Losing to Cal? That’s so last week

So this is how you beat Cal.

There’s really nothing to it, but a week ago I didn’t think it could be done after watching the Bears just cream the poor souls they embarrassed.

But my thanks to the University of Southern California; I find USC to be so educationally minded, on this gloomy Saturday teaching everyone if you just do your homework, it’s easy to crush Cal.

It’s a fine lesson for youngsters everywhere, and for everyone else I would imagine, just a pleasure to watch a good team at work.

USC left no questions unanswered against Cal, save what’s wrong with the team and coaches that couldn’t solve anything Cal threw at them a week ago.

Cal began last week’s game doing whatever it pleased, 10 plays covering 70 yards and scoring. It was as if the Bears were matched against their own scout team.

The Bears ran untouched for 304 yards, making it appear as if the other team had failed to show up or was worried about failed drug tests.

As it turns out, it’s not that tough to stop the Bears. They had only 52 rushing yards against USC, and everyone says USC doesn’t know how to tackle.

The Trojans supposedly have problems on defense, or so Plaschke writes all the time. I would certainly hope he takes his Sunday epistle and spends just as much time praising their quality play against Cal as he has picking them apart.

For the record, the first time the Bears had the ball, they could not contend with the Trojans’ mighty defense. They had two running plays and an incomplete pass thanks to the work of Devon Kennard and T.J. McDonald (and I like the sound of that, T.J.; undoubtedly a star in the making).

When USC got the ball the first time, the Trojans ran a play without a penalty, and imagine that. The team I watched last week seemingly began every offensive series holding the Bears, as if it’s really necessary when playing Cal.

USC didn’t hold once on the opening drive and went 56 yards in six plays to score. The team that Cal played a week ago didn’t even score in the first half.

USC quarterback Matt Barkley threw a great pass to wide receiver Robert Woods, who made a diving catch for the Trojans’ first touchdown. It’s amazing what happens when wide receivers actually catch the ball.

I was at a game this season in Kansas, and I don’t think the team I was following had a receiver catch a single pass all day. I have to hand it to USC for recruiting players who can catch. What an idea.

Anyway it was 7-0 USC, but everyone knows by now the Bears scored 35 points a week ago, so unless they were playing a really crummy team then, they had the potential to explode.

But the second time Cal got the ball, once again the Bears ran only three plays. On fourth and 20, Cal punted. Maybe the Bears really were playing a crummy team last week.

USC continued to school Cal, taking a 14-0 lead into the second quarter. Now isn’t that interesting — last week Cal had the 14-0 lead.

Up on the Coliseum scoreboard they were saying, “Trojan life — there’s nothing like it,” and why would anyone go to Cal, that’s for sure.

The Cal students here didn’t even know the words to the national anthem, screaming out “blue,” when everyone knows it’s, “rockets’ red glare.” Go ahead and protest if you like, but it’s true.

Around here it’s all about winning football games. Or, as Saturday’s $6 game program put it, “The Trojans are playing their hearts out during the most turmoil-laden season in years and are two plays away from being unbeaten.”

I got chills reading that. We might all be witnesses to the quickest cheating turnaround in sports history.

USC no longer admits cash-carrying agents to the stadium if they admit who they are at the pass gate, and has closed the locker room to the media, so any private deals struck between recruits and coaches won’t be noticed.

New Athletic Director Pat Haden told the crowd, “We plan to win the right way,” and although it was a recorded message paying homage to the school’s new president and he was slobbering all over his boss, I would have felt better had he said, “We promise to win the right way.”

I would guess Uncle Pete and Mike Garrett had planned to win the right way too.

But I digress, because this game was boring.

The Bears trailed 42-0 at halftime, a week after they took a 28-0 lead to the locker room. That’s a 70-point swing, and a frightening lesson for the team that lost to Cal 35-7 a week ago: If Cal stinks, they must really stink.

Cal gave it a go in the second half, just like the team it beat 35-7. Last week, Cal’s opponent claimed a moral victory when it went 7-7 in the second half, the team’s Pop Warner coach saying later he was “pleased,” and then taking them all out for ice cream.

It has already been a learning season for the fans of the team Cal embarrassed. Yet, many of those fans began last week believing their team was on the upswing.

It’s amazing, all right, how clueless fans can be. But thanks to the fine folks here at USC, they are now a little more educated.

t.j.simers@latimes.com