd-and-14 seem like a smart thing to do.

Stats:

http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/gameTrax?gameId=2007
10270060

http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/boxscore?gameId=2007
10270060

http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/teamStats?categoryId
=86095

Other:

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/playbyplay?gameId=2
73002483&period=0