It’s Four Weeks Later, and Carroll Is Still Losing

It was Wednesday, four weeks to the day since they became the Big Losers, and significantly USC’s football coach, you know, Old What’s His Name, was a no-show for an afternoon news conference -- word spreading among the media that the Trojans had lost another one.

Around college football it was the official day to restock rosters, and obviously if any team in this town needs to do that, it’s the one with the losing streak.

They landed the top “eight or nine players” in California, according to the biased calculations of USC’s coach. But they also wanted the best offensive lineman out of Alabama and another from Florida, and lost both.

It’s easy to understand why fat people might not want to move to California, but just a short time ago USC was known best for never losing.

Now I have no idea how long the mourning period goes for losing a national championship, but I never did see Mike Garrett, and for all I know he’s still perched on a ledge somewhere high over the USC campus.

(And I’m pretty sure I won’t be the one asked to talk him down.)

Once Pete Carroll arrived to chat, the first time I’ve seen him since he was blowing the national title, I eased into the discussion, wanting to know if the Rose Bowl had been one of the worst coaching performances of his career.

He stuttered some, which meant I had to make it more of a statement than a question so he could get a feel what it’s been like to be Karl Dorrell the last few years, and he said, “I agree with you; it was not one of my better days.”

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I CERTAINLY don’t want to kick a team while it’s mired in such a losing streak, but after throwing away a chance to make history, I asked Carroll if he had replayed some of the horrid decisions he made, which brought us to the fourth-down run by LenDale White.

“I would do it all over again,” he said and so would I -- with one proviso.

“This time with Reggie Bush on the field as a decoy,” I said, and with a lilt in my voice suggesting I was only stating the obvious.

“We don’t do that,” he said.

I know, and that’s why all your fans are holding up two fingers these days to indicate, “We’re No. 2.”

“We scored earlier in the game on fourth and one in the same situation,” he said, insisting there was no reason to have Bush on the field, “and I was thinking we might pop it again. I wasn’t thinking some decoy thing.”

“Bush as a decoy, spreading out the defense, though, seems to make sense,” I said. And for the record, I’ve never lost a game.

“A decoy? That’s not a real astute football perspective,” he said with more than a hint of defiance.

“Are you trying to tell me my idea stinks?”

“There you go,” he said.

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HE PROBABLY talks that way to everyone dressed in a baby blue shirt and muttering “fight, fight, fight” under their breath, so I didn’t take offense.

I was curious to know, though, how hard he took defeat after so many wins in a row? And nearly a month after the belly flop, was it all behind him?

“I’m pretty rough on myself,” he said, although I got the impression not nearly as rough as Page 2 could be if given the chance. “I realize how close we were. We were two inches away from still being undefeated.”

Two more inches and Kwame Brown is, well, probably still a stiff, but there’s no question in Carroll’s mind, two more inches by White and USC wins. I suspect he’ll be seeing those chains stretched out for years to come.

“I just got through the film of the game for the first time,” he said, and while admitting he “could kick himself” for some things, he said, “I think I’m handling it well. I’m not really disappointed because we were so close to doing it again.... “

And that’s where he lost me.

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I TUNED in to the Laker radio broadcast on 570 to hear the understated Spero Dedes proclaim, “The Lakers are in serious trouble, down 90-67.” Then he made it clear the Lakers weren’t going to rally, saying, “Devean George shoots from the corner.... “

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ELTON BRAND, who scored more than 30 points five times last season, has done it a dozen times this year, raising the local question: Who makes a better case for MVP consideration, Brand or Kobe Bryant?

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THE ATTORNEY for Anaheim asked Angel owner Arte Moreno recently why he didn’t talk to Dodger owner Frank McCourt about changing the team’s name to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Moreno said he had no interest in talking to McCourt, and while I can relate, I wonder if Moreno knows former Angel owner Gene Autry paid Dodger owner Walter O’Malley $300,000 in 1960, in part, for the exclusive right to call the team, the “Los Angeles Angels.”

Moreno’s franchise already owns the “Los Angeles” name, and with the stadium lease calling for him to include “Anaheim” in the team’s name, what’s all the fuss about?

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from the Lingerie Bowl:

“Joey Buttafuoco and ‘Long Island Lolita’ Amy Fisher are headed for a reunion, and their first televised meeting in 15 years will take place Sunday, live on Pay-Per-View in front of thousands at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for Lingerie Bowl III. The erstwhile lovers will meet on the 50-yard line for the coin toss.”

What a surprise money would bring them together.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.