Victory Is the Only Sign of Progress

Maybe someday USC will have a football team its band can be proud of. Saturday, at least, the band could be happy about their Trojans.

The Trojan trumpet players and tuba blowers were as strong at the end of this desert marathon as at the beginning. Even wearing capes and helmets in the 90-plus degree heat, the musicians blasting the fight song sounded as good at 7:30 p.m. as they did at 3:30.

Trojan football players didn’t have that staying power.

USC did beat Arizona, 41-34, Saturday at Arizona Stadium and maybe, after all, the victory is more important than anything else.

More important than blowing a 31-10 lead. And for those looking for progress in this first season of Coach Pete Carroll, this counts as progress. A little progress. The Trojans were able, finally, to make a play at the end. Maybe mentioning that they shouldn’t have had to isn’t fair.

Carroll said that it was good USC won the way it did, squandering all of its 21-point advantage, being tied, 34-34, and needing Kris Richard’s 58-yard interception return for a touchdown with 1:50 left to avoid overtime. Carroll thought maybe, because the Trojans had lost in the last minutes against Washington and Oregon on the road, that this was sweet payback, a deserved triumph, that it showed a strengthening of resolve.

And Carroll said that “it was incredible to see that kind of comeback happen for our team. It was great.”

But, Pete, your team led by 21. Your team had to salvage victory with a desperate, last-minute interception return.

“They were tired,” Arizona tailback Clarence Farmer said. “You could tell, they were just barely hanging on.”

That was a more accurate description of the Trojans. Just barely hanging on. Sometimes hanging on is as good as it gets.

This could have been about the USC defense, about the teeth-chattering hits that linebackers Mike Pollard and Matt Grootegoed used to obliterate Arizona linemen; how cornerback Kevin Arbet snatched an interception and scored; how Troy Polamalu and Chris Cash made serious open-field tackles.

Then USC and Arizona played the second half.

Carroll said, “The way our defense responded in the second half was exactly what we had been talking about.”

In the second half the Trojan defense gave up 21 points and 255 yards. In the second half Arizona had 14 first downs. USC had four.

So this is more about how fortunate USC is to have the state of Arizona, because without its two major college football programs, the Trojans would be winless in the Pacific 10.

The Trojans were smiling after this win. It felt good, they said. It was deserved, they said. It could be season-changing, they said. The kids should have said that. They’ve been muddling through bad plays and bad luck all season.

This is not a triumph to brag about, though. It is one to accept gratefully and acknowledge quietly and then put away.

There was no evidence of any forward steps. Quarterback Carson Palmer threw bad passes sometimes and, sometimes, when he threw good ones, his receivers ran bad routes. Kareem Kelly seems capable of one nice play per game. Period. For a man with world-class speed, that’s not enough.

The young offensive line does not seem to be getting more cohesive or more impenetrable. And after the defense acted as if it would step forward and win a game, causing turnovers and making all the big plays in the first half, it acted as if it wanted to lose the game by missing tackles and playing the ball instead of the man, going for the big tip and letting the home run pass become a touchdown. That was Richard, specifically, who went for the interception, missed, stumbled, sat down and watched his man, Brandon Marshall, catch a 24-yard touchdown ball to make the score 31-27.

It was the momentum-changer. From that moment, with 3:47 left in the third quarter, Arizona believed it would win. The Wildcats strutted and chattered and began hitting harder and more often.

This could have been about a USC blowout, about a USC breakout game, about an emerging offense and a maturing defense and a team learning how to be major.

But instead this is about a kicker, Dave Davis, needing to make a career-long 47-yard field goal in the fourth quarter for USC to score its first points since halftime as it struggled to hold its 31-27 lead. It is about Carroll running back and forth along the sidelines, moving always, sprinting into huddles, taking his headset on and off, on and off, a man in perpetual motion leading a team into and out of confusion.

It is about how Farmer, a trash-talking sophomore, gained 24 yards on one fourth-quarter play as he dragged three Trojan defenders along with him, knocking off one Trojan helmet and running his mouth the entire way. Talking and running, running and talking, and nothing USC could do about it. That’s what Farmer was saying, in his own way.

What he was saying, in his own way, was that the Wildcats, who were on a nine-game conference losing streak, were pushing the Trojans around by the fourth quarter, were dominating the line of scrimmage.

This was a little bit about luck. Arizona’s Bobby Wade ran into the end zone with a Mike MacGillivray punt, the game-winning touchdown it seemed, with less than three minutes to go. However Wade was ruled out of bounds at the Arizona 47, though a TV replay made it look as if Wade may have tiptoed safely inbounds.

And then, three plays later, Richard stepped in front of a Jason Johnson pass and the Trojans had that comeback. Whew.

“This is fulfilling,” Richard said. “Being a senior, if we win out we go to a bowl game. One week, one day at a time.”

Ultimately, that was the progress. One win.

Still that hope. Winning out. Finding a way into a bowl game somewhere. The band is bowl-ready and bowl-waiting and looking for a team to take it there.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.