Take heart, USC fans, the sun will still come up

EUGENE, ORE. -- Gosh, it’s gonna be fun in El Paso on New Year’s Eve, the cow-town Sun Bowl kicking off appropriately at high noon, Trojans honks wise now to make reservations at the Stampede Bar to finish off and, of course, forget 2007.

Some of the honks, I suspect, already started ringing out the year a few hours into Saturday afternoon, the season over for so many spoiled Trojans supporters -- believing it should always end with a championship game.

Come on, you’re gonna love El Paso, where the sun shines 302 days a year, and according to the Internet, “the El Paso City Council once voted to spend $112,000 to hire a private security firm to guard the city’s police station.” It’ll feel just like home.

And those people, who really have no sports teams to follow or anything else to do the rest of the year, are going to be thrilled having a team coming to their little city that everyone else thought would be playing in the Superdome.

Bring your parka, though -- the average temperature is around 43 degrees at the end of December -- but don’t worry, there should be plenty of campfires to keep everyone warm. Sitting around an El Paso campfire with Mike Garrett -- now that’d be a hoot, maybe singing some songs. “Fight on.”

By the way, there’s also a nice, warm Sun Bowl button-down, long-sleeve denim shirt available in the bowl catalog -- only $30 -- keeping in mind if you order after Dec. 28, it will be after Jan. 2 before you receive it. The perfect Christmas gift for the Trojans honk on your list?

This is what college football is all about, Trojans fans, losing to Stanford and Oregon when you figure to win them all, and still getting the chance to be charmed by Katherine Foust, who has already been selected your 2007 Miss Sun Bowl, with a very fetching Ashley Marchena serving as lady-in-waiting should something happen or indecent pictures of Miss Foust surface.

Only $375 for a table at the Rotary Club Sun Bowl luncheon to hear Uncle Pete tell everyone how excited he is to be in El Paso.

Yes, the important thing here is to look on the bright side of things after the Trojans’ 2007 choke job, No. 1 in the country to begin the season, but now down for the BCS count before Halloween.

Sure, Arizona State and Oregon are probably going to finish 1-2 in the conference, the winner going to the Rose Bowl and second in line going to the Holiday Bowl. But the Sun Bowl follows -- and although it’s still probably a longshot for the Trojans to make it there, it’s also a good reminder to the coaches and players that if they fail to meet expectations in the future this might be where they end up.

A fourth- or fifth-place finish sends the Trojans to the Emerald Bowl, or the Las Vegas Bowl, and UCLA fans are quite familiar with those season-ending scenarios. I guess you could say USC is having a UCLA-like season.

And how about the big game this year between UCLA and USC, both teams predicted by some to be undefeated when they met, but now maybe fighting it out to get free nuts.

Should the Trojans’ collapse continue, the sixth-place finisher in the Pac-10 will spend New Year’s Eve in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth.

Tough to say how it will go, but depending on just how upset you are with the Trojans, it’s your chance now to tell them where you would like them to go.

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OK, SO the big game didn’t go USC’s way, but this season hasn’t been a total waste -- not when you’re a party to the biggest upset in college football history.

As for Oregon, the oddsmakers thought USC might lose this one, which shows you how far the Trojans have slipped. And yet most Trojans honks had the team winning out and playing for the national championship. The lesson here: Never listen to a Trojans honk.

Trojans supporters, though, can be arrogant like that, and downright outraged when someone doesn’t recognize their domination. They’ve had it good for so long, all right, but right now the Trojans are nothing special, and it will be interesting to watch as they wrestle with that at next week’s homecoming game.

Today there will be some denial, Uncle Pete already producing the first “it would’ve been different” excuse, while citing Joe McKnight’s touchdown run negated by penalty.

The Trojans had a chance to take the crowd right out of this one. They recovered two early fumbles, including the opening kickoff, and could have established themselves once again as the Pac-10 bully. But unlike the Trojans of old, they’ve lacked that killer instinct all season.

Uncle Pete was so shellshocked afterward, he told the media “we were tied at the half,” although the scoreboard had the Ducks winning by a touchdown. Maybe that accounts for the final score, Uncle Pete never getting a firm grip on who was ahead.

It would explain the two running plays to start USC’s final drive.

“This game felt like a championship game,” he said, and at least he can say when the year is over, he felt what it was like to be in a championship game.

This is new territory for Uncle Pete -- if you don’t factor in his NFL career. When he finished with his media chores, he stopped by to say, “Hard job, isn’t it?”

Not really. I’m used to dealing with losses around here.

I really liked Karl Dorrell while he was coaching at UCLA. But that’s just the way it is in L.A. these days.

The Clippers lost Elton Brand before the season began, and now there’s an ESPN report that we might lose the Kobester soon to Chicago. There are also reports that Joe Girardi or Joe Torre might replace a likable Joe, Grady Little.

So when it comes to writing about yet another loss, a once-upon-a-time national championship contender that right now ranks way down there with South Florida, it’s not like it wasn’t expected.

When you lose to Stanford, can any of this be a surprise?

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.