Kelly Does What It Takes for Victory

Are you ready for some football?

On the first Monday night in September, Kareem Kelly said yes. Sometimes he said it too loudly. Other times, he said it too quickly.

But on a sweltering evening when the USC Trojans were required to address the nation, Kareem Kelly said it, again and again, the clear voice of a team that last year spoke in a whisper.

“It wasn’t always real pretty,” he said afterward, blood seeping through his T-shirt, sweat falling from the dragon tattoo that snakes around his right arm.

“But in the end, we stood up, didn’t we?”

You could hear him all the way to Tuberville.

When asked to describe the Trojans’ 24-17 victory over Auburn in the season opener at the sun-scorched Coliseum, it is easiest to describe their maddening wide receiver.

He was splendid. He was silly. He was tough. He was foolish.

He was, in the end, the mirror image of a team whose first steps were wildly cheered and occasionally questioned by most of the 63,269 at the Coliseum.

The Trojans were a little bit good and a little bit nuts.

But in the end, they were tough enough, long enough, and there are times this year that will be enough.

“We won the game, but we’ve been down this road before,” Kelly said. “We’re not going to blow off any opponents. I’m not going to say anything to make anybody mad.

“We know what’s ahead. We know we have to get better.”

What they have to do is grab their most exciting player and hang on and hope the ride begins and ends as neatly as it did Monday.

Three minutes into the nation’s toughest schedule, Kelly caught a pass from Carson Palmer and broke two tackles in a fight into the end zone for the season’s first touchdown.

“I got the ball in that situation, I knew I had to score,” he said of the 14-yard reception. “That’s the way it has to be this year.”

But then, in the third quarter, he gave it back by foolishly trying to return a punt despite having two Tigers lunging at his head.

While he eluded the tacklers, a teammate was penalized for clipping while trying to protect him, and the Trojans were pinned deep enough to eventually set up Auburn’s score-tying field goal.

“Yeah, I know, I should have called for a fair catch,” he said.

“But I really wanted us to get good field position and ... OK, yeah, I know, I should have called for a fair catch.”

Early in the fourth quarter, while driving toward a possible go-ahead touchdown, Kelly blew it again when he caught a screen pass and ran across the field swinging the ball as if he were Barry Sanders.

Yeah, he fumbled. And, yeah, Auburn recovered.

“I was trying to do too much, score every time I touched the ball, and I was wrong,” Kelly said.

As he walked off the field, he was confronted by Palmer. Accounts differ about what happened next, but the message was the same.

Said Kelly: “I told him, please, get me the ball again.”

Said Palmer: “I told him, I’m going to come back to you.”

A few minutes later, in the biggest play of the game, it happened.

On third down and 11 around midfield, Palmer found Kelly across a middle that was so crowded, he was smacked and sandwiched and lost his helmet.

He didn’t, however, lose the ball. And 18 yards later, he gained the first down.

Said Kelly: “Great receivers make that play. I have to make it.”

Said Palmer: “He was tackled. But he exploded through two guys up the field anyway.”

Several minutes later, Palmer had completed the 8:39 drive--a Trojan 8:39 drive!--with a quarterback sneak for the game-winning touchdown.

While Auburn Coach Tommy Tuberville looked at Kelly and fretted, the USC coaches embraced him and celebrated.

Sort of.

“He has to realize, he can’t be running around like that out there all the time ... he can’t try to do everything,” said offensive coordinator Norm Chow with a grin. “You never want to take away that attitude, but he has to quit deciding that we can only win the game with him.”

Of course. After three years of inconsistency amid the perception that he doesn’t practice hard enough or jump high enough, Kelly knows nothing will come easy in this final season.

“I know what people think, I know what I have to show them, and this is my last chance to do that,” he said.

“I want to show people that I’m a nice guy, not a jerk. I want them to see my playing all out all the time.”

And when he’s not playing, he’s laughing and leading, at least that’s what happened early Monday when he spotted buddy Sultan McCullough wearing a gray T-shirt when the rest of the team was dressed in black and white.

“He turned me in, and he’s my friend!” McCullough said.

“The coach tore me up. But it helped me be focused all day.”

“I knew it,” said Kelly, laughing, the first Monday night hero of the fall, a Hank Williams Jr. song in the making.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com