USC cementing place in history with winning streak
LOS ANGELES -- Chuck Ealey is the ultimate winner. Undefeated in college -- 35-0 at Toledo, an NCAA record for a starting quarterback. Behind center for every game of college football's fourth-longest winning streak. From the time he started in high school in Portsmouth, Ohio, through his first season in the Canadian Football League, Ealey lost once.
So pardon the 55-year-old manager of a financial advisers firm if he's not exactly bowled over by Southern California's 34-game winning streak.
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| Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith helped extend the Trojans' winning streak to 34 games Saturday. (AP) |
And ultimately, you have to lose, which is a growing part of the story for USC. The Trojans (12-0) clinched a berth in the Rose Bowl on Saturday with a 66-19 victory over UCLA. Exactly 30 days from now, it will attempt to win an unprecedented third consecutive national championship.
Beat Texas, and the Trojans will tie Ealey's Rockets of 1969-71 for the game's second-longest winning streak in the modern age (35 in a row).
If that happens, only one major-college program in the past 48 years will have won more consecutive games than USC (Oklahoma with its record 47).
Part of the fascination of USC now is akin to watching a drunk stumble across four lanes of rush-hour traffic. Sooner or later it's all going to end. But when?
"If you dwell on the numbers it doesn't do anything for you," coach Pete Carroll said last week, musing about what is developing into one of the great runs in the game's history. "We don't need extra motivation. We don't need some record-breaking opportunities."
But the next month figures to turn into the mother of all distractions for USC. Reggie Bush is the favorite to win the school's third Heisman Trophy in the past four years Saturday. He has already had to change his phone number three times because agents keep calling him.
Media day for the Rose Bowl on Jan. 2 could turn into an MTV-flavored goof-fest considering the Trojans are the biggest thing in the nation's second-largest media market.
Not that the Trojans are worried or anything like that.
"Why stress? This is supposed to be fun," said Matt Leinart, who could tie Ealey by winning his 35th consecutive start in the Rose Bowl. "Play like Trojans. When Saturday comes, we're loose, we're joking around."
Compare that to the attention Toledo received during the height of its streak. Which is to say, little. Political unrest gripped the country. Coach Frank Lauterbur left after the 1970 season, two years into the streak, to take the job at Iowa.
Meanwhile, the Rockets were winning three consecutive Tangerine Bowls. Their largest margin of victory during the streak was over Marshall (52-3). Their most significant win was a 27-26 nail-biter against rival Bowling Green.
Ealey isn't in the College Football Hall of Fame because, per the hall's rules, he was never named a first-team All-American by either wire service.
"Those were the days where there was no CNN, ESPN, other than we were on TV in a couple of bowl games," Ealey said. "There wasn't any pressure on us."
If it's possible, USC has been more laid back. Carroll is the antithesis of the modern, pent-up paranoid college coach. Practices are open to media, families and alums. The Trojans have rallied back four times from halftime deficits. It's almost expected now. The players are as bright, smart and spontaneous as their play.
"Maybe when I pushed Matt in the end zone at Notre Dame?" Bush said when asked his biggest play this year. "I was really surprised. I didn't plan that at all."
Good things happen to good teams, but this one -- particularly the offense -- is one of the best of all time.
"I think we're getting into that discussion," said Carroll, whose team is the first to have a 3,000-yard passer, two 1,000-yard rushers and a 1,000-yard receiver.
It is currently tied for the sixth-longest streak overall in history, but it's one overtime loss at Cal in 2003 from having a 46-game streak. Perhaps only the Oklahoma of 1953-57, with its record 47-game streak, has had a better run of excellence, a bigger impact on the game.
When will it end? USC is a stunning 62-4-2 all-time when ranked No. 1.
One can only speculate at the number of All-Americans, plus current and future NFL players, that will spring off the 2003-2005 USC rosters. Two years ago, Mike Williams was being compared to the best USC receivers of all time. Now the current Detroit Lion is publicly lamenting coming out early, sitting out his junior year before entering the draft.
He knows he's missing out. He also knows he has been phased out. Going into Saturday, sophomore Dwayne Jarrett had 27 touchdowns in his first 24 games and was a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award (best receiver).
If USC keeps winning it would tie Oklahoma's mark in the final regular-season game of 2006 against UCLA. No. 46 would come the week before against the team that halted Oklahoma's streak.
Notre Dame.
USC shares its current 34-game streak with Penn (1894-96) and Miami (2000-2003). The difference? USC's streak is ongoing. Miami was able to squeeze only one national championship out of its run. It was less than three years ago that Ohio State snuffed out the Hurricanes' streak with an overtime victory in the Fiesta Bowl.
"I can't tell you how many of the men that played for me have mentioned it that they were counting. They were aware of that game when Ohio State beat Miami," Lauterbur said.
"When you've gone that much (without losing) you don't want to leave it."
Texas has won 19 in a row (currently second to USC). Coach Mack Brown was so impressed last week that he lobbed a call to Carroll with this basic question: How have you done it?
"What we're doing right now is getting everybody's best shot," Brown said. "Every time we play all that's talked about is, 'It'll be the biggest upset in the last 10 years of college football. USC had that for 33 straight games. It's opened my eyes."
"He asked about that a lot," Carroll said of the streak.
Meanwhile, ice water for everyone on the winning streaks list. It's clear that's what those teams all have in common.
"It was quiet, I really didn't feel any pressure," Leinart remembered of a fourth-and-9 call from Notre Dame's 26 on Oct. 15. "I said, 'Let's go do it. If we don't get it, we don't get it.' ... I was walking up and it's as loud as it possibly can get in there. I check to one of our great plays."
Leinart's audible resulted in a jaw-dropping 61-yard catch and run by Jarrett that set up the winning touchdown that day.
That's the same mentality, you would figure, shared by Ealey during the heart of Toledo's streak. His coach was looking nervous during the usual Friday quarterback meeting before one particularly big game.
"Coach," Ealey said, "we'll beat the (bleep) out of them."
Is it possible to have two ultimate winners?
