Los Angeles – For a little insight into the secret of Southern California’s 34-game win streak, sneak a peek into one of its practices. Actually, there’s no need to sneak. The public always has been welcome. What’s there to hide when no one has stopped you in two years?
Stand on the sideline and watch head coach Pete Carroll diving over the line on goal-line drills. Watch him throw footballs to his sons afterward while his players do endless interviews. Oh, don’t get too worked up over player pranks.
“The big thing about us is we’re having fun, no matter the environment,” quarterback Matt Leinart said. “Why stress? Why put pressure on ourselves when it’s supposed to be fun?”
Besides, the Trojans must blow off a little steam. Their practices have an intensity rarely seen elsewhere in the country. Every Tuesday and Wednesday, USC’s first-string offense goes against its first-string defense. If a player fails, he won’t be first-string much longer.
The formula has put top- ranked USC (12-0) on the brink of the record book. Besides being a Rose Bowl win over No. 2 Texas (12-0) on Wednesday from an unprecedented third straight national title, USC’s 34 straight wins are tied for the sixth-longest streak in history.
Major-college football hasn’t seen a longer streak since Toledo ran off 35 from 1969-71.
“It’s pretty amazing,” said UCLA coach Karl Dorrell, USC’s most recent victim, to the tune of 66-19. “To win (34) in a row is very, very difficult, knowing you’ll get teams – 11 times this year – giving their best shot to beat you.”
The Trojans have won their 34 straight by an average of 44-17. Only six opponents have come within single figures, and four of those games came last season. USC isn’t dieting on cupcakes, either. Among the 34 victims are 16 ranked in the top 25, including seven in the top seven.
Also, consider the streak if California hadn’t beaten USC in triple overtime, 34-31, in its fourth game of the season two years ago. The streak would stand at 45.
Focus is an overused term in sports, but it’s the essence of any win streak. Carroll builds focus in practice. USC has six underclassmen starting ahead of upperclassmen. Under Carroll, the best player plays. They prove it in practice, and the players know it.
Every day.
“The intensity of practice, from Day One since he’s been here, is always about competition,” Leinart said. “You always push the guy ahead of you. You never know when you can take the spot over. Guys feed off that. We’ve been pushing each other to the limit every day in practice.
“I’ve seen other teams on TV. They practice and they’re walking around. They’re intense, but they can’t be like ours.”
This is one reason USC’s defense, considered the team’s weak link, has improved so much since the start of the season. With seven new starters after losing five All-Americans, USC’s defense leads the nation in turnover margin at plus-1.8, thanks to 19 turnovers in the past four games.
The result is games are often less stressful than practice. Take last season’s Orange Bowl. Moments before USC played Oklahoma for the national title, the Trojans were in the locker room cracking jokes as if they were at a dorm party.
Then they buried the Sooners 55-19.
“We just love it,” Leinart said. “It looks like we’re having so much fun. We’re smiling and joking, but at the same time it’s business. We’re always relaxed. At the Orange Bowl, at halftime we were up by 30 and still fired up: ‘Let’s go get more!”‘
Leinart is talking points, not wins. The streak gets discussed in USC’s locker room about as much as the French economy. It’s not that Carroll is superstitious. He just knows looking ahead is too dangerous.
“We don’t need extra motivation,” Carroll said. “We don’t need to be juiced up for where we are. We don’t need some record-breaking opportunity. They never hear me talk about it because I don’t believe it has anything to do with it.”
Sounds simple. Why doesn’t every team do this?
“You can always say that stuff, but can you live it?” Carroll said. “That’s the mastering of it. Can you live the approach and live the philosophy and not waver and not go to the human nature thought of, ‘Oh, boy, we’re playing Cal this weekend and we got to win this big game because we lost there two years ago!’ That wasn’t what we talked about. Everybody tried to get us to talk about that, but that wasn’t our focus.”
The current focus is on Texas, a 7 1/2-point underdog. A USC win would put the nation’s focus on the streak again next season, this time with double the intensity. If the Trojans run the table, their national championship game in Tempe, Ariz., will be for consecutive win No. 48, breaking Oklahoma’s 49-year-old record.
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
