They’re All Heart, but They Still Got Beat

Hurt doesn’t come in any size bigger than this in college football. The USC Trojans fought through injuries, bad penalties and special teams miscues, managed to overcome a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to put themselves only four minutes from victory and still lost.

You could see the hurt in safety Troy Polamalu’s swollen left ankle as he limped off the field after USC’s 30-27 loss to Washington State on Saturday. You could feel it in every slow step defensive end Kenechi Udeze took on the Trojans’ long trek back to the locker room. It felt as if they had to walk halfway across Washington State’s campus as they went out of Martin Stadium, around the athletics building and into the old gym that housed their locker room.

“It was a very difficult ballgame,” USC Coach Pete Carroll said.

They usually are when you can’t run the ball effectively and your defense can’t stop the other team. The Trojans were so deficient in those two essential areas that it felt as if they had missed out on a chance for a big upset, not as if they were a mighty power that toppled.

USC’s rushing efforts totaled 72 yards, or 2.2 per carry. The same defense that shut down Oregon State last week allowed 516 yards to Washington State, prompting Carroll to call his defensive scheming “lousy.”

The only championship quality USC demonstrated throughout the game was heart. It showed in the first quarter when quarterback Carson Palmer avoided a sack, buying enough time to get the ball to Kareem Kelly, who absorbed a hit and stayed on his feet long enough to draw a facemask penalty that enabled the Trojans to keep their first touchdown drive alive.

It showed when Polamalu returned to the game late in the third quarter after a sprained ankle sent him to the sideline in the first half. (“I felt like I needed to do anything I could to help the team out,” he said.)

And it showed when the Trojans scored two touchdowns in less than four minutes to turn a 24-14 deficit into a 27-24 lead.

They lived up to the corny slogan hauled out at every booster luncheon: “Fight On.”

But they didn’t fulfill the mantra constantly repeated by Carroll.

“The key word is ‘finish,’ ” free safety DeShaun Hill said.

The defense couldn’t do it, as USC’s two second-half leads lasted a total of 2 minutes 55 seconds.

Kicker Ryan Killeen couldn’t do it. After USC stunned Washington State’s homecoming crowd with a 55-yard touchdown pass from Palmer to Mike Williams, Killeen missed an extra point that could have put the Trojans ahead by four and forced the Cougars to go all the way to the end zone.

A field goal was no challenge at all for a Washington State offense that gained more than 100 yards in every quarter. The Cougars moved 62 yards in six plays and booted the game-tying kick with 1:50 left.

And they had to do even less work in overtime after a sack and a five-yard loss led to a missed 52-yarder by Killeen. A couple of simple runs set up the game-winning 35-yard kick by Drew Dunning.

That left the Trojans to ponder everything they did wrong, including two trips inside the Washington State 15-yard line that produced no points, thanks to an interception and a missed field goal. And 10 penalties worth a costly 103 yards.

“It’s a long way back to L.A.,” Williams said. “Everybody’s going to sit around and think about it.”

At some point they need to think long and hard about establishing a running game. That was supposed to be a strength of this year’s team, but it isn’t happening.

The only time the Trojans have rushed for more than 100 net yards was against Colorado (181). Quarterback sacks count against the team’s rushing yardage, but the only time that was a significant factor was when Kansas State sacked Palmer three times for 31 yards. Remove the 23 yards Palmer lost in sacks Saturday night and the Trojans still didn’t crack 100 against Washington State.

Palmer put up big numbers Saturday. He threw the ball 50 times, with 32 completions for 381 yards and two touchdowns.

But he isn’t ready to win games by himself, and that’s basically what the team asked him to do by throwing so much and not dedicating itself to the run. Palmer made two great scoring plays: his long pass to Williams and a three-yard run to the end zone when he couldn’t find someone open.

He also committed two big mistakes, throwing an interception in the end zone when the Trojans were at the Cougar nine, and taking a sack on the second play of overtime.

It’s also obvious that the defense isn’t going to win games for the Trojans week in and week out.

Washington State didn’t try to challenge the Trojans head-on; the Cougars ran a lot of screens and reverses to keep USC off-balance. Not every team can execute that plan as well as quarterback Jason Gesser and the Cougars, but they can try.

Of course, the Trojans don’t have a chance to play at their peak without Polamalu.

“Troy’s a senior, he’s the captain of the team, he gets us riled up when we need to,” Hill said. “We definitely notice when Troy’s not out there.”

It was never more obvious than when Washington State’s Jermaine Green took off for a 75-yard run on the Cougars’ first play of the second half. It’s hard to imagine a running play lasting 16 seconds and covering three-fourths of the field without Polamalu finding his way to the ball at some point. Doesn’t he always work into the thick of things?

There will be other times this season that a leader will go down and the Trojans will have to continue without him. They showed on Saturday that they’re capable of battling through adversity.

They also learned that trait alone isn’t enough.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.