Good morning, Duck fans.  Our quack today focuses primarily on our impending showdown with USC.  Let's get right to it.

• First, Rob Moseley writes about Oregon's injury situation following the Washington game.  Talmadge Jackson III was back participating at practice on Monday, Josh Kaddu and Mark Asper were not.  As excited as we all are about the promise of some of younger players in the secondary, we can't really afford to lose any more bodies.  Kaddu, on the other hand, who had been playing well, will be replaced by Bryson Littlejohn in the two-deep -- which goes to show just how deep the linebacking corps really are.
• Moseley's feature piece for today looks at the matchup between Chip Kelly's offense and Pete Carroll's defense.  While this is clearly the premiere matchup of the game given the backgrounds of the two head coaches, I am much more interested in how Oregon's athletic and opportunisitic defense will fare against the USC offense, which looks like it may be the least intimidating the Trojans have had during their current run atop the conference.   
• John Hunt has a blog entry on Matt Daddy's current man-crush, Cliff Harris, and discusses the confidence and instincts displayed by the true freshman.  It should come as no surprise, then, that Harris is being mentored by Rashad Bauman. 
• Wade Evanson of eDuck Sports is close to calling this a speical Oregon team.   Evanson runs down the injuries and adversities the Ducks have overcome that has left them in first place in the conference with a chance to, in all liklihood, end USC's streak of conference championships with a win on Saturday.  Fellow eDuck writer Steve Summers previews the USC game by looking at some of the preparation the Trojans have done to get ready for Oregon.  
• With this weekend's USC game looking like the "Pac-10 Game of the Gear," Nick Daschel notes that these big games don't always live up to their lofty expectations as he runs down the "Pac-10 Game of the Year" from this decade.  And, not counting this year's game, Oregon has participated in 5 out of the 9 games Daschel determined as the key game from each season and compiled a 4-1 record in the process.
  
• Ted Miller has a story on Ed Dickson, noting that the USC game was set to feature two of the top Pac-10 tight ends not named Rob Gronkowski until Anthony McCoy was hurt during the USC's last game.  
  

Finally, don't forget to check out a few videos after the jump.

Go Ducks!

Here's Chip Kelly discussing the upcoming matchup:

Here's a brief interview with Jeremiah Masoli discussing USC and his knee: