Trojans Starting to Wonder If He Will Be Able to Hack It

Paul Hackett dealt with the pressure by giving pep talks to his players and watching game films. In other words, he went about the business of being the USC coach.

His boss, Mike Garrett, stuck around home on Sunday, trying not to dwell on the fact the Trojans are winless this month.

“Your nerves get frayed,” the athletic director said. “Losing three in a row at ‘SC is unbearable.”

Thus began another rough week around the USC football program, made all the rougher by the loss to Oregon last Saturday. Hackett and Garrett know that they are under the gun and that it won’t change unless the Trojans start winning, starting at Stanford on Saturday.

The players, meanwhile, said they can no longer ignore the hue and cry, especially criticism of their coach.

“It can play with your mind,” tight end Antoine Harris said. “Not only are they putting pressure on him, but saying all that negative stuff plays a part in how a team comes out every day to practice and play.”

Such distractions cannot be helpful for a team that has played erratically, nose-diving from 3-0 to 3-3, off to its worst start in the Pacific 10 Conference in more than four decades.

Though the Trojans showed improvement against Oregon, running the ball effectively and stopping the run on defense, there has been scant patience in newspaper columns and letters to the editor. Little sympathy in calls to sports radio shows. No charity in the grumbling of alumni who picnic outside the Coliseum before games.

Garrett has remained outwardly calm, saying his job should not be judged solely on the win-loss record of the football team. He has declined to comment one way or another about Hackett’s future but has said he wants to give the coach time to succeed.

The Oregon loss did nothing to change that stance, at least not publicly.

“I have to be fair to everyone involved,” he said. “But I must tell you, [losing] hurts.”

At a Tuesday media conference, Hackett said he is not surprised that Saturday’s defeat has brought increased scrutiny of how he prepares the team and decisions he makes during games.

“The history and expectations at USC are always the same and I don’t think they will ever change,” he said. “That’s one of the things that makes this such a unique place.”

The expectations were fueled, in part, by the coach. In the third year of a five-year contract, he told fans to expect a significant jump in the team’s performance this season.

“I think getting to the Rose Bowl every year is exactly what we should expect,” he reiterated Tuesday.

Later, growing more animated, he added: “We can never accept .500. Never.”

But the team was 6-6 last season and is back to that winning percentage.

In trying to explain the losses this season, Hackett cited turnovers on offense, mental lapses on defense and an inability to make big plays in the fourth quarter. The coach always gets blamed when such things go wrong, he said, because “that’s the nature of it.”

Away from the public, in team meetings, he has asked his team to ignore what is said and written about him.

“I admire him for how he’s dealing with all the media and everything,” tailback Malaefou MacKenzie said. “He tells us, ‘Let me handle all the pressure, you just worry about playing.’ ”

The players have plenty to worry about. With three losses, there has been no finger pointing. But there were some pointed comments after Saturday’s game.

Receiver Kareem Kelly spoke of getting open on long routes only to have passes sail over his head. Linebacker Zeke Moreno talked about the defense going back onto the field after turnovers.

“Sometimes one side struggles and the other side has to pick them up,” he said. “But there’s only so much you can do.”

Speculation about Hackett’s job has added to frustrations.

“It shouldn’t but it does,” tailback Petros Papadakis said.

A number of players insisted that they have not lost confidence in their coach. Nor did they feel pressure to win for his sake, they said, though his future was clearly on their minds before Tuesday’s practice.

“If we can win,” MacKenzie said, “everybody’s happy.”

Hackett wants the team to focus only on the next game, saying, “If we allow ourselves to think beyond Stanford, we’re foolish.”

But then he allowed himself a peek into the future, the kind of future he might need to escape the heat.

“The goal is to beat Stanford and get back into a bowl race and find ourselves in a position to play in December or January,” he said. ‘I think it’s a realistic goal.”