No Playoff, so No Just Payoff for Trojans

MIAMI —  One more week.

The USC football players stalked away from the steaming rubble of another broken opponent Thursday night, their shoes caked in Iowa gold, their socks splattered with Hawkeye black.

Their fans chanting, their eyes misting, they were brimming with heart and awash in history and lacking but a single thing.

One more week.

One more game.

One chance to play the winner of tonight’s Fiesta Bowl and prove what anyone who has been within shouting distance of them already knows for absolute fact.

This is the best team in the country.

Miami wouldn’t hang with them, Ohio State wouldn’t touch them, and Iowa was overwhelmed by them, 38-17, in an Orange Bowl that surely turned college football experts green.

“Tell them to put this in their pipe and smoke it!” shouted Omar Nazel afterward as the Trojans hugged and swaggered across the Pro Player Stadium field to the beat of the Trojan band.

Kareem Kelly shook his head in awe as the Iowa players staggered past him to safety, their breath gone and their pride whacked.

“We’ll play the Fiesta Bowl winner, next week, put it on pay per view!” he said, pausing to consider the strong tenor of his statement. “Take that back. We’ll play them in two days!”

USC wasn’t the best team at the start of the season, it wasn’t the best team at the end of October, but it is impossible to imagine anybody better right now.

Not just beating the nationally third-ranked Iowans, but turning them into the football version of a Farmer’s tan?

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been in one of these,” said Kirk Ferentz, the Hawkeyes’ coach.

Gaining 550 yards against a Big Ten powerhouse, including running for 247 yards against the nation’s second-ranked rushing defense?

“They were big, but big isn’t everything,” center Norm Katnik said with a grin. “We were quicker to the punch. And we just kept punching.”

And not just stopping the second-place finisher in the Heisman Trophy voting, but so thoroughly confusing Brad Banks that he missed on more than half his passes while his offense didn’t score a touchdown until final-minute garbage time?

“What we did,” said Nazel, “was dismantle them.”

It was as clear as Banks’ dazed eyes during a second half in which USC kept him from moving into Trojan territory until the final minute of the game.

“After a while, you could see him looking left, right, everywhere, never where he was supposed to look,” said safety Jason Leach, who had an interception.

It was as poignant as the Iowa defenders’ body language when the Trojans started the second half with drives covering enough yardage to fill a couple of Field of Dreams.

“They were all bent over, breathing hard, exhausted,” Katnik said.

The statistic of the game? On one of the Trojan marches during their 28-point second-half flood, the Hawkeyes went through nine defensive linemen.

“They second-guessed our size, our ability, everything,” said nose tackle Bernard Riley. “Not anymore.”

And it was as fitting as Heisman winner Carson Palmer, after an average first half, finishing with a flourish. In a game that mirrored his season, he completed 11 of his final 14 passes for 164 yards, one touchdown, and an MVP award.

If this game had been played before the Heisman Trophy had been awarded, Palmer would have been invited to New York all by himself.

Now the Trojans become this year’s team that ends the season with helmet in hand, begging for a playoff.

Which they would win, even if you add Georgia and Oklahoma to Miami and Ohio State. Who has the Trojans’ combination of speed and defense? Who makes the same sort of in-game adjustments? With eight consecutive victories with at least 30 points in each game, who is hotter?

“It’s not about how we could handle Miami, or any other team,” said cornerback Darrell Rideaux. “It’s about how could they handle us. Nobody is playing better defense than us right now. And how are they going to handle our speed on offense?”

Rideaux was in the middle of the final argument for the Trojans’ top ranking. He was nearly chased off the field during C.J. Jones’ game-opening, 100-yard kickoff return.

At that point, one would think the Trojans would be stunned.

“But that’s the thing about this team,” he said. “We’re not always starters, but we’re finishers.”

Finishers, as in, Palmer and Justin Fargas immediately led them back down the field for a tying touchdown.

Finishers, as in, their best defensive player didn’t play after a freak reaction to a pregame shot, yet they covered for Troy Polamalu so well that it brought him to tears.

Finishers, as in, at the end of the first half, it seemed they were finished.

With the score tied, Iowa drove to the Trojan one-yard line with 10 seconds remaining.

But the defense harassed Banks into throwing a pass wide of Maurice Brown. Then the defense stunted the Hawkeye offensive line into consecutive illegal procedure penalties on field-goal plays, one of which was good.

“We figured, man, they had two shots at a field goal and didn’t want it,” said Riley. “So we figured we might as well take it from them.”

So Riley blocked the third attempt. And heading toward the locker room, the Trojans experienced the same feeling they had at halftime of the win over Notre Dame.

“We were running, they were walking,” said safety DeShaun Hill. “That told us all we needed to know.”

Now all anyone needs to know is that USC’s greatest season in a quarter of a century has ended in two months of conquest.

And one game too soon.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]