Bowl Spot Is a Wait-and-See Situation

USC’s regular season is complete. Bowl matchups will not be determined for another week.

The Trojans, therefore, will play the waiting game during the next five days.

That’s fine with the Trojans, who on Sunday parlayed their 44-13 rout of Notre Dame into a No. 5 ranking in both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today polls.

USC players will take most of this week off before three days of practice beginning Friday. The Trojans are tentatively scheduled to practice 11 times in the next three weeks.

“We’ll practice on weekends the first couple of weeks because the coaches will be on the road recruiting,” said Coach Pete Carroll, who spent much of Sunday visiting with out-of-state recruits who were at the Coliseum for Saturday night’s demolition of the Fighting Irish. “We want to keep it together and keep making progress.”

The Trojans, who began training camp in mid-August, welcome the respite.

“It’s going to be nice to have a few days off and concentrate on school with finals coming up,” linebacker Matt Grootegoed said. “It’s going to take awhile to let this all sink in. But we’re not done yet.”

USC players fully expect that they will be rewarded for their 10-2 season with a berth in the Rose Bowl or another bowl championship series game.

The Trojans’ losses during their best season since 1988 came against Kansas State and Washington State, currentlyranked sixth and seventh, respectively. USC won seven consecutive games after the overtime defeat against Washington State on Oct. 5, and finished with routs over UCLA and Notre Dame.

Saturday’s victory over the Fighting Irish could move USC past Iowa to No. 4 in the BCS standings that will be released today.

“Whatever happens with the BCS, it’s out of our hands,” safety Troy Polamalu said. “I think we proved what we needed to.”

USC’s bowl fate could be decided by UCLA when the Bruins play Washington State on Saturday. If UCLA wins, USC claims the Pacific 10 Conference championship outright and earns an automatic Rose Bowl berth.

“I don’t think there will be any USC fans in L.A. [on Saturday],” Polamalu said. “We’ll all be UCLA fans, for once.”

If Washington State wins, USC could play in the Orange or Sugar bowls. And if Miami and Georgia lose Saturday, the Fiesta Bowl is also a possibility.

But Carroll remains unconcerned about where the Trojans might ultimately land.

Like all coaches, Carroll is looking forward to bowl game practices because they offer an extra opportunity to teach and evaluate players heading into spring practice.

Carroll said competition for positions next season will begin this week for players such as redshirt linebackers Frostee Rucker and Lofa Tatupu.

Quarterbacks Matt Cassel, Matt Leinart, Billy Hart and redshirt Brandon Hance will take the majority of snaps while Heisman Trophy candidate Carson Palmer travels the postseason awards circuit in a few weeks.

Carroll added that the magnitude of the victories over UCLA and Notre Dame was still sinking in. USC defeated its rivals in the same season for the first time since 1981 and the first time in consecutive games since 1978.

“I realize that the fans and the people who have been around the program so long, that have seen the years go by without this happening, it hits them differently,” he said. “I try to appreciate that.”

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USC’s combined 62-point margin of victory over UCLA and Notre Dame is the highest ever against the two rivals, surpassing the 56-point margin in 1974.... The Trojans scored 30 points or more in their last seven games, the first time a USC team achieved the feat since 1972.