One Small Sticking Point: This Is Still the Pac-10

USC Coach Pete Carroll has some nerve defying conventional wisdom and a few accepted axioms.

Carroll, it appears, is attempting to win a Pacific 10 Conference title with his defense, a textbook, big-hair, throwback, “That ‘70s Show” concept that is to be admired for its audacity but almost never works.

Carroll might have better odds flying a hot-air balloon around the world.

Don’t get me wrong, Pac-10 rules stipulate you must field 11 players on defense--Washington tried 12 against Michigan and it clearly backfired--yet the idea of riding your inside linebackers to a Rose Bowl berth is defies reality.

Since 1991, only Arizona State in 1996 won the conference title while also leading the Pac-10 in total defense.

If tackling translated to titles, Arizona would be a multiple Rose Bowl winner instead of the only Pac-10 team never to have played that game. Dick Tomey’s fabled “Desert Swarm” squads at Arizona led the conference in defense four times in the 1990s, made the cover of Sports Illustrated once, but never won a title.

Last year, UCLA finished first in defense and 7-4 on the field, giving the Bruins the opportunity to consider paying its way into the prestigious Humanitarian Bowl.

We know where Carroll is coming from. He is a defensive guru, first and foremost, his formative years spent in the NFL trying to stuff the run on third and two in 16-13 victories.

But the Pac-10 is a different bird--they ought to call it the Whack-10.

Admittedly, USC’s 22-0 victory against Oregon State on Saturday was impressive, the Trojans holding the Beavers to 131 yards, but was it a setup?

How many times does 22 points win for you in the LCL (Left Coast League)?

Oregon State entered the game with glossy numbers on offense, largely inflated against non-competitive, nonconference competition. Beaver quarterback Derek Anderson is a real talent, but also a sophomore making only his fifth collegiate start.

Big surprise, then, that USC knocked Anderson around like Oscar De La Hoya knocked around Fernando Vargas.

If you’ve been around the Pac-10 block, you know it how utterly confounding its dictates can be. Woody Hayes wouldn’t have lasted three weeks in this pass-happy hub. The Pac-10 has gone completely “inside-out” in the last decade, with most defenses giving up bulk on the interior in exchange for quickness in the shell.

That’s not to suggest what USC is trying to do on defense can’t be done. In 2000, Oregon State led the conference in defense and finished 11-1, losing the Pac-10 title in a tiebreaker to Washington.

Yet, USC has to know that you need to pitch the ball in this conference and that most weeks 22 points is a nice total--at halftime.

Saturday, the top three passing performances in the nation were produced by Cody Pickett, Jason Gesser and Andrew Walter, three Pac-10 quarterbacks who combined to complete 82 of 125 passes for 1,283 yards and 12 touchdowns.

Like a scientist with his test tube, we’ll continue to monitor USC’s grand experiment on defense.

But it has to be said: You don’t get Derek Anderson every week.

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Weekend Wrap

We’re at a loss to explain three weekend losses by three of college football’s greatest programs: Nebraska, Penn State and Florida State, the fourth, ninth and 11th winningest programs of all time.

The schools entered the season with a combined all-time record of 1,909-808 and nine national championships, but these are the most recent images: Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden, glasses off, looking like a drowned rat after his team’s rain-soaked, overtime loss Thursday night to Louisville; 75-year-old Penn State Coach Joe Paterno sprinting off the field after his team’s overtime loss to Iowa in pursuit of an official; Nebraska Coach Frank Solich’s look of befuddlement in the wake of his team’s wipeout defeat at Iowa State.

Assessment: Every time Paterno (75) and Bowden (72) lose a game it is proclaimed by some as the beginning of the end for the two coaching icons.

Well, is it? It’s true Penn State is coming off consecutive losing seasons and has lost three consecutive Big Ten openers. Also, that 40-7 victory over Nebraska doesn’t look so hot now that Nebraska doesn’t look so hot. Penn State (3-1) also plays at Wisconsin, at Michigan and at Ohio State in the next month. Still, the Nittany Lions appear good enough to reach eight wins.

Bowden’s comment on the Louisville game--”Their senior quarterback was better than our sophomore”--sums up the Seminoles’ plight. For years, Bowden would only start only redshirt juniors at quarterback, but has paid the price for playing Chris Rix this year and last. Rix is getting better on the job, but the wobbly-duck interception he threw in overtime should never have been thrown.

However, victories against Miami, Notre Dame and Florida will erase ugly memories of last Thursday’s rainy night in Kentucky.

Nebraska? The Cornhuskers are in serious trouble, falling to 3-2 after Saturday’s loss and out of the national polls for the first time since 1981.

In fact, this has been a deconstruction in progress. In their last four games played away from Lincoln, the Cornhuskers have allowed 62 points (at Colorado), 37 points (to Miami at the Rose Bowl), 40 points (at Penn State this year) and 36 points (at Iowa State).

“As a player, as a captain of this football team, I am embarrassed,” Nebraska rush end Chris Kelsay told the Omaha World-Herald. “The team is setting all sorts of records, and not exactly the kind we want to set.”

Here’s another record to consider: Nebraska has the major college record with 40 consecutive winning seasons. At 3-2, and remaining games against Texas, Texas A&M;, Kansas State and Colorado, is this the year the record ends?

As Omaha columnist Tom Shatel put it Sunday, “Looks like an early winter.”

Ray of sunshine report: Nebraska plays host to Division I-AA McNeese State next week and misses Oklahoma on the Big 12 schedule.