USC has become so consistently good that we, as observers, have cruised past the offramp to boredom and instead gone deep into the territory serviced by the highway of absurdity. It’s nice out here, really: instant #2 slots in polls, near-certainty in victory, and no hyperventilation when it comes to

For example. Pete Carroll dropped news today that would have been news anywhere else: that tailback C.J. Gable’s season is over due to season-ending groin surgery. (Anytime someone comes at your groin with knives, it’s definitely the end of something.) Add this news to the transfer of Emmanuel Moody to Florida, Stafon Johnson’s ongoing issues with a bruised foot, and the fact that Chauncey Washington can’t feel his right shoulder, and this might be a point of concern to any other school.

Fortunately, USC’s backups have backups that fart lightning and sweat pure liquid awesome into their silken robes of excellence. Sophomore Allen Bradford will get the start, and he gets to run behind the line that does this…

…against Nebraska. This week, they’re playing a team without their starting quarterback, Stanford, who’s coached by a guy who pissed off Carroll by suggesting he was leaving for the NFL after the ‘07 season, Jim “Wash Your Hands” Harbaugh.

Not that Pete’s sweating it. He’s just finishing up a great, just a great mesclun and wild salmon salad before a little gym time and then practice. He’s really, really jacked about the whole thing, and proud to tell you that, and proud to be so boringly perfect that the number 2 team is cutting through the waters of a season so placid they’ve scarcely raised nary a ripple on the surface of the national sea of consciousness.