Hard to Find Any Positives in USC Defeat

TUCSON — The score wasn’t the ugly number: Arizona 31, USC 24.

The awfulness was elsewhere.

Even the USC players couldn’t help but turn their eyes toward the running tally of their ineptitude that was written in lights on the Arizona Stadium scoreboard Saturday.

The final toll:

Total yardage: Arizona 550, USC 271.

Rushing yardage: Arizona 307, USC minus-20.

“Just our total yardage, at one time it was so lopsided it was ridiculous,” said tailback Chad Morton, who sat on the bench long after the game had ended, his head in his hands. “And then after a while our rushing yardage wasn’t even up there because it was negative. They probably didn’t even have an electronic button to push for negative yards.”

Even without the 60 yards USC lost on sacks--seven of them, another ugly number--the Trojans ran for only 40 yards.

“We couldn’t block anything,” said USC Coach Paul Hackett, whose 22nd-ranked Trojans were stuffed by an Arizona team that had been giving up an average of five yards a carry. “Those other teams must be a hell of a lot better than we are, because that did not look like a defense that gives up five yards a rush.”

And while minus-20 yards wasn’t a school record for once-proud Tailback U., it was close enough: The record is minus-23 yards, set last season in the Sun Bowl loss to Texas Christian.

The Trojans (3-2, 1-2 in the Pacific 10 Conference) could be eyeballing the Sun Bowl or worse after a loss that knocked them out of the Rose Bowl picture and turned Arizona (4-2, 2-1) from the Team That Couldn’t Tackle into a contender again.

“The guys are tired of hearing about the defense,” Arizona Coach Dick Tomey said. “Those guys have a lot of pride.”

The only thing more stunning than USC’s rushing total was the fact that the game was winnable, almost to the end.

Trailing by only a touchdown with less than two minutes left, USC fumbled a snap on fourth and three and Arizona’s Kelvin Hunter scooped up the ball and ran it back 24 yards to help the Wildcats take a 31-17 lead.

“I’m just numb. I feel bad,” said USC quarterback Mike Van Raaphorst, who didn’t know how the exchange was fumbled but said he probably should have called a timeout because of some confusion about the play. “I’ve got to keep my chin up, but it’s my fault. I apologize to the team.”

USC scored on its next possession when Van Raaphorst hit freshman Marcell Allmond with a 21-yard touchdown pass with 28 seconds left.

But the Trojans botched the onside kick attempt when David Bell’s squib kick went out of bounds.

“I think the fumble is inexcusable,” Hackett said. “You’re in a tight ballgame like that, I had no doubt that we could get one drive and get the ball in the end zone to tie the game. None. We had the right play called in the right situation on fourth down. I had no doubt we would convert that. But if you fumble the football--that was the turning point of the game.

“To that point, I believed we were going to win the ballgame. Maybe I’m the only one that believed it, but I believed it to that point. Once you give them a two touchdown lead. . . .

“And then, I mean, we have to work on the onside kick. It’s inexcusable to kick the ball out of bounds on an onside kick. That’s shoddy special teams. We’ve got to give our guys a chance.”

USC had even led in the third quarter, 17-10, after Windrell Hayes leaped to snare Van Raaphorst’s 18-yard touchdown pass in the corner of the end zone. Hayes, returning after sitting out two games because of a sprained ankle that is still sore, caught nine passes for a career-high 115 yards.

But Arizona came back with a spectacular, one-handed, 17-yard touchdown catch by Dennis Northcutt, who caught eight passes for 121 yards and broke Arizona’s career receiving record on that catch.

“We couldn’t stop No. 8,” Hackett said.

Trung Canidate, who rushed for 194 yards in 31 carries, scored the go-ahead touchdown after taking a pitch from 11 yards out with 11:52 left in the game on a drive keyed by a 44-yard pass play from Smith to Malosi Leonard on which USC’s defensive alignment left linebacker Markus Steele to try to cover a receiver.

The USC defense took its licks, and had some heretofore unseen tackling problems as well. But the party line was that the offense’s struggles kept the defense on the field too long--11 minutes longer than Arizona’s.

“The exhaust factor set in,” safety David Gibson said.

It wasn’t exhaust in the first quarter, though, when Keith Smith ran for a 57-yard touchdown on a quarterback keeper, and USC’s vulnerability to option-style play--well-established by Texas Christian--is about to come face to face with Notre Dame’s Jarious Jackson on Saturday in South Bend.

That’s another week, another game.

This one will rankle.

“It was winnable,” cornerback Antuan Simmons said.

USC just hopes it doesn’t get worse.

“We have hit the lowest point of our season right now and we need to stay positive as a team and build off of the loss,” said Morton, who ran for 28 yards in 14 carries a week after rushing for a career-high 153. “We need to stay together as a team. This is my last season and I don’t want my career at USC to end on a losing note.”

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Road to Nowhere

Since Paul Hackett became USC’s coach, the Trojans have yet to defeat a team on the road with a winning record. Opponent record is from the time of the game:

1998

Opponent (Record) Result

at Florida State (2-1) 30-10 loss

at Washington State (3-3) 42-14 win

at Oregon (5-1) 17-13 loss

at Stanford (1-7) 34-9 win

at UCLA (9-0) 34-17 loss

1999

at Hawaii (0-0) 62-7 win

at Oregon (2-1) 33-30 loss (OT)

at Arizona (3-2) 31-24 loss