USC Will Try To Prevent 1st Skid In 9 Years

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- While an alarming number of his fellow Trojans spent the week nursing injuries, Matt Barkley spent it recovering from the exquisite pain of watching Southern California lose its last two games on field goals at the final gun.

"It's definitely weird," the quarterback said. "I don't remember the last time in SC history we had two losses in a row."

That's because it happened when he was 11 years old.

When California visits the Coliseum on Saturday, the unranked Trojans (4-2, 1-2 Pac-10) will attempt to end their first skid since losing four straight in early 2001.

Last-second losses to Washington and Stanford might only be the start of USC's heartaches for the next few seasons, given their injury woes, a scholarship-depleted roster and a dismal defense currently ranked 100th in the nation. But Barkley and his teammates remain confident their talent can overcome the wealth of obstacles thrown their way.

"It's more than pride," Barkley said. "It's upholding the tradition of the school, and not wanting to be known as the team with all those losses. I know the character of this team, and we're not going to do that."

According to the Trojans' sports information office, USC had lost only four games on the final play in school history before it happened on consecutive Saturdays.

"It's tough in these games coming down to the wire," said tailback Allen Bradford, held to 33 yards by Stanford after racking up 223 against Washington. "The offense was good, and the defense did as best they can. It's hard to swallow."

Even if the Trojans are a shadow of their former selves, a victory still would be sweet for the Golden Bears (3-2, 1-1), who have lost six straight to USC -- never scoring more than 17 points -- since their landmark 2003 triple-overtime win in Berkeley.

Cal was USC's biggest Pac-10 obstacle during the early years of this decade, and the Bears still hold a bit of that inferiority complex, even while Oregon and Stanford have risen past both schools.

"It does enter my mind," senior quarterback Kevin Riley said. "Since we've been here, we haven't won down there, so obviously it would be nice going down there, coming out firing and winning. ... It'd be fun, my last year, just to beat USC. It's another game in the Pac-10, but it would definitely be fun winning down there."

The Trojans' offense has been solid in its last two losses, scoring 66 points and getting the ball to freshman playmakers Robert Woods and Dillon Baxter. The USC defense coordinated by high-priced assistant coaches Monte Kiffin and Ed Orgeron has been largely atrocious, yielding nearly 429 yards per game while holding just one of the Trojans' first six opponents under 30 points.

Several reasons are obvious from the scene at Thursday's practice, which sometimes resembled a day out for a hospital ward. More than a dozen players were held out of workouts with injuries, including Baxter on crutches and safety Drew McAllister in a motorized scooter -- and even Orgeron shuffled his few remaining defensive linemen from his perch in a golf cart, where he rested his own broken foot.

USC's defensive line has too little depth, the linebacking corps has been unimpressive and the secondary is inexperienced. In a measure of their desperation, the Trojans spent the week considering whether to fulfill Woods' dream of playing both ways by helping out as a nickel back.

"It's something I've thought about since high school," said Woods, who had 12 catches for 224 yards and three touchdowns against Stanford last week. "A lot of schools recruited me as a defensive back, but I like the ball in my hands."

Cal carved up UCLA's defense during last week's 35-7 victory in Berkeley with a brutally effective running game, but coach Jeff Tedford is aware of the Trojans' deficiencies in pass defense, even if he's too cautious to voice them.

"This week, we have to mix it up," Tedford said. "There's no way you're just going to live on one phase of the game against SC. They're just too good to do that, and so we're going to have to try to keep them off balance as much as we can."

Cal has outscored its first three opponents at Memorial Stadium 139-17, but has lost both of its road games. The Bears' revamped defense still has been exceptional under new coordinator Clancy Pendergast, ranking in the top 10 nationally in several categories despite giving up 52 points to Nevada's unorthodox Pistol offense last month.

"I was pretty sure that it was going to go just like this before we started playing," linebacker Mychal Kendricks said. "When coach Clancy came in, everyone was real excited about the scheme he was bringing. This is the type of defense we expected to have."

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)