Trojans Let Down, but Trip Up Stanford : USC: After serving as a runway in last week’s setback at Notre Dame, the defense dominates in 19-0 victory over the Cardinal.

The schedule said Stanford. But the mind still said Notre Dame.

The USC Trojans, their bodies in the Coliseum but their thoughts hung up on South Bend and last week’s crushing loss, struggled through the first half of Saturday’s game against the Cardinal before emerging with a 19-0 victory.

It wasn’t as easy as the final score would indicate.

In the first half, drives fizzled, kicks went off course and opportunities were lost.

“It seemed like no one was up for the game,” USC tailback Ricky Ervins said. “We were so hyped up for Notre Dame, we had nothing left.”

Quarterback Todd Marinovich agreed.

“It was kind of hard after last week’s loss,” he said, “but we got the job done.”

It wasn’t pretty. You know a game doesn’t have much going for it when the biggest topic of conversation among the 67,411 on hand was a streaker who raced several yards across the peristyle end of the Coliseum at halftime before being cornered by police.

Big deal? That’s a few yards more than Stanford got.

While the USC offense started slowly, the defense applied pressure from the start. Stanford had minus-three yards of total offense in the first quarter.

Stanford finished the game with 134 yards, but wound up with minus-six yards rushing.

Why was the defense able to bounce back quicker than the offense from last week’s loss? Trojan lineman Tim Ryan thinks he knows.

“Last week took a lot of wind out of the offense’s sails,” he said. “Because they played so well last week, it was harder on them.

“I don’t think the defense played that well, so we were excited to get back out there and redeem ourselves. We take a lot of pride in ourselves. After last week, we wanted nothing more than to fight back and play a hell of a game.”

The USC defense entered the Notre Dame game leading the nation against the rush, yielding just 36.7 yards per game. Against the Irish, the Trojans surrendered 266 yards, more than they had given up all season.

Saturday’s performance may put them back on top, but nobody is going to confuse Stanford quarterback Steve Smith and running back Galen Foster with Tony Rice and Raghib (Rocket) Ismail.

To get USC’s first shutout of the season, Coach Larry Smith gave Stanford a constantly changing look. At times, the Trojans used six defensive backs. On other occasions, they would go with five linebackers.

The result was a dominating performance that resulted in seven sacks. Junior Seau led the way with three, followed by Craig Hartsuyker with two.

The USC offense wasn’t stifled. It finished with 487 yards in total offense. That made it all the more frustrating when the Trojans couldn’t get on the scoreboard.

The first two USC drives ended with missed field goal attempts by Quin Rodriguez.

The first, from 42 yards out, hit the crossbar and bounced back rather than through. The second was a more orthodox miss from 37 yards out.

Rodriguez got a third chance in the opening minutes of the second quarter and finally made good, hitting from 28 yards.

“The first one I didn’t get ahold of,” Rodriguez said. “I slowed down my approach because I didn’t feel comfortable. But on the second one, I just overcompensated because I wanted to hit more of the ball.

“You’ve got to block those things out. It’s hard to do, but you’ve got to maintain your composure and keep a smile on your face. There’s no one to blame when you miss. It’s only you. But you’ve got to pick yourself up.”

Another Trojan who picked himself up and returned to a prominent role in the USC offense was Ervins. He rushed for more than 100 yards in four of the five games before Notre Dame. With a pass-oriented attack that saw Marinovich go to the air 55 times against the Irish, Ervins was reduced to the role of a blocker much of the time and finished with 64 yards.

“I’m a team player,” he said, “But I was frustrated in the Notre Dame game because I didn’t get a chance to contribute a lot.”

No such problems Saturday.

He was back in triple figures, gaining 100 yards in 27 carries.

And he scored USC’s first touchdown, going in from nine yards out midway through the second quarter.

That closed out the first half scoring, leaving the Trojans in front, 10-0.

But it could have been more.

Marinovich, who finished the day with 22 completions in 32 attempts for 303 yards, had two passes intercepted Saturday. Both came in the second quarter, and both came in the end zone.

The second was a desperation bomb in the closing seconds.

But the first killed a drive that had taken USC to the Stanford 20. Marinovich spotted John Jackson racing across the middle. But he failed to see Rob Englehardt.

“I made a bad read,” Marinovich said. “I didn’t see the free safety coming over.”

Rodriguez added a 25-yard field goal in the third quarter before Stanford made its only serious move to get back into the game.

Smith hit split end Ed McCaffrey on a pass play that went for 43 yards to spark a drive that took the Cardinal to the USC eight, where Stanford had a second-and-one.

Running back Tom Vardell lost a yard on second down. Faced with the futility of running on the Trojans, Stanford Coach Dennis Green elected to go back to the air.

Smith took two shots and missed them both. On third down, he overthrew Chris Walsh in the corner of the end zone. On fourth down, he missed McCaffrey near the goal line.

“On that third down,” Smith said, “they blitzed and I had to get it off as quick as I could. On the other play, he (McCaffrey) got pushed and I couldn’t get the ball to him.”

Fullback Leroy Holt put the game out of reach in the fourth quarter with a five-yard scoring run off left tackle.

Smith, attempting to give his team a three-touchdown cushion, chose to go for the two-point conversion, but Marinovich’s throw was intercepted by Albert Richardson.

When it was over, the 10th-ranked Trojans, on top in the Pac-10 at 4-0 and 6-2 overall, seemed to have finally put Notre Dame behind them.

“This is a new season for us,” Ervins said. “Our season is now for the Rose Bowl.”

USC Notes

The Trojans tied a school record with their 17th consecutive conference victory, the fourth-longest such streak in Pac 10 history. USC had two such streaks previously, from 1930-33 and from 1972-74. . . . Stanford fell to 1-7, 1-4 in conference. . . . In its last 14 games against USC, Stanford has lost 13 and tied one. . . . USC converted on 16 of 23 third-down plays. Stanford was one for 10. . . . Time of possession was also pretty one-sided with USC holding the edge 41:57 to 18:03.