Win. Repeat.

In terms of posterity, nothing can stop the USC pound machine now except, well, the usual culprits -- envy, greed, sloth and any number of billionaire NFL owners.

It’s fair to say after USC’s 55-19 crowning of Oklahoma in Tuesday’s national-title game that the Trojans are primed at college football history’s pump.

USC became only the 10th team since 1936 to win consecutive Associated Press national titles and there may be many more to come.

Trojan Coach Pete Carroll has engineered a program game plan that is comparable to any that have been conjured.

USC is a football conservatory of enthusiasm, competition, education, talent and inertia.

Carroll has constructed a paradigm that was once forbidden in the NCAA -- promising incoming freshmen the chance to unseat seniors.

In the era of 24-hour cable and me-first, Carroll has put no age-limit restriction on career advancement.

Old coaches used to say you lost a game for every freshman you started, yet Carroll started Dwayne Jarrett at receiver this season and went 13-0.

USC has so many destiny-bound players in storage the Trojan football factory almost needs to move inventory to keep customers happy.

It’s not that Carroll wants quarterback Matt Leinart to turn pro -- he’s saying the exact opposite -- but you sense Carroll relishes the idea of the next great thing.

“I’m not trying to make room for other guys,” Carroll said Wednesday. “I just try and keep them competing. If a young guy can take an older guy’s spot, I don’t mind a bit.”

Had receiver Mike Williams not foolishly tried to turn pro last year, clearing out roster space, how much would Jarrett’s development have been slowed?

USC replaced Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer with ... another Heisman winner.

And if Leinart leaves early for the NFL, which is exactly what he should do, Carroll is ready to replenish.

Waiting on the tarmac are three touted quarterbacks -- John David Booty, Rocky Hinds and Mission Viejo quarterback Mark Sanchez.

“Our program is built on competition, and it’s just part of the way we think,” Carroll said. “There’s another guy just chomping at the bit to take your spot.”

The question at USC now is, how long can they keep this up?

Dynasties are fragile, tenuous things, much more difficult to care for than when Notre Dame ruled the Earth under Knute Rockne, a Roaring ‘20s time when the NFL was a fledgling and inferior product.

Red Blaik established lasting moments at Army in the 1940s, Bud Wilkinson at Oklahoma in the 1950s, Bear Bryant at Alabama in the 1960s.

John McKay and Tom Osborne made indelible stamps, but they almost seem like museum portraits now.

These days, dynasties are more easily disrupted.

In 1977, the NCAA leveled the playing field by limiting scholarships to 95. Since, that number has been whittled to 85.

It is tougher now for programs to stash star players, although USC seems to be making a go of it.

Dynasties can be derailed by any number of things:

* Scandal. Miami was going full tilt in the 1980s until it was sanctioned back to the basement, only to rise again. Oklahoma dominance in the 1980s was curtailed by tall tales of guns in dormitories.

* Player defections. Miami finished No. 2 in 2000, No. 1 a year later and No. 2 in 2002, but a mass of NFL defections (Miami had six first-round draft picks last year) has made it tougher to reload.

* Coaching salaries. Simply put, the NFL pays more. Butch Davis left what he had built at Miami for the Cleveland Browns. Louisiana State might have challenged USC for years to come had Miami Dolphin owner Wayne Huizenga not lured away Nick Saban.

* Special circumstances. Osborne’s Nebraska program finally reached dynasty status in the 1990s -- winning two AP titles and a coaches’ crown -- and then he retired.

Bobby Bowden has won two titles at Florida State but never strung together more pearls because of the epitaph Bowden vows will be on his tombstone: “ ... but he played Miami.”

Joe Paterno enjoyed sustained excellence -- until recently -- at Penn State, winning national titles in 1982 and ‘86, yet the Nittany Lions haven’t really been the same since joining the Big Ten a decade ago.

Posterity is precarious.

Had Oklahoma won its second title of the 21st century Tuesday night, momentum might have shifted to Norman.

Instead, the Sooner psyche might have been irrevocably damaged.

Dynasties are about timing and momentum, and there seems little doubt that USC’s dominance has a chance to be long-lasting.

Carroll can be Blaik or Bryant, yet he operates in a different time and place.

A guy who coaches as if he has ants in his pants, Carroll might get the itch to do something else.

Coaches tend to see their careers as a series of mountain climbs.

You scale McKinley, then Kilimanjaro -- how can you not climb Everest?

How long before an NFL team comes along and blows away Carroll with an offer he can’t refuse, even if his heart tells him he was born to coach college kids?

How long before Carroll, now emboldened, has to prove he can do in the NFL what he failed to do before?

There is no way of handicapping any of this, just as it was impossible to predict USC would blow the doors off Tuesday’s Orange Bowl.

There is a sense, however, that USC can put together as good a five-year run as any in college annals.

King Carroll is on the threshold of something historic.

Yet, the tether that separates success from failure is subject to fraying.

Paterno and Bowden are dinosaurs in terms of long-term college commitments. They were men who resisted NFL overtures and temptations to build long-lasting memories.

They are also unique men in unique circumstances.

Sport, by nature, is an ephemeral creature.

The big money being passed out now can flat-out wear you down.

It can decay character.

It can cloud clear minds, alter perspective and context.

Carroll knows he has a good thing going but, at one point, didn’t they all?

*

(Begin Text of Infobox)

Decade dominance

Schools with multiple national championships by decade since AP started awarding titles in 1936 (*UPI):

*--* 1940s

*--*

Minnesota...1940, 1941

Notre Dame...1943, 1946, 1947, 1949

Army...1944, 1945

*--* 1950s

*--*

Oklahoma...1950, 1955, 1956

Ohio State...1954, *1957

*--* 1960s

*--*

Alabama...1961, 1964, 1965

USC...1962, 1967

Texas...1963, 1969

*--* 1970s

*--*

Nebraska...1970, 1971

USC...1972, *1978

Notre Dame...1973, 1977

Alabama...*1973, 1978, 1979

Oklahoma...1974, 1975

*--* 1980s

*--*

Miami...1983, 1987, 1989

*--* 1990s

*--*

Florida State...1993, 1999

Nebraska...1994, 1995

*--* 2000s

*--*

USC...2003, 2004

*

Top of the Charts

USC has been voted No. 1 at the end of the season by the Associated Press five times.

*--* Notre Dame 8 Texas 2 Oklahoma 7 Auburn 1 Alabama 6 Brigham Young 1 Miami 5 Clemson 1 USC 5 Colorado 1 Minnesota 4 Florida 1 Nebraska 4 Georgia 1 Ohio State 4 Louisiana State 1 Army 2 Maryland 1 Florida State 2 Michigan State 1 Michigan 2 Syracuse 1 Penn State 2 Texas A&M; 1 Pittsburgh 2 Texas Christian 1 Tennessee 2

*--*

*--* FINAL AP, ESPN/USA TODAY POLLS D9

*--*