Crucial tests still to come for USC


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This week’s column was supposed to be about the USC rugby team, but the Trojans found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for the second time in four weeks on Saturday. My colleague and fellow Daily Trojan sports columnist Jake Davidson outlined the reasons for the loss, calling the Trojans “just an average seven or eight-win football team.” Statistically, he’s probably right.

The Trojans have five wins right now and four games left. But it’s time to abandon that College Football Playoff pipe dream and focus on what’s important for USC: beating UCLA and Notre Dame. There’s a trend of entitlement and fading arrogance that surrounds this USC football program and fan base, and it’s completely unwarranted.  The last time USC won a national title was ten years ago. Provided, that’s a short time compared to ASU (they’ve never claimed a national title) or UCLA (60 years — no one’s holding their breath, Bruins).

But it’s not the absence of National Championships and Rose Bowls that’s going to get a coach fired (or an interim coach replaced). Coaches don’t get fired after losing on a last-second Hail Mary or failing to shore up defensive inefficacies in the fourth quarter. Phone calls are made when the Trojans go out to repossess that Victory Bell after a one-season loan and come up short. Say what you like about USC head coach Steve Sarkisian’s inability to maintain a high level of morale on the sidelines, or his patently awful play calling down the stretch. Complain all you want about defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox’s tenuous bend-but-don’t break approach (I did).

The only thing we can’t complain about this season is USC’s players. They’ve been putting in an insane amount of effort on every play, playing at high intensity for three-and-a-half quarters and taking whatever the coaches are giving them. Consider that there’s very little depth on this team before the USC starters suffer a massive drop-off in production (especially on defense), and a healthy USC team looks very much in the title hunt next season.

In spite of their efforts, let’s be honest with ourselves: This is not a College Football Playoff-caliber team. USC might boast the most talented starters in the Pac-12, but the lack of depth pigeonholes Sarkisian’s game plan to the “risk-averse” approach Davidson described in Monday’s column. Which is why I’m proposing that USC needs to focus on the opponent in front of them, and not think about a bowl game, the Playoff, the Pac-12 Title Game or any other “possible scenario.”

The Trojans have been beating up on some historically overrated teams in Arizona (which, for some reason, remains ranked No. 14 in the nation despite a loss to the Trojans at home) and Stanford. Now they have two games against an (admittedly still pretty overrated) UCLA squad and a potentially properly rated Notre Dame team.

These two games will be the real test of whether or not this season was a failure. This season is salvageable because frankly anyone who said they had expectations for this team prior to the season is lying. It’s been a roller coaster ride of a season, but heartbreaking losses in the last seconds shouldn’t shake the Trojan spirit or foist the Trojans’ season into forgettable oblivion. I’d like to think that a school with the motto “Fight On” would have a more resilient fan base than that. When considering first year coaches for USC, we have to account for the installation of a new system and the establishment of expectations. Calling Sarkisian “seven-win Sark” in his first season as a head coach of an entirely new group of players is just stupid. Pete Carroll was 6-6 in his first season at the helm of USC. We gave Lane Kiffin an 8-5 season, and it’s only reasonable that Sarkisian be given a similar leeway to install his system before we start having expectations. So the way I see it, this season isn’t lost until USC loses to UCLA — and I’m confident that’s not going to happen.

 

Euno Lee is a senior majoring in English literature. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Daily Trojan. His column, “Euno What Time It Is,” runs Tuesdays.