Trojans’ New Mantra Sets Grim Tone

The three words slipped from his mouth in the same manner his USC football team had just escaped from Arizona State.

Quick and dirty.

“Just win, baby,” Pete Carroll said.

Just win, baby?

So much for the “Just Dominate” days of 2003, the “Just Overwhelm” days of 2004, the “Just Destroy” days of last season.

The past officially became the past Saturday, both in slogan and slugging percentage.

After a final-minutes, 28-21 victory over disorganized and undisciplined Arizona State, these Trojans proving beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not even close to being those Trojans.

Frankly, right now, they are not even Cal or Oregon.

“Cal and Oregon are a little more experienced, they do a lot of the same things, but I think they are better than USC,” said Sun Devils quarterback Rudy Carpenter.

He didn’t deliver a more accurate zinger all night.

Less than a year after being compared to the legendary teams in Oklahoma and Nebraska, the Trojans now seem to be something less than even Bears and Ducks.

“Close only counts in horseshoes,” protested Lawrence Jackson. “I mean, look at the scoreboard.”

Indeed, the Trojans reach the halfway point of their season unbeaten and probably ranked second in the nation.

But if you want to talk horseshoes, well, they are languishing in the middle of the dust pit with no stake in sight.

We know national championship teams. Pete Carroll has taught us all about national championship teams.

At the moment, this is no national championship team.

The Trojans survived Saturday night only because of a dozen really silly Sun Devil penalties and 10 really tough Chauncey Washington carries.

It took them until the final five minutes to defeat a team that lost to Cal and Oregon by an average of 32 points.

Their quarterback, John David Booty, completed less than half of his passes, lost a fumble, and, after misreading the defense, threw a pass that was intercepted and returned for a touchdown.

Their defense had just two sacks and once again did not force a turnover.

They enter their off week with a pretty face but a mouth full of tiny cavities, each of them just one wrong bite from a pain that could throb until January.

In the rankings, they are 6-0. On the field, they are 6-and-oh-no.

With consecutive November games against Oregon, Cal and Notre Dame, if they don’t improve, the bye will be followed with a bye-bye.

“We’re a different team, we’re very young, we’re very new, and it’s really hard to win, it’s really hard to do this,” Carroll said. “Everybody can worry if they want to worry, but we’re 6-0 and we feel OK about the direction we’re headed.”

Don’t kid yourself. Although Carroll may be doing one of his best coaching jobs to keep this team undefeated, he’s worried.

And if he’s not, well, he should be.

In choosing Booty over Mark Sanchez, do they have the wrong quarterback?

Will Washington stay sound enough to keep his hands wrapped around the lead running back position that he grabbed with 64 twisting, body-carrying yards in the game-winning drive Saturday night?

Defensively, will the young front seven start putting enough pressure on the quarterback to help the younger back four?

“We have a new team, and new issues,” Jackson said.

But the same old understandable impatience from the Trojan fans, who celebrated their 30th consecutive Coliseum victory with more than a few boos, and who can blame them?

The Trojans took a 21-0 lead barely one quarter into the game, and you know what should happen then.

“I really thought we were going to finally break out,” said Carroll.

Instead, as in close games against Washington State and Washington, they broke down.

The Sun Devils scored their first touchdown at the end of an 84-yard drive that included a conversion on third and 21, a screen pass that Ryan Torain grabbed and raced past confused linebackers.

“They pushed a little, but then we pushed back,” said Sun Devils safety Zach Catanese.

The Sun Devils scored their second touchdown after Booty tripped over a lineman’s foot and handed them the ball on the Trojans 30.

“The momentum changed, then we pushed more,” said Catanese.

The Sun Devils scored their third touchdown on the Keno Walter-White interception return after the bad Booty read, and things started to get ugly.

“I’ve never seen USC like that, like they wanted to fight after every play,” said Walter-White. “You could tell we had them a little frustrated. It’s like they didn’t know how to handle it.”

In the end, it was Arizona State Coach Dirk Koetter who didn’t know how to handle the clock, inexplicably punting away his team’s last opportunity to USC with 1:19 left, even though the Trojans could win without even getting a first down.

Yeah, Koetter apparently forgot that under the new rules, he had to burn one of his two remaining timeouts to stop the clock on change of possession.

But you sort of expect those things from Arizona State.

It is USC that must get smarter and stronger and better -- and quickly.

“I think we’re about to make that jump,” Carroll promised afterward.

If they do, with this new offense and depleted defense and all sorts of uncertainties, it may be the wildest, most exciting leap of the Carroll era.

Until then, he might want to consider tweaking his new slogan.

Just don’t look, baby.

Extra Points

Having used last winter to install new stadium seats, the Dodgers face an even greater mandate this off-season:

Redesign the parking lot.

They need to rework the lots and fix the traffic flow that, during big games, turns the place into something out of a Mad Max movie.

As one who has been numbed by the number of parking lot complaints over the years, I was nonetheless shocked at the stories that came from Game 3 of the National League Division Series.

It was gridlock. It was chaos. There was no place to park, no way to escape. And this was an hour before the first pitch.

At least one driver -- and he said there were others -- said he finally found an exit route and simply went home, eating his tickets and his pride.

Others insisted on fighting the madness and wound up missing the first three innings.

The Dodgers have attempted to address the problem after games by using city traffic controllers to direct the flow. They now need to do something to simply help everyone find a space.

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So Alex Rodriguez was on a plane that overran the runway at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank?

Here’s hoping the pilot was distracted by two flag-waving maniacs standing on the tarmac -- Frank McCourt and Arte Moreno.

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Does anybody think that a certain St. Louis Cardinals playoff hero looks nothing like a former Angels World Series hero?

Scott Spiezio, who was out of baseball most of last year after hitting .064 in 29 games for the Seattle Mariners, has returned not just with an improved swing, but a new, slimmer physique.

In an interview with me last fall, Spiezio denied ever using steroids.

Whatever the reason for his reduced mass, Angels fans are just glad that, four years ago in Game 6 of the World Series, he was strong enough to put a pop fly into the right-field stands.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.