Coach Made Bad Call After Defeat as Well

I can guess what some USC football watchers must be thinking. Notre Dame is coming to the Coliseum this week led for the last time by Coach Lou Holtz, who is leaving, to play the Trojan team of Coach John Robinson, who probably isn’t but possibly should be.

Speaking strictly as a football fan, not as some unhappy USC alumnus, bitter booster or some dumb bum from the media, I still can’t believe the way the Trojans were beaten Saturday by UCLA for the sixth consecutive year.

What was it--the element of surprise?--that possessed Robinson (or his assistants) to send a 5-foot-7 running back (shortest player on the field) ramming into the middle of UCLA’s defensive line, with 97 seconds remaining, on first down, where he could be met by a 6-foot-2, 244-pound UCLA linebacker (Danjuan Magee) who would rip the football right out of his hands?

It was this back’s second carry of the game. He hadn’t run the ball since the second quarter.

UCLA stripped it, scored and won in overtime, 48-41.

How are big games lost? This is how.

The game of the year for USC and UCLA was almost over. The Trojans led, 38-31. But their backup quarterback was taking the snaps. Their starter, Brad Otton, was hurt. Delon Washington, Shawn Walters and Rodney Sermons, between them, had carried the football all day long, nearly 30 times.

The call?

Have a quarterback (Matt Koffler)--who has been in the game for nine plays all day--hand off to a running back (LaVale Woods) whose only other carry came on USC’s first possession of the second quarter, more than an hour before.

Even the official stat-keeper was fooled. The play-by-play sheet distributed at the Rose Bowl gave the fumble to Sermons, not to Woods.

I felt terrible for Woods, whose eyes welled with tears after the game. Robinson felt worse, ordering everyone to leave the player alone. He also wouldn’t let a freshman, R. Jay Soward, speak for himself, even though Soward had just broken a school record for receivers.

The coach’s compassion is commendable. Too bad he doesn’t spend less time protecting his players and more time protecting a 17-point lead.

Robinson likes to play Big Daddy. Somebody should remind him that these are not children. They are 19, 20, even 22 years old. Some are parents themselves. They can handle disappointment, and, if they can’t, it is time they learn. There are 14-year-old ice skaters and tennis players whose coaches teach them to take the bad with the good, while Robinson shields college-age athletes as though they are babies.

Woods was handling himself just fine. He was sad, but life is hard. He stood up like a man. Same goes for Darrell Russell, Chris Claiborne and every other Trojan who handled defeat in a mature manner.

A coach should have been beaming with pride at the way Otton, the quarterback, conducted himself.

Several days ago, Otton publicly defended his coach. That took guts. Then the senior played one of the greatest games of his life, only to be removed from it because of injured ribs. Did he sulk? Did he duck out of Pasadena, tail between his legs, because USC lost? No, he did not. Brad Otton did himself and his university proud, declaring that not only did he expect to play next Saturday, but promising, “We are going to play the best game of our season against Notre Dame.”

Some “boys” become men in the face of adversity. Some coaches could learn from them.

Look, I accept on faith that Robinson knows a thousand times more about football than I do, and a million times more about his players. But 80,000 people can read a final score on a scoreboard. Robinson resents second-guessers, then takes a job as a TV commentator between coaching jobs to become a second-guesser.

I also recall last New Year’s, after USC won the Rose Bowl game, when the winning coach couldn’t resist knocking everyone for giving Northwestern so much publicity, while giving USC not enough. No Shinola, Sherlock. One team was in the Rose Bowl for the first time in 50 years. The other was 8-2-1, and had just blown chances to beat UCLA and Notre Dame. Publicize that.

I don’t expect next Saturday’s game to be Robinson’s last. In fact, I half-expect Otton to be right, that SC will give Notre Dame a great game.

However, if USC is leading by a touchdown, with 1:37 to go, and has the ball, and gets a first down, here is some advice: Keep watching.

* HAPPY ENDING

UCLA’s victory over USC was the highlight of a predictably disappointing year. C10

* ON THE MEND

Brad Otton’s ribs remain sore, but he might play for USC against Notre Dame. C11