USC coach Carroll: Ohio St. hype reason for Oregon St. loss
USC coach Pete Carroll attributes much of his success to the theory that no game is treated differently than the rest.
But as USC concluded its bye-week practices the other night, Carroll blamed the Trojans' only loss this season on an unusual culprit:
Hype.
Carroll said there was so much anticipation over the USC-Ohio State game on Sept. 13 that it led to the loss to Oregon State nearly two weeks later.
"It was too big of a relief of stress and buildup,"
Carroll said. "There was a whole year of talking about it. This was an unusually significant game. That's what I'm guessing."
That is an almost unheard-of reason for a loss under Carroll's steady structure. And it's a relevant question today because USC faced a bye week between Ohio State and Oregon State. Could this week's bye provide a similar trap when USC plays Notre Dame on Nov.29?
History shows Carroll is slightly less successful in bye weeks. He's won 76percent of games following a bye. But he's won 88 percent of his regular-season games without a bye.
Carroll's theory is not shared by the Trojans, who believe the loss to Oregon State was unrelated to the blowout of Ohio State.
"Oregon State just beat us,"
defensive end Kyle Moore said. "We weren't clicking on offense or defense. We had great practices during the bye week. We just had a bad game."
Defensive end Fili Moala said the Trojans violated another of Carroll's cardinal-and-gold rules by taking the Beavers lightly.
"I think we just underestimated them,"
he said. "There was no flatness."
"There's not really anything I can think of that would cause us to be flat against Oregon State or against Notre Dame. The same thing that happened that bye week happened this week. The young guys played a lot. There's going to be no letdown against Notre Dame. We weathered the storm this season when we had adversity."
Trojans offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian said the common factor before the Oregon State and Notre Dame games was the tempo of practices.
"I thought we had good practices then and we've had good ones this week, too,"
he said. "It could have been that we had a letdown after Ohio State. Obviously, we didn't play well in the first half (against Oregon State)."
It would seem implausible that USC would lose its edge against traditional rival Notre Dame, something Moala pointed out Thursday.
"We'll play our last game at the Coliseum and it's Notre Dame,"
he said. "That's enough to want to finish strong."
But the Trojans won't get any extra help from Carroll, who ignores most of the Trojan-Irish tradition. He is a polar opposite of Lou Holtz, the first coach who hired him after he left his alma mater, Pacific. Holtz famously gave his Notre Dame players a quiz before the USC game.
"We're not going to prepare any differently,"
Carroll said. "They're not going to hear a lot from me. I don't go there with tradition. I'm not going to talk about (the tradition). For seven years now, I haven't done it. I did it eight years ago."
That was a reference to his first USC-Notre Dame game, when he took the Trojans to some of the famous sites in South Bend, Ind., the day before the game and USC lost 26-15, Carroll's only setback against the Irish and his largest margin of defeat in eight years as USC's coach.
Of course, the fact it was his worst USC team probably meant more than anything he did before the game.
"I grew up knowing the history,"
Carroll said. "The buildup between the fans and universities is a wonderful thing. It's critically important for our alums and fans."
"I just don't treat it the way fans expect we would."
If Carroll is right about the Ohio State effect, maybe he can relax because no one is celebrating too much after the Trojans defeated Stanford last weekend.
"I really don't know what happened before Oregon State and I can't put my finger on it,"
wide receiver Patrick Turner said. "Actually, it's pretty hard to remember what even happened back then because all these games start folding together after a while."
