It's standard for USC to open Pac-12 play with an early-season in-state showdown with Stanford, but not so much for first-year head coach Lincoln Riley.

While a few members of his staff are somewhat familiar with the Cardinal from their time at Washington State a handful of years ago, this is a new matchup for Riley, as most of the rest of the games will be.

UCLA is the only Pac-12 school he has any recent history with playing during his time at Oklahoma, which adds an extra layer to game preparation this season, he acknowledged.

"There's more to it. My bed's still out here right now, so that tells you a little bit," he said on a Zoom call with media from his office Thursday, nodding his head to the right of his desk. "Everything's new in the first year, right? The opponents are new, it's new traveling, it's new schedules, it's new everything. So we've tried to do as much work on the front end to expedite some of this and make it feel less new. But the reality is every part of these weeks, especially in the first part of the season, is new and most of these opponents are people that we haven't played against. So it's fun.

"I'm really, really enjoying it. I think our staff is really enjoying the challenge of every part of it being new and the chance to adapt and find ways to give our team the advantage, be it the schedule or something schematically. But from that aspect it certainly feels like our first year all the way around."

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Of course, USC fans will remember it was Stanford that delivered the formal ending of the Clay Helton Era, dealing the Trojans an embarrassing 42-28 defeat in the Coliseum this time last year. It was one of only three games the Cardinal would win all season, and two days later Helton was fired, setting in motion everything that ultimately led to the hiring of Riley at the end of last November.

The teams meet again Saturday at Stanford (4:30 p.m. PT on ABC).

Given how new this roster is, though, that doesn't seem to be much of a subplot for this 2022 Pac-12 opener, even for the players who were around a year ago.

"Not really. I mean, that was last year. Today's a new day, tomorrow's a new day, the day after that is a new day. Just taking it day by day -- that's all we can live by, day by day," wide receiver Tahj Washington said.

Fair enough.

Day by day, this Trojans team and its new high-profile head coach continue to build momentum and make the college football world take notice -- which indeed shows how much has changed in just a year.

The Trojans start this week ranked No. 10 in the AP poll, entering the top 10 for the first time since Dec. 2017, after a thoroughly impressive 66-14 win over Rice in their opener.

Stanford also made easy work of its first opponent, rolling over FCS-level Colgate, 41-10, led by returning starting quarterback Tanner McKee (22 of 27 passing, 308 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT) and running back E.J. Smith (11 carries for 118 yards and 2 TDs).

Both teams will learn a lot more about themselves after Saturday.

"It’ll be an important week," Riley said. "... These games, every part of your team is going to get tested, and if you do a good job, you test every part of their team. Hopefully we can give a little more adversity than they give us."

As always, the TrojanSports staff weighs in with its insights and opinions on the key storylines of the week and gives its predictions for Saturday ...

We saw Lincoln Riley's offense score with ease in the opener vs. Rice -- what is your expectation in a road conference game at Stanford?

Ryan Young: "I'm so all in on this offense that you could tell me they score 50 on Saturday and I'd nod that it's certainly possible. That said, I'll set the bar more modestly and guess they score somewhere in the mid to upper 30s while getting a chance to hone in on their rotations at WR and RB a bit more. This is a different challenge than last week, no doubt, even if Stanford is coming off a down season. But the reality is Caleb Williams was essentially perfect in that opener -- 19-of-22 passing for 249 yards, 2 TDs and 68 rushing yards, while his three incompletions were a drop, an intentional throwaway out of bounds and a rope into the narrowest of windows that Mario Williams caught but couldn't get his foot down on the side of the end zone. Seeing the precision and power on Williams' passes, whether from in the pocket or on the move, was eye-opening. Given the wealth of talent he has surrounding him, I fully expect him to elevate from his very impressive freshman numbers and be a steady star week after week, which means the floor for this offense is going to be consistently high."

Jeff McCulloch: "Agreed. I actually expect Caleb Williams to truly ball out and get people to start thinking about him being a true Heisman candidate. In the game against Rice, he played so well, but he didn’t play the entire fourth quarter and the defense was on the field for a lot of the third quarter. I fully expect him to play the whole game this week against Stanford and show that this offense will never be the issue. The run game will be interesting because last week the running backs didn’t run the ball as much as many people were expecting. To beat a well-coached team like Stanford, you need to have a balanced offense. Running the ball well will be key and they have the pieces at the position to make it happen."

Tajwar Khandaker: "There’s no denying the step up in competition between Rice and Stanford. The Cardinal are stronger at every position group and will bring considerably more physicality across the board -- not to mention the significant coaching advantage they enjoy compared to the Owls. Stanford has persistently gotten the better of the Trojans in recent years, largely as a result of those latter two factors. David Shaw has a strong blueprint for taking on the Trojans, and his proven record of making it work should prevent even the most confident of USC fans from writing this game off as a win already. With all of that said, this will not be the kind of USC-Stanford matchup we’ve gotten accustomed to. The Trojans are obviously on a new page of their own, but the Cardinal have been struggling mightily in the trenches of late, a serious departure from the identity they’ve established under Shaw. This Stanford defense has been woeful against the run, and their lack of pass rush makes life difficult for the secondary unit, despite their talent. As a result, I think USC will have no trouble pouring on the points, perhaps leaning more on the rushing attack early."