PRESSURE’S ON

Humbling. . . . Disconcerting. . . . Horrible. . . . Embarrassing.

Those are words USC players and coaches use when they talk about last season--which, by the way, they would just as soon stop doing.

“The great thing about teams is they have a life of one year,” Coach John Robinson said. “This team was born in January sometime--and hopefully will die in January next year.”

Last season’s team died in November at 6-6, the first of Robinson’s USC teams not to have a winning record.

“Going 6-6 is embarrassing,” said tailback Delon Washington, who had an uneven and suspension-marred season. “Losing to our rival, UCLA, that hurt real bad. I didn’t even go out that night. You could say we’re embarrassed, because we had a great team. We feel we should have won a lot of games we lost.”

Offensive lineman Chris Brymer remembers a miserable December.

“We’ve learned a lot because of the feeling we had after the season, that horrible feeling of not going to a bowl game,” he said. “You had to think, ‘What are we doing here? How did we let things go wrong?’ ”

A victory over Notre Dame in the final game blunted some of the pain--and averted a losing season--but it was still a tense finish, with school President Steven Sample stepping in to mediate the strained relationship between Athletic Director Mike Garrett and Robinson, and to assure Robinson’s return.

Now the Trojans begin again, with perhaps too stiff a test--a Sept. 6 opener at the Coliseum against third-ranked Florida State. Their schedule also has a tough middle stretch, with games against Notre Dame, Washington and Stanford within four weeks.

Still, USC begins the season with a No. 22 ranking, even though the Trojans will have an untested quarterback in sophomore John Fox replacing Brad Otton and a defense that has lost tackle Darrell Russell, the second pick in the NFL draft as a junior, as well as leading tackler Sammy Knight.

This is a team whose most highly touted players--junior cornerback Daylon McCutcheon and senior punter Jim Wren--don’t play traditional glamour positions. But there are plenty of talented players, many of them sophomores and juniors.

“We have a lot of talent, but you can’t win with just talent,” McCutcheon said. “We had a lot of individuals last year. I think the biggest thing is being a team and finishing, playing a complete game.”

Among the potential game-breaking youngsters are sophomore receiver R. Jay Soward--who averaged 31 yards on kickoff returns and 28 yards a catch and scored a touchdown every 4.7 times he touched the ball. He’s the flashiest of a bundle of receivers who need to be more consistent.

Then there’s sophomore defensive back Chad Morton, a versatile threat. He’s a defensive starter and special teams dynamo who even filled in at running back when backs were scarce early last season.

McCutcheon and underrated senior Brian Kelly form perhaps the nation’s best cornerback tandem, and sophomore linebacker Chris Claiborne is one player who is living up to endless high school accolades, having set a USC freshman record with 116 tackles last season.

Sophomore Travis Claridge, who may bench-press 500 pounds before he leaves USC, is the strongman of the offensive line, and end George Perry leads a rebuilt defensive line that Robinson says “has to come through.”

“This team doesn’t have any built-in weapon or individual to focus on, or talk about,” Robinson said. “You focus on good players like Rodney Sermons, LaVale Woods, the entire offensive line, a strong safety named Rashard Cook.

“There’s not any one player who might go down and we’d say, ‘Oh, God.’ There was Darrell Russell, but we already lost him.

“Our way of winning could be the way of Northwestern two years ago. They didn’t have big names. They were called Cinderella, but then those turned out to be very good players. Nobody knew Darnell Autry at first.”

Buried amid the numbers that are the rubble of last season--6-6, 3-5 in the Pac-10, a 48-41 loss to UCLA--is one that especially rankles: average yards rushing, 114.

Six times USC failed to gain 100 yards on the ground.

“I don’t think anyone can be proud of that,” said new offensive coordinator Hue Jackson, who replaced Mike Riley after Riley was named coach at Oregon State. “This team is embarrassed about last year’s season, and this team is very focused on correcting whatever mistakes were made last year.

“There are a lot of questions: What’s the offense? Who’s the quarterback? But the running game is an area we’re emphasizing. We want that number to grow by leaps and bounds. It should, with a veteran line and the people we have.”

The line was a major problem last season, but a year of experience and the return of Phalen Pounds, a starter in 1995, should make it better.

Robinson and Jackson are ready to hand Washington the ball 20-30 times a game, even though he has been slowed a bit because of an Achilles’ tendon injury and rushed for only 370 yards during a troubled season last year.

But Washington ran for 1,109 yards as a sophomore, and has gone from 172 pounds as a freshman to 205. Until he falters, he’s expected to get the ball ahead of Woods, last season’s leading rusher with 601 yards, and such newcomers as sophomore transfer Petros Papadakis, freshman Malaefou MacKenzie and junior transfer Jabari Jackson.

“We need a guy who’s going to take over a football game like USC used to do,” Jackson said. “Like Marcus Allen, Charlie White, O.J. Simpson, Mike Garrett . . . That’s what I expect from our tailbacks.”

That, of course, is a lot to expect, but Washington will get the ball, “till his tongue starts dragging,” Jackson said.

Washington says he and the Trojans are ready.

“We have to get back to that old tradition.”

ALSO

* PURPLE POWER I

Northwestern somehow shuts out Oklahoma in opener, 24-0. C5

* PURPLE POWER II

Washington seniors geared up for return to the Rose Bowl. C5

* 1997 SCHEDULES

Team-by-team weekly schedules broken down by conference. C7