Trojans Have Full-Service Blanking

There was a chill at kickoff, a black sky at halftime, spitting rain in the third quarter, soggy grass at the finish.

Quick enough to stop Oregon State, the USC defense also proved powerful enough to chase away summer, filling the Coliseum on Saturday with the smell of wet leaves and old-time football.

Pete Carroll football.

Scare-the-bejabbers-out-of- the-Pac-10 football.

One day into their march toward the Rose Bowl, the Trojans have made it clear that theirs will not be a march, nor will it smell much like roses.

Their 2002 season will be about pushing, grabbing, chasing, tackling.

From Student Body Right to Student Body Slam.

Just ask Oregon State, which hobbled away Saturday night with a bag of ice on the left hand, a limp in the left ankle, and a darting look in the eyes.

And that was just the quarterback.

“I don’t know where to start,” Derek Anderson said after his team was finished in a 22-0 victory by the Trojans. “I’m pretty sore.”

Start with the Trojans giving up 131 yards to a team that had been averaging 500 yards.

Continue with the Beavers converting one third down in 15 attempts.

How about USC’s 14 tackles for losses?

Or that the Beavers crossed midfield only three times?

“We can’t have days like that,” Anderson said in disbelief. “We’re too good of an offense to go out there and not move the ball.”

Expect that tenor to be echoed by Pacific 10 football types everywhere today when they read the newspapers and digest the Saturday results and make the comparisons.

Arizona State scored 65 points. Washington State scored 48. Washington scored 41. Cal scored 38.

Oregon State, the highest-flying offense in the highest-flying conference, scored zilch?

While this victory was as thick as a 6-foot-4, 280-pounder, its face belonged to boyish Pete Carroll.

This plan of attack is what the former NFL defensive guru has been preaching since arriving here last year.

This is the first time that eternally restless Trojan fans have seen exactly what he is talking about.

“This is just what I’d hoped for,” said Carroll, who was given the game ball by players who understood. “I wanted to build a team that was different than everyone else in the conference. I wanted to build the defense that could give us that separation.”

So far this year, he’s done exactly that, the Trojans’ momentary freak-out against the Kansas State option notwithstanding.

Holding Auburn, Colorado and Oregon State to 473 yards combined will possibly raise a few hay-strewn eyebrows at the Pullman home of their next opponent, Washington State.

“Golly darn, we get that many yards in practice!”

Oregon State didn’t believe it either, even though the Beavers had just endured three hours of it.

Certainly, their previous four games were against weaker nonconference opponents, including Eastern Kentucky and Temple.

But this is still a Dennis Erickson team that could have claimed a national championship two years ago. And this was still the first time anybody had shut out the Beavers in five years.

“We’re shocked,” battered center Mike Kuykendall said. “To go from 500 yards a game to 131? To get beaten like that? Yeah, it’s a shock.”

Harder still for the Beavers to fathom was that it didn’t happen with gimmicks, but grit, an 11-man offense steamrollered by a four-man rush.

Said Erickson: “They really didn’t do much blitzing. It was just four guys. We really have to look at that.”

Said Carroll, smiling: “We have all those blitzes and all that stuff. We just haven’t had to use them much yet.”

The Trojan strength, nurtured by a Jimmy Johnson disciple named Ed Orgeron, is a four-man line that is swarming quick.

Shaun Cody and Kenechi Udeze on the left side. Mike Patterson and Omar Nazel on the right.

Remember the names. They echoed through the Coliseum on Saturday like the strains of “Conquest.”

Late in the second quarter, USC was leading, 6-0, but Oregon State was driving.

Third down on the USC 30, Stephen Jackson was nailed for a two-yard loss by Udeze.

Fourth down, Anderson was sacked for a seven-yard loss by Udeze, causing a fumble that was recovered by Cody.

On the ensuing possession, the Trojans drove for a touchdown.

Two plays that changed the game.

“They were really hungry for it today,” Kuykendall said.

From the moment safety DeShaun Hill cracked receiver Kenny Farley on the third play of the game ... to the moment Cody whacked Anderson and Nazel flattened Jackson on their last meaningful play in the third quarter.

“This is all about being different,” said Carroll, on a nasty day that felt precisely that.

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