[washingtonismoney]

A year ago, in game one, U$C had some real issues with a Western Michigan team out of the MAC that ended up going 4-4 in conference and 6-6 overall. There were some real issues to fix. They didn't fix all of those by week two, but they did pretty much smush us. 
Of course that does not mean that since they recovered once, they'll do so again - but $C will be ready to play us. Relative advantages this time around include a home game, not having to travel back from Australia, and (I hope) far better QB play. 

The Western Michigan game does illustrate why opening-game matchups are imperfect indicators. USC managed 7.78 yards per play against the Broncos while surrendering 5 yards per play. Overall you would probably conclude based on that one game that SC had a pretty good offense and questionable defense; I think that, broadly, held against Stanford, as the Cardinal were able to move the ball and score a decent number of points* while getting absolutely hammered defensively. As always it's a question of degree: not "are you a bad defense, but how bad is your defense" being the important uncertainty. 

Of course it could also be a total mirage. Stanford in 2015 had six consecutive quarters of fruitless offense before becoming a dominant unit for the remainder of the year. That's also possible. 

I guess my bias here is that we know Stanford's offensive players are all pretty good, and while we suspect SC's offensive players are good, we also know they're young. And we know Stanford's at home. So I would give Stanford the edge, while allowing there's a lot we don't know about both teams. 

*(with problems like "going for it on fourth down instead of kicking" perhaps making Stanford's performance look worse than it was in some respects)

[washingtonismoney]

A year ago, in game one, U$C had some real issues with a Western Michigan team out of the MAC that ended up going 4-4 in conference and 6-6 overall. There were some real issues to fix. They didn't fix all of those by week two, but they did pretty much smush us. 
Of course that does not mean that since they recovered once, they'll do so again - but $C will be ready to play us. Relative advantages this time around include a home game, not having to travel back from Australia, and (I hope) far better QB play. 

The Western Michigan game does illustrate why opening-game matchups are imperfect indicators. USC managed 7.78 yards per play against the Broncos while surrendering 5 yards per play. Overall you would probably conclude based on that one game that SC had a pretty good offense and questionable defense; I think that, broadly, held against Stanford, as the Cardinal were able to move the ball and score a decent number of points* while getting absolutely hammered defensively. As always it's a question of degree: not "are you a bad defense, but how bad is your defense" being the important uncertainty. 

Of course it could also be a total mirage. Stanford in 2015 had six consecutive quarters of fruitless offense before becoming a dominant unit for the remainder of the year. That's also possible. 

I guess my bias here is that we know Stanford's offensive players are all pretty good, and while we suspect SC's offensive players are good, we also know they're young. And we know Stanford's at home. So I would give Stanford the edge, while allowing there's a lot we don't know about both teams. 

*(with problems like "going for it on fourth down instead of kicking" perhaps making Stanford's performance look worse than it was in some respects)