Despite all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the California-cool Trojans, their insane recruiting hauls year-after-year, and the countless magazine covers, let’s take a look below the surface: Since winning the National title in 2004, the Trojans have consistently choked. As favorites. Against unranked opponents. With the National title on the line. With two or more weeks to prepare.

Is coach Pete Carroll to blame for his inability to win in the clutch? If Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops gets trashed for his inability to win a bowl game … what about Carroll?

2005: With what many were calling one of the greatest college football teams ever*, USC lost the Rose Bowl to Texas, 41-38. Both teams were unbeaten, but the Trojans were 7-point favorites.
2006: With two weeks to prepare for unranked Oregon State (4-3), previously-unbeaten No. 3 USC lost, 33-31.
2006: With a berth in the National Title game on the line, No. 2 USC lost to unranked 6-5 UCLA, 13-9.
2007: Facing an unranked 1-3 Stanford team at home as 41-point favorites, No. 2 USC lost, 24-23.
2008: Two weeks to prepare for 1-2 unranked Oregon State. Went in as 24.5-point underdogs and ranked No. 1. Lost, 27-21.

* From wikipedia: “ESPN analysts Mark May and Kirk Herbstreit declared, before the 2005 Rose Bowl had even been played, that the 2005 USC Trojans were the 2nd best college football team of the past 50 years (May placed them behind only 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers; Herbstreit behind only 2001 Miami Hurricanes). Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated later observed that .. the team “may have had the greatest set of skill players in history.”