Recalibrate?

It might be time to revise my expectations for USC football - for this season, obviously, but maybe also for the program itself. The last time I went through such a transition was in 2003 when the Trojans followed an outstanding season (11-2, Orange Bowl victory over Iowa, Carson Palmer’s Heisman) with a national championship. I started to believe that BCS bowl berths would be commonplace and national championships not infrequent.

Trojan fans have been spoiled by an unprecedented level of success over the last five years or so. We have come to expect that kind of success every year, and we have been lulled into believing that Pete Carroll has installed a system at USC that will perpetuate this success as long as Carroll remains the head coach. However, the loss to Stanford raises serious questions about this perception. Is USC returning to a more normal state for modern college football programs? Was this game the continuation of a negative trend that started with the 2006 Rose Bowl (Texas 41 – USC 38 if anyone needs a reminder), a trend characterized by losing to three unranked Pac-10 teams in less than a year, a trend in which last year’s dominating Rose Bowl victory over Michigan is an anomalous blip? Or, is USC football still on an elevated plateau with the loss to Stanford as a rare exception? I hope for the latter, but I fear the former.

The fact is there is no objective evidence this year’s team is any better than average, even though they have more talent than any other team in the country. USC has beaten four teams with a combined record of 9-14 (Idaho is 1-5; Nebraska is 4-2, barely beat Ball St., and got blown out by Missouri; Washington St. is 2-4; and Washington is 2-3) and lost to Stanford with its 2-3 record. It is unreasonable to expect the Trojans to never lose. It is not unreasonable, however, to expect the Trojans never to lose at home against a team the caliber of Stanford.

Carroll and the rest of the USC coaching staff have received excessive praise for reviving a slumbering program and building it into the dominant program of the decade. It was deserved. However, the fire and intensity with which Trojan teams customarily played during their amazing four-year run from 2002-2005 has only been evident sporadically since then. The extreme listlessness and total lack of intensity the Trojans displayed last Saturday against Stanford is impossible for me to fathom. Has all the success in the recent past led to arrogance and complacency on the coaching staff? It has sure looked that way lately. Hopefully, this loss is just what the team needed to prompt some recalibration of its own.

It’s time for the coaches to really earn their pay. Yes, Carroll is a recruiting fiend, but if this game proves anything, it’s that vastly superior talent does not guarantee wins. Apparently the Washington game wasn’t enough proof for the players that they have to do more than just show up to win, and for the coaches that they have to take every opponent seriously. Carroll has not had a Trojan team in this situation before. This team could feasibly self-destruct and limp through the rest of the season with 4 or 5 more losses (if Stanford can beat USC at home, then anybody can beat them). This team, players and coaches, needs to use this loss as a wake-up call to reevaluate, refocus, and rededicate to playing and coaching football like Trojan fans have come to expect. If that doesn’t happen, I will start having doubts about the health of the USC football program. Which will it be? Prove that the Stanford game was a fluke and USC still sets the bar for college football excellence!

However the rest of the season goes, it just got a lot more interesting, and I’ll be watching just as closely and enthusiastically as ever.

Fight On!

Turning Point 2006

Last January, just prior to the Rose Bowl, I posted an entry outlining the turning point games of the 2002 – 2005 seasons. The loss to Oregon State looks like this season’s turning point. A recap:

2002: Having lost in overtime the previous week to WSU, USC trailed Cal 21-3. The Trojans scored 27 consecutive points to win the game 30-28. USC blew out its remaining 7 opponents, including Iowa in the Orange Bowl.
2003: Again coming off an overtime loss, USC was down 17-10 at halftime to ASU. The Trojans scored 27 unanswered points to win 37-17. The team won its remaining eight games by an average of more than 26 points, including a Rose Bowl win over Michigan to win its first national championship since 1978.
2004: It was the Cal game again. With USC leading by six, Cal advanced to first and goal with less than two minutes remaining. The USC defense held, sacking Aaron Rodgers (who set a single-game record for consecutive completions earlier in the game) on second down and forcing three incompletions. The Trojans won their remaining eight games, including a 55-19 shellacking of Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.
2005: After the Notre Dame game, Leinart finally shrugged off the pressure of maintaining a school-record winning streak and leading the team to an unprecedented third national title and started playing relaxed football again. The team won the remainder of their regular season games handily (except a close one to Fresno State), but lost the BCS Championship game to Texas.

2006 so far: Trailing 33-10 with less than 20 minutes remaining against Oregon State, USC scored the last 21 points of the game and narrowly missed sending the game to overtime when their 2-point conversion attempt failed with seven seconds remaining. Since the loss, USC has beat Stanford 42-0 and Oregon 35-10, thereby outscoring its opponents 98-10 in the last 140 minutes of play. There are two big differences between the Oregon State game and the turning point games of the previous four seasons. First of all, the game ended as a loss. Second, it came a little bit later in the season, but only by a game or two. This is not surprising considering the youth of this year’s team.

Of course, I had the benefit of hindsight last season whereas there are still three games left in the 2006 regular season. However, if recent history is any indication, and the trend that started late in the Oregon State game continues, Trojan fans have much to look forward to for the remainder of the season.

USC-Stanford

What kind of numbers would Leinart, Bush, White, Jarrett, Smith & Co. have if they actually played more than 2 1/2 quarters per game? The pundits would have to apply a factor greater than one to the 3000/2 x 1000/2 x 1000 milestone that everyone's talking about.

This game was virtually over halfway through the first quarter. The second half was so boring I fell asleep during the third quarter (it was a late game on the east coast). If the offense clicks like this for the rest of the season, Cal, Fresno State, and UCLA are going to have very bad days.

How about UCLA?!! Yeah, it would have been nice to be responsible for ruining their undefeated season on Dec. 3, but man it was great to see them go down like that.