USC Has No Time to Lick Wounds, Notre Dame Next

The UCLA Bruins have eight in a row over USC tucked into their pockets, and two weeks to prepare for their enormous, rescheduled final game against Miami.

USC has a heartache to take care of--and five days left to get ready for Notre Dame, the second half of their back-to-back games with rivals.

The Irish will step onto the Coliseum field Saturday a once-beaten team. But Notre Dame, ranked ninth in one poll and 10th in the other, is also a team in trouble.

Notre Dame will start a quarterback who has attempted one pass in his college career--either freshman Arnaz Battle, who completed his, or junior Eric Chappell, whose one pass fell incomplete.

Starter Jarious Jackson injured ligaments in his right knee when he was blindsided taking an intentional safety in the final seconds of a 39-36 victory over 4-6 Louisiana State on Saturday, and Coach Bob Davie said Sunday Jackson is out for the USC game, and probably for at least four weeks.

The hard task for the Trojans is to zero in on Notre Dame, and quit agonizing over their fumbled chance to stop UCLA’s wild ride.

USC linebacker Chris Claiborne admitted he lay awake Friday night, thinking of ending UCLA’s streak, the Bruins’ unbeaten season and their chances for a national championship.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said after the game, already struggling to turn his eyes toward Notre Dame before he left the Rose Bowl.

“We have a chance to go 8-4, that’s a solid season,” Claiborne said. “We can win another game, and get into a good bowl.

“Notre Dame is also a very good team--a ranked team. It’s a chance for us to get a win against a ranked team.”

That’s important, because it’s something USC hasn’t managed since the last time Notre Dame visited the Coliseum in 1996. The Trojans upended the No. 10 Irish in overtime that day, 27-20, to end a 13-game winless streak against Notre Dame and start a streak they extended to two games in South Bend, Ind., last season.

But since that 1996 game, the Trojans are 0 for six against ranked teams--losing to Florida State twice, UCLA twice, Washington and Oregon.

Here’s their chance.

Notre Dame may be 9-1, but the Irish beat Purdue, Army and LSU by three points or less, and the Trojans’ performances against common opponents Purdue, Stanford and Arizona reflect well on USC.

“They’ll be tough, but we’re going to be hungry for a victory,” USC quarterback Carson Palmer said. “Everybody is [upset about losing to UCLA].”

Actually, Palmer also called Notre Dame “a great team,” though he’d get some argument from a few college football analysts about that, as Davie is well aware.

“It doesn’t matter what people’s opinions are,” Davie said. “We’re a 9-1 football team with a chance to be 10-1. I’m certainly not concerned if people say we’re the worst 9-1 football team in the country. We have a lot of positives to build on.”

Not as many, however, with Jackson out after a game in which he passed for 276 yards and ran for another 80.

The way it happened only makes it worse--a “busted assignment” on the intentional safety play trying to run out the clock.

“Unfortunately it was probably something we hadn’t practiced enough, to be honest,” Davie said.

“We’ve had a lot of fortune. Now we have to deal with a little misfortune.”

What he has to deal with now are two rookie quarterbacks, both of them option-style players, not drop-back passers.

Battle rushed for more yards (677) than he passed for (527) as a senior quarterback at C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport, La.

Chappell, from Carver High in Montgomery, Ala., passed for 700 yards and rushed for 500 as a senior in 1995 and hasn’t played much since.

Both have appeared in only two games this season, and Davie doesn’t know who will start.

“We will maybe go right up until before the game. Both will play in the game, based on how they execute and perform in practice,” he said.

By not naming a starter early, “I think maybe it takes some of the pressure off both of them,” he said.

Battle is back after missing several games because of a sprained right shoulder, and exactly who has a leg up is unclear.

“Arnaz was ahead of Eric Chappell before the injury, then Eric Chappell took advantage of Arnaz’s injury, and right now, I think Eric Chappell might be a little ahead of Arnaz,” Davie said.

USC has had its own injury woes, with receiver R. Jay Soward limited to about a dozen plays Saturday because of a sprained right ankle.

Soward called it “a miracle” he could do what he did Saturday, catching three passes.

“My father came to see me Wednesday with some blessed oil, put some on me and said, ‘Lord, heal my son.’ I woke up [Saturday] morning and I didn’t feel any pain,” he said.

No pain, but no big gains either.

“R. Jay wasn’t R. Jay,” Palmer said. “He wasn’t the same receiver he is. He didn’t have the explosion or the quickness out of his breaks.”

Soward said it will be different against Notre Dame.

“Next week, I should be a whole lot better,” he said. “We’ve just got to win another football game.”

As for UCLA, USC can’t do anything about that until next Nov. 20, though some of the Trojans don’t get another chance.

“Those guys. I played Pop Warner with them, high school, I’ve known them a long time,” senior receiver Billy Miller said. “Probably now, they’ll always say, ‘You guys never beat us.”’

That streak--even in all USC’s years of domination, the Trojans never beat UCLA eight in a row.

“Every game is an individual game,” tailback Petros Papadakis said. “I don’t think we have a complex. We’ve had some real bad luck, and . . . they’re the No. 2 team in the country.”

It’s wait-until-next-year-time, and Palmer said he’d like to be the one to do the honors.

“I want to. I want to next year,” he said.