Actually, I did watch quite a few USC games last year. It's pretty easy in Ohio, since they're usually one of the marquee late games. I saw the UW, Stanford, ASU, 'Zona, and Oregon games. Granted, I was more interested in drinking and chatting at the time, but I'm not going off of stats alone.
'Noosh was responding to the comment that OSU is comparable to a mid-level Pac-10 team, like 'Zona, by pointing out that USC barely held on against those teams. Illinois finished second in the Big Ten. UW and Stanford finished at the bottom of the PAC-10, 'Zona 6th, and Cal (who USC only beat by a TD) 7th. Not very impressive for a team that was ranked #1 going into the season.
As far as Illinois, I agree that we "should" have beat them, but it certainly wasn't a gimme (obviously). Like I said, they finished second in a conference that had 9 bowl elligible teams. Outside of our two losses last year, there was only one game that was within one score.
I was being nice in my last post by not mentioning the cheap shot tactics that USC resorted to against UW, but the gloves are off now!
YouTube - USC player's thug hit on Jake Locker - Washington Huskies