For Trojans, revenge isn't best served cold; it's to be put on ice

Finally, it's payback time.

For more than a year now, USC football fans have longed for this day, when their boys could drop on Palo Alto a cold, heaping plate of revenge.

Like the rest of us, these fans will not soon forget that dark night of Oct. 6, 2007: the one-for-the-ages upset, 41-point underdog Stanford handing USC a 24-23 defeat that blew to bits a Trojans national title run and stuck a pitchfork in their pride.

Ever since that game's final seconds, the USC faithful have had vengeful fantasies about embarrassing the Cardinal on its own turf. The Trojans, it is hoped and prayed for by those who live and die with this team, will prowl Stanford Stadium today like a pack of man-eating lions who all season have been forced to dine on alfalfa sprouts.

But there is often an intriguing disconnect between college football lovers and the teams they root for, a disconnect clearly seen in the latest installment of a rivalry that began in 1905.

During the run-up to a game such as this, the fans generally want frothy outbursts and angry talk about making painful amends.

Meantime, the players and coaches, at least the smart ones, work feverishly to sing "Kumbaya" and keep a lid on all hot emotions. That's why, as talk radio and the Internet bubbled this week with the notion of dishing great punishment, you could no more pry angry talk of retribution from the soon-to-be combatants than you could pry Sarah Palin from her makeup kit.

Day after day we in the media tried to get someone from either side to bite. We asked the same question in many different ways, always hoping to provoke a nasty string of ticked-off chatter.

This pretty much went nowhere. Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh, coaches who are said to share less than warm relations, handed out praise for how the other man has gone about his job and worked to steer clear of dwelling on the day of infamy.

The players were no more accommodating. Trojans running back Stafon Johnson, when asked about revenge, replied flatly: "Stanford is a good team regardless if they beat us last year or they didn't beat us last year. We have to come out with a great attitude if we want to win."

Z-z-z-z-z-z . . .

"We don't talk about it," safety Taylor Mays said when asked the same question. (Note: Mays seemed to feign a studied sort of indignation, which I took as a sign that he'd been superbly drilled by USC coaches to frustrate all comers on this particular topic.) "Get back at Stanford? We don't care about it. Why would we? We let everybody else talk about things like revenge. . . . We don't care what people on the outside say."