COMMENTARY : Trojans Had Everything to Lose, and So They Did

It is one thing to lose to a so-so UCLA team down to its third-string quarterback, a walk-on transfer from UC Santa Barbara who spent one November Saturday evening looking very much like Y.A. Tittle.

It is one thing to lose to Notre Dame for the 10th time in 10 years.

It is one thing to miss the Rose Bowl, miss the Fiesta Bowl, even miss the Aloha Bowl, and wind up down the freeway in Anaheim Stadium, paired against a Fresno State team that, 12 months earlier, called Cal State Fullerton and New Mexico State conference rivals.

It is quite another, however, to lose to said Fresno State team . . . by more than two touchdowns . . . with your fans outnumbered, three to one, in your own backyard . . . with your alumni shamed into staying home and cursing their 50-inch big screens in private because, as one succinctly put it before Tuesday night’s ninth Freedom Bowl, “Somebody might see me.”

Add it all up, as Larry Smith surely did in the aftermath of Fresno State 24, USC 7, and what could he say?

Smith said the only thing he possibly could.

I’m sorry.

“I apologized to our seniors,” said Smith, standing rather bravely behind an uncovered podium in the Anaheim Stadium interview room.

“I apologized for the way we finished the year. Offense, defense, kicking game, coaching--we all lost this game. We lost it together. And our seniors, unfortunately, don’t get any more chances.

“The rest of our team, we need to learn from this. We need to come back next year a better, more physical football team and not let this frustrate us and pull us down the tubes.”

Down the tubes?

Is that to suggest USC football still has farther to sink?

Consider what this meant to the program that produced Mike Garrett, O.J. Simpson and Marcus Allen:

Fresno State was an eight-point underdog in this game; tri-champion of the Western Athletic Conference, although it lost the Holiday Bowl bid to the Rainbows of Hawaii; a 10-point loser to Oregon State in September; a 3-4 team as of mid-October; one year removed from the Big West Conference and annual meetings with the University of the Pacific; and owner of a defense that yielded nearly 30 points per game in 1992, a defense winning coach Jim Sweeney christened “the weakest defensive team Fresno State has had in the last six years”--moments after that defense held USC to one touchdown and 183 total yards.

Smith was asked if he was “shocked” by losing to this Fresno State team by 17 points.

“No, not shocked,” the coach replied. “I’m never shocked in college football.

“You people are because you don’t understand it. But in college football, I’ve said many times, anyone can beat anyone.”

Smith also disputed the notion that David had just tripped Goliath, picked his pocket, kicked him a few times and called him nasty names.

“I don’t think there are any Davids and Goliaths anymore,” he said. “The (NCAA) scholarship limit has changed all that. I keep saying that, but you don’t understand it. Names and logos don’t mean anything. You don’t beat someone just because of your name and your logo.”

If the Trojans tried, they had clearly hooked up with the wrong opponent. If the Bulldogs were dazzled by anything, it was the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity afforded them by their Freedom Bowl invitation. This was their Rose Bowl, their Super Bowl, their breakthrough bowl--their chance to show the nation that Fresno has more than wrinkled grapes going for it.

Awed by the Trojans?

Sam Watson, a Fresno defensive back, was asked about it.

“Nah,” he said.

Not Curtis Conway, Willie McGinest, anybody in the once-hallowed cardinal and gold?

“Nobody,” Watson said.

By way of example, Watson pointed to the quarterback position. Advantage, Bulldogs, he claimed.

“We got Trent Dilfer.”

And the Trojans got Rob Johnson.

“He’d be fifth or sixth” in the WAC, Watson asserted.

Smith called the Freedom Bowl a no-win situation all along and, proven right, he repeated it.

“Playing Fresno is a no-win game,” he said. “You guys wrote about it all week and that’s the way our fans looked at it. Our fans don’t like playing Fresno. I don’t want to take anything away from Fresno, because they have an excellent, excellent football team, but that’s the way it is. Again, it just doesn’t work. We had everything to lose in this game. We could have won, 13-10, and it would have been a moral victory for them and we’d be dogs.”

So there will be no rematch.

As to the burgeoning speculation about his job security--just wait for that next batch of letters to the editor, sports fans--Smith said, simply: “I don’t control my critics. I’m not going to try.

“Critics are the ones who tear you apart when you don’t do what they want and praise you too much when you have some success. My No. 1 critic is right here.”

Smith planted his right forefinger on the bridge of his nose.

This game came down to emotion, Smith insisted, and emotion is created, he said, “by success and the crowd. Let’s face it, that was a Fresno crowd . . . and we didn’t have much success tonight.”

Randy Baranek, a reserve quarterback for the Bulldogs, summed it all up on the underdogs’ sideline.

“All I can say,” Baranek said, “is ‘USC Who?’ ”