From now on, he vowed, he will do as his coaches have been urging: dropping the negativity, increasing the calm, always acting as if something good is just around the corner.
It may well be that this new self-awareness led to the Sanchez we saw on Saturday. True, Saturday's game was pretty much an extended scrimmage in front of a home crowd more juiced by the fact that it was homecoming than by the game itself. But the poise he showed, and the numbers -- they don't lie. End of first quarter, Sanchez had completed nine of 10 passes for 97 yards and two touchdowns. End of second quarter he was 15 of 17 for 167 yards, with a short rushing touchdown added in for good measure. Nice start, nice finish, cool, clean and efficient.
So what's next for the Trojans? First off, they still have a chance to win the national title. There are plenty of naysayers who say the Trojans haven't a chance at making the national championship game. They say the four teams ahead of USC in the Bowl Championship Series standings are too good and won't lose enough to allow the Trojans to leap into the top pairing. Don't believe them. Look what happened to Texas: a 39-33 loss to Texas Tech. In the matter of a week, much can change college football.
Next week, California's Golden Bears come to the Coliseum with a 4-1 Pacific 10 Conference record, a team in the mix for its first Rose Bowl since the days of Job.
After Cal's win over Oregon on Saturday, there will be much hype to this game. But after last week, when I witnessed firsthand Cal's struggle against weak sister UCLA, my guess is that USC won't have much problem with the Golden Bears. The same will be true for the opponents that follow: Notre Dame, Stanford, the Bruins.
What will matter for the Trojans national championship hopes in all of these games will be how they win. A premium will be placed on style points. The Trojans can win many ways; with their stealth defense, of course, and with strong running.
But to win with style -- with big offensive output and by wide margins -- they need a quarterback who is sure and strong and accurate. They need the Mark Sanchez who shredded the poor Cougars up in Pullman. They need the Mark Sanchez who feels as though he's learning what he can do and what he is, the one who brought out the knives and sliced up the hapless Huskies on Saturday.
Anything less from their quarterback and the Trojans have almost no chance of playing in Miami, a national title on the line.
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kurt.streeter@latimes.com
