A ROBO FLOP? : To USC’s Followers, Robinson Has Failed on Couple of Counts

John Robinson accepts it with a shrug, as if being unforgiven in an unforgiving place is simply part of life.

Like death and taxes? Something like that.

After three seasons in his second term as USC’s football coach, his teams have a better record than any other Pacific 10 Conference school, have shared two conference championships and Monday will play in a third consecutive bowl game, this time the Rose Bowl.

Yet at the close of the regular season, a columnist in the student newspaper, the Daily Trojan, was calling for his ouster. Alumni were furious. There were angry letters, most of them unsigned.

Hanging over Robinson’s otherwise successful return to USC is his team’s 0-5-1 mark against rivals Notre Dame and UCLA. He agrees this is unacceptable.

“We’ve failed to beat our two main rivals, so it’s clear we have more work to do,” he said.

“We didn’t play well in any of those games, and I’m responsible for that. But I’m also responsible for one of the fastest turnarounds in college football, for the best record in the Pac-10 the last three years and the Rose Bowl.

“But we have to do better. I know that. And we will.”

Robinson, who makes about $300,000 a year, is in the third year of a four-year contract. In those three seasons, the Trojans are 24-10-2.

Athletic Director Mike Garrett was asked recently about Robinson’s status, and whether his contract will be extended.

“I thought John coached very well this season,” he said.

“I wish it had been a better season, that goes without saying. And that in itself says something about the high standards we live by around here, that we have a Rose Bowl team and we’re talking about disappointments.

“This team at times didn’t play well as a team; it went through some tough times. But it was a good team and next year’s will be even better. The improvement from John’s first year to this year has been dramatic. I’m a big John Robinson fan.”

Of a contract extension, Garrett would only say: “John and I will talk.”

Criticism of Robinson is focused almost entirely on the Notre Dame and UCLA results, and to a much lesser degree at his two-quarterback offense this year.

Many alumni and USC partisans believe he should have settled on one quarterback, yet all who have been asked concede had USC beaten Notre Dame and UCLA, the subject would never have been raised--just as it wasn’t discussed much when the Trojans were 6-0. USC finished 8-2-1.

“I know some people are unhappy, but no one’s said anything to my face; I always hear it from someone else,” Robinson said.

“I’ve always noted how quickly people will jump onto a bandwagon, but also how quickly they’ll jump off when there’s a bump in the road. Then, when you achieve your goals, how quickly they jump back on again.”

As for angry mail, Robinson said he quit reading it in January of 1980.

“In the Rose Bowl that year, we were on the Ohio State four-yard line and had a 17-16 lead with 14 seconds left,” he said.

“I told the team to run out the clock,” he said.

“Several days later, I came back to the office and there were maybe 300 letters. ‘Oh, they love me,’ I thought. They were all written by angry people demanding to know why we hadn’t tried to score again.”

Of course, Robinson has no one to blame but himself for USC’s almost impossibly high football expectations. Many forget when he was hired the second time, USC had just been beaten by Fresno State.

When he was hired in January of 1993, he spoke at the news conference about Rose Bowl appearances and national championships and has continued to do so.

“I shot my mouth off maybe too much,” he said.

“But I felt it was important to raise the expectation level around here, to create a sense of where we were going. Looking back, yeah, I regret some of it--like that billboard.”

He referred to the freeway billboards pushing USC season tickets that implied those without them wouldn’t be able to see the Trojans beat Notre Dame.

Expectations will soar again after Feb. 7, national letter-of-intent signing day.

Robinson’s last two recruiting classes were very good. But the one USC is putting together now may be its most promising since the late 1970s.

NCAA rules prohibit coaches from discussing recruiting publicly, but this much is known: The centerpiece is Travis Claridge, a 6-foot-6, 300-pounder from Fort Vancouver, Wash., considered the nation’s best high school offensive lineman. He gave USC a verbal commitment two weeks ago.

Robinson, 60, was a relatively obscure assistant coach when then-USC president John R. Hubbard surprised everyone by hiring him in 1976 to replace John McKay.

Robinson had been a McKay assistant from 1972-1974, then was an Oakland Raider assistant in 1975.

“I came to McKay’s football practices when I was president and I could see then that John Robinson was as good a teacher as anyone on the USC faculty,” said Hubbard, 77, who now teaches European history at USC.

Robinson promptly lost his first game, to Missouri, 46-25.

Said Hubbard: “I’ll never forget how hard John took that loss. I stood at his locker after that game with [late head of Fluor Corp. and USC alumnus] Bob Fluor, and we were almost afraid to leave him alone.”

Robinson’s recollection differs: “He’s got it wrong. They took it really hard. I was afraid to leave them alone.”