Brace yourself. The mighty Trojans' last three losses have come against Oregon State, UCLA and Stanford.
Saturday's stunning defeat against the Cardinal might have topped them all, but the loss brings light to a tendency that has plagued the team over the past five seasons.
Pete Carroll struggles at times preparing his team against lower-level competition.
While players have come and gone, any true Trojan fan has the right to question what is causing these hiccups to appear year after year.
"We didn't play up to our standards the last two weeks and it caught up to us," senior cornerback Terrell Thomas said. "We just have to stop making turnovers. We have to get the ball on defense, and we just have to execute on both sides, and we'll be fine."
At some point, continued turnovers and sloppy play in each of these games begin to show that these issues are not just an aberration or a coincidence. This has become an indicative trend that has followed Carroll through the last five years.
Another loss to an unranked team evokes memories of the games last year that cost the Trojans a chance to play in another national championship game.
Using SEC reasoning, it is nearly impossible to go undefeated because of the top tier teams. Unfortunately, USC seems to have the opposite problem.
While Carroll has made a living beating big teams when it matters most, he has also been unable to maintain that same level of success against weaker teams.
Carroll is an astounding 17-1 against ranked opponents since 2003 (17-0 against teams that were not quarterbacked by Vince Young). In that time, however, Carroll has lost to four unranked opponents, including the triple overtime loss at Cal in 2003.
Remember last year when nobody said the team would be able to make it through their November gauntlet of Oregon, Cal and Notre Dame - teams that were all ranked in the Top 25 at the time?
Those games ended with scores of 35-10, 23-9 and 44-24, with the biggest win coming against the highest-ranked team, the No. 6 Irish. The following week came the 13-9 loss to the Bruins.
It's a shame 6-5 UCLA wasn't ranked.
Following an unimpressive win over Idaho this season, the Trojans were faced with a difficult road game against then No. 14 Nebraska. The Trojans came out in typical big-game fashion and left Lincoln with a 49-31 win in a game not nearly as close as the score.
While Nebraska has since slipped from the rankings, USC gave its most inspired performance of the season in the most hyped game of the year thus far. The receivers were still inexperienced. Booty's timing was off. Yet they were still able to dominate nearly the entire game.
"I just feel like maybe the focus may be stronger at those times," secondary coach Rocky Seto said about the team's success in big games.
It'd be nice if we could find that level of awareness and focus every week.
After struggling mightily against Washington, Stanford played the role of Oregon State and came out on top, once again jump-starting the negative trend against unranked teams. (Look at the scores before the Oregon State game last year for other single-digit wins over unranked teams preceding a loss.)
Players tell the media they prepare the same week-in and week-out, no matter who they are playing. When they lose, they simply say they made too many mistakes.
As the losses to unranked opponents continue, you have to look beyond the players on the field and question why these games seem to give the team the most trouble.
"It just kind of felt flat," Thomas said of the energy level heading into the Stanford game.
Carroll's biggest challenge may be overcoming his "fatal flaw" by reaching the same level of preparation and energy as the big games.
"We like that challenge," Thomas said. "When a big team is coming into our Coliseum, when we're going on the road to shut down whoever, we take on that challenge. We take pride in going in there and beating them."
So what does that mean for this year's team?
This year's Trojan team faces a tough second-half schedule with games on the road at Oregon, Cal and Arizona State - all teams ranked in the top 15 - lending plenty of chances to make a statement in the big game.
If the team follows its recent trend, there's hope on the Trojan horizon.
Carroll will have a chance to improve his record against ranked opponents to 20-1 since 2003, and get the team back into the thick of the national championship race.
- To comment on this story, visit www.dailytrojan.com or e-mail Joe at jsturner@usc.edu.
