EUGENE, Ore. - Quarterback Mark Sanchez said the game was his fault.
"This team has the capability to [score the tying touchdown]," he said. "I can't let them down like that. I can't take us out of the ball game."
While Sanchez's costly interceptions might have spelled USC's ultimate fate, few of Sanchez's teammates would agree with him.
Fullback Stanley Havili said there was no excuse for his fumble when the game was tied in the third quarter.
"I got careless with the ball," he said. "[I] didn't have two hands on the rock."
Split end David Ausberry cited the team's inability to capitalize on Oregon turnovers as the game's biggest letdown.
"Not taking advantage of being within scoring distance," he said. "It's frustrating not maximizing your point opportunities."
USC coach Pete Carroll admitted that during the first half, there was a span of time when Oregon's offensive was a few beats too fast for USC's defense to handle.
"There was a time in there that they were ahead of us in the tempo," he said.
Sanchez's two interceptions were glaring - the quarterback is always placed under a lens, and he had set the bar high for himself after his performance against Notre Dame - but his two critical mistakes were two items on the laundry list of errors the Trojans compiled throughout the game.
All year, USC has said after every contest that it will clean up the mistakes. The Trojans never made good on their promises, and Saturday the lackluster play finally did them in.
And unlike the aftermath of the Stanford loss, this time there will be no chance at redemption.
After the win at Washington, in which USC piled up an absurd 18 penalties, the team said the focus would be on cleaning up the sloppy play.
It didn't.
After the loss to Stanford, the team said the focus would be on moving forward and playing up to its potential.
It didn't.
After the tight win over Arizona, the team said the focus would be on minimizing critical errors and turnovers that keep games unnecessarily close. It didn't.
USC had six penalties that cost it a total of 80 yards. Oregon had one false start penalty for five yards.
A 65-yard Joe McKnight run for an apparent touchdown was called back because of a holding penalty on right tackle Drew Radovich - McKnight was through the hole at the time of the hold.
Three plays later, USC punted.
In the second quarter, cornerback Terrell Thomas was in perfect position to intercept a third-down pass by Dennis Dixon, but instead of turning around, he ran into receiver Garren Strong for a 15-yard pass interference penalty.
The Ducks turned the extended drive into a field goal
On USC's first play after Oregon had taken a 24-10 lead in the fourth quarter, left guard Jeff Byers was called for an offensive face mask - one of the rarest penalties in football - that put the Trojans back at their own 10-yard line.
Four plays later, they punted.
Citing missed opportunities has become a broken record for this year's Trojans. Big fourth quarter drives and surviving on superior talent held their fragile national title dreams intact to this point, but a road game against a worthy opponent brought the inevitable to fruition.
"Oregon didn't have any critical errors," Carroll said. "They hung onto the ball well, made good decisions and I have to congratulate them."
USC outgained Oregon 378 to 339 and held the Ducks to a season-low 24 points, but it wasn't enough.
"They probably got about half the yards they normally get [and] about half the points they normally get," Carroll said. "That's a pretty good day in that regard, but it wasn't good enough on this day."
Aside from the penalties, USC turned the ball over three times - twice to kill drives in Oregon territory and once on its own 11-yard line to set up a Ducks touchdown.
Oregon turned the ball over twice on kickoff and punt returns, but USC only gained three points.
After the first turnover, the Trojans faced a fourth-and-1 on the Oregon 12-yard line. McKnight's number was called on an end around, and he lost a yard, giving the ball back to the Ducks.
"We practice fourth-and-1s," Sanchez said. "It doesn't matter the play; we should get 1 yard regardless."
After scoring with less than four minutes to play to get within 7, the collective sentiment on the Trojan sideline was they would come back to extend the game into overtime.
"We didn't have those early mistakes and that's why it looked so good," Sanchez said about the fourth quarter. "It would have looked like that at the beginning, but we kept on messing up the little things."
The little things dug the Trojans in a hole, and the big interception ensured they wouldn't climb out.
"A mistake or two can cost us the game," Sanchez said.
Maybe not one or two, but certainly 10.
