USC Drops Ball, Lead and Game

PALO ALTO â€”  It was a dramatic finish, but that was the best USC’s inept offense could do Saturday night . . . make it close.

The Trojans lost to Stanford, 24-20, when, with no time left, half a dozen players went airborne in Stanford’s end zone, all groping for Brad Otton’s pass.

Stanford’s Tim Smith came away with it, an interception that plummeted USC into the Pacific 10’s second division with a 3-4 conference record, 5-5 overall.

And talk about going into the pressure cooker. The Trojans have two games remaining: UCLA and Notre Dame.

USC Coach John Robinson could only state the obvious.

“I think we were in control in the first half,� he said. “We didn’t do much in the second half. Stanford made the plays, we did not. They played hard, we didn’t. We were shut down.

“I can’t analyze it more than that.�

It was the Trojans’ first loss to Stanford since 1991 and its second at Stanford since 1980.

USC was facing statistically the worst running team in the conference, yet Stanford gained 195 yards on USC, most of it after halftime, when USC had a 20-7 lead.

And yes, the demons were on the Trojan bench again:

--Dropped passes? Six Saturday night, the worst performance yet by Robinson’s shell-shocked receivers.

--Poor pass-blocking? The worst yet. When Otton wasn’t running for his life, he was watching R. Jay Soward drop four passes, Rodney Sermons and Chris Miller one each.

For the first time in his three-season USC career, Otton threw more than one interception--three.

USC now needs victories over UCLA and Notre Dame to avoid its first losing season since a 3-8 mark in 1991, also the last Trojan team not to play in a bowl.

Stanford went 70 yards in less than three minutes of the third quarter to cut USC’s lead to 20-14.

The big play in the drive was a 40-yard run by Mike Mitchell to the USC four, where Brian Kelly shoved him out of bounds. Mitchell, who finished with 147 yards in 22 carries, ran it in from there.

The Cardinal (4-5, 3-3) went ahead, 21-20, with 1:54 left in the third quarter when a Soward drop--this one resulting in a Stanford interception--set up a 65-yard scoring march.

When Otton’s pass bounced off Soward at Stanford’s 35, Leroy Pruitt made the interception, and quarterback Chad Hutchinson and Mitchell went to work.

Mitchell ran for 13 yards, thanks to a great block by tackle Brad Badger on USC’s Chris Claiborne, and Hutchinson and Andre Kirwin combined for a 22-yard play to the USC 10. Fullback Greg Comella dragged several Trojans to the two and he scored on the next play from there. Kevin Miller’s conversion put Stanford ahead for the first time.

Pete Swanson intercepted Otton’s pass with 2:07 left. The Trojans still had another chance after Miller’s 32-yard field goal with 32 seconds left made the score 24-20, but Smith’s end-zone interception ended it.

USC dominated the first half.

Soward made a remarkable, juggling catch in heavy traffic to score USC’s first touchdown, and it seemed at least for a couple of minutes that he had broken his string of dropped balls.

On the Trojans’ second possession, LaVale Woods had carried six times to Stanford’s 33, where Otton found Soward in a crowd over the middle. Soward bobbled it, grabbed it, then broke two tackles on two sharp cuts and finished it with a dive into the end zone.

The 7-0 lead lasted the length of the ensuing commercial.

Stanford junior David Duncan dropped the kickoff, and nearly went down when the first Trojan he encountered, Grant Pearsall, got an arm on his leg. But Duncan broke it and ran in front of the Cardinal bench 94 yards for the tie.

It was his second kickoff return for a score this year, the third of his career.

Woods was the main gun on USC’s next drive, a 43-yarder that resulted in a 27-yard Adam Abrams field goal.

First, Woods nearly broke the kickoff return, returning the short kick 25 yards to the Trojan 47. An Otton-to-Miller pass gained 21, then Woods ran left for 17, to Stanford’s 15.

After Delon Washington gained one, Soward dropped the first of two passes he would drop in the first quarter. Enter Abrams.

Soward muffed another pass on the next drive, but made up for it with a 23-yard reception that set the table for the Trojans’ second touchdown. The play put USC at the Stanford four, where Otton found Miller in the end zone on the first play of the second quarter, finishing a 64-yard march.

The lead reached 20-7 late in the half when Abrams kicked another 27-yard field goal.

Soward had an amazing first half. He had three drops . . . and four catches for 77 yards.