From Gloom To Glory

In early fall, with USC struggling through a four-game losing streak, secondary coach DeWayne Walker stood up at a team meeting and told a story.

This was no fire-and-brimstone sermon. The bespectacled Walker offered something closer to a history lesson, recalling when he coached at Utah State and that team started with five losses. The players kept practicing hard, he explained, kept believing in themselves.

“We won six games in a row,” he said. “We went to the Las Vegas Bowl and won that game too.”

Now Walker can laugh about his unintended prescience. USC has won five of six and--like that 1993 Utah State team--will play in the Las Vegas Bowl. Not that a 6-5 record and a Christmas Day game rank with USC’s legacy of Rose Bowls, but the Trojans have salvaged an upbeat ending for what began as a dreary season.

Just two months ago, as the losses mounted, the new coaching staff was worried that the team might fall apart.

“Worried big time,” offensive coordinator Norm Chow said.

It crossed the players’ minds too.

“Last year, we had a losing streak and went in the tank,” defensive end Lonnie Ford said. “So you’re wondering what’s going on. Is it going to happen again?”

Their turnaround is a story of persistence, timing and luck. It begins in late September--perhaps the low point of the season--with a home game against Stanford.

USC quickly fell behind by three touchdowns, thanks to turnovers and penalties that were all-too-reminiscent of last season’s miscues. The team rebounded in the second half but ultimately lost, 21-16, its record slipping to 1-3. Some of the coaches appeared dazed in the locker room afterward.

“What team was that?” one of them asked quietly. “I didn’t even recognize them.”

Coach Pete Carroll had been through difficult situations as coach of the New York Jets and New England Patriots. His style has always been to remain ceaselessly upbeat, which turned off some NFL veterans. Still, he was determined to overwhelm his USC team with optimism.

This time, it worked.

“You could feel in his words and his actions how much this meant to him,” fullback Charlie Landrigan said. “It could be phony with some coaches, but with him it wasn’t.”

Any players who showed signs of dissension were pulled aside to be chastised or cajoled.

“It becomes a pursuit of individuals,” Carroll said. “You look for who’s not happy and you attack that guy, you keep him from sinking.”

The coaching staff had several factors working in its favor. All of the losses had been close, so the players believed they were only a break or two from winning. And the upperclassmen had experienced the bad times that ensue when a team splits apart.

“We knew what happened the last couple of seasons,” tight end Kori Dickerson said. “We knew as older guys we couldn’t let that happen again.”

But it would require more than attitude. After Stanford, the Trojans simplified their blocking schemes in hopes of reviving the run. Though the losing streak reached four with another heartbreaker--27-24 to Washington--USC played one of its best games. “We got the sense that we could turn things around,” Landrigan said.

Next came a lopsided victory over Arizona State. Then, after stumbling against Notre Dame, the Trojans reached a critical point.

On a warm night in Tucson, they opened a big lead, only to watch Arizona tie the score in the fourth quarter. A loss would have eliminated them from bowl contention. With less than two minutes remaining, cornerback Kris Richard intercepted a pass and returned it 58 yards for the winning touchdown.

That quickly, everything changed.

“All of a sudden, we were the ones making big plays,” Ford said. “We were the ones lucking out at the end.”

The following week, Oregon State’s Ryan Cesca--an all-conference kicker last season--missed two field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter and USC eked out an overtime win. The Trojans were on a roll.

It helped that the schedule, front-loaded with nationally ranked teams, now served up opponents with losing records.

At the same time, the offense was cutting down on turnovers and quarterback Carson Palmer seemed increasingly poised in Chow’s system. The defense was growing familiar with Carroll and asserting itself among the top squads in the conference.

As a result, the Trojans were winning the games they were expected to win, something they had failed to do in recent seasons.

After a 55-14 rout of California, their record climbed to 5-5 and Carroll promised them a victory over No. 20 UCLA.

In the weeks since a 27-0 shutout of the Bruins, the coach has said he will always rue the close losses early in the schedule, the games against Oregon and Kansas State when one play might have made a difference.

But he also admits to a certain satisfaction.

“What a great story,” he said. “Think about where we came from.”

His players share this enthusiasm, defensive lineman Bobby DeMars echoing a common sentiment when he says, “I never knew how good 6-5 could feel.”