Patton: USC defense as good as it gets
On the last play of the third quarter, on Notre Dame's 12th possession of the game, USC gave up a first down.
Stop the presses.
As the chain crew went to work on behalf of the Irish for the first time, their small contingent of fans roared -- sarcastically we presume. Trojans fans sighed -- appreciatively we presume. And thus ended the only suspense of USC's 38-3
If you like watching boa constrictors squeeze mice, this was the game for you.
In fact, there may be one more just like it next week -- when the Trojans finish their season against a UCLA team that may be even more offensively impotent than Notre Dame.
It's hard to imagine the Bruins doing any better than the Irish against a USC defense that is second to none in the nation, and may be the stingiest of the Pete Carroll Era.
"People ask me if this is the best defense we ever had,"
said the Trojans' eighth-year coach, after collecting his seventh consecutive win over the Notre Dame's dead-in-the-water program. "I don't know, but we are playing the best we've ever played."
USC has given up 86 points in 11 games, the Division I low.
Unfortunately for the Trojans, it remains unlikely that this remarkable defense -- the cliché says you win championships with it -- will get them to the top of the college football mountain.
In fact, it likely won't even get them out of town.
Unless something improbable and dramatic occurs in the Bowl Championship Series polls, USC appears headed back to the Rose Bowl after Oregon State crumbled at Pasadena's doorstep Saturday night against rival Oregon.
A Trojans win over the Bruins next Saturday would give them their seventh straight Pacific-10 Conference title, and an automatic bid to the Granddaddy Consolation of Them All -- unless they can magically leap three of the four teams ahead of them in the BCS rankings and finagle a trip to the title game in South Florida.
Of course, nearly all of those scenarios seemed to have disappeared with the turkey, stuffing and gravy over the weekend.
"We always want to play against the best,"
said senior defensive end Kyle Moore, holding out hope that the 10-1 Trojans might play someone ranked higher than themselves. "We've got another game to see if we're going to the Rose Bowl or not."
USC's problem, of course, is that, in a year it desperately needed to close with a couple of impressive wins over quality opponents, it had only underwhelming, underachieving Notre Dame to suffocate, and undermanned, underpowered UCLA left to beat up on.
The Rose Bowl, with Penn State waiting, thus seems inevitable.
"That's our home,"
said senior defensive tackle Fili Moala, shrugging at the prospect. "What can you say?"
Well, you can at least say you did what you had to do to keep slim hope alive.
Notre Dame ended up with four first downs and 91 total yards.
"About halfway through the season, we realized there wasn't much teams could do against us,"
said Carroll, who said it was evident early Saturday night that "nothing much was happening for (the Irish.)"
"We didn't have to do much -- just play our base defense."
The feistiest Notre Dame got was an hour before the game started, when players from the two teams crossed paths coming out of the Coliseum tunnel for warm-ups, and formed a 150-man scrum of jawing, yelling, trash-talking football players.
Of course, the intimidation that matters happens on the field. If only the Trojans could bottle it and put it in a trophy case.
