A Stanford senior communications major stood in the middle of a nearly empty stadium, the homecoming crowd having long since gone home, and administered the latest plunge into the heart of a USC football season.
Richard Sherman had earlier leaped in front of a Matt Barkley pass and returned it for a touchdown.
He had then posed for the cameras while jeering, "I'm 2 and 0 in the Coliseum. Fight on, SC!"
But this was worse. This was about more than a 34-point deficit on the scoreboard. This was about an unimaginable deficit in a culture.
Said Sherman of the Trojans: "You could just see that everything is not there. They don't run as hard. They don't play as hard."
And thus a team that has spent its entire season searching for an identity finally found one, captured beautifully by a thoughtful student dressed in eye black and grass stains and a 55-21 Stanford victory.
The 2009 Trojans: They don't run as hard. They don't play as hard.
It was homecoming in name only Saturday, USC returning to a place of unfamiliarity and unrest, a team of strangers in a Coliseum of brooding and boos.
After seven years as a national championship contender, they are now a team capable of yielding the most points in school football history -- that's 121 years, people! -- to a perennial loser whose starting lineup would barely fit on their depth chart.
"It's like everything turned bad," USC linebacker Malcolm Smith said.
After seven years of leading the nation in toughness, they are now a team capable of giving up 325 smash-mouth rushing yards to a team that simply handed the ball to a block-shaped running back.
"They brought it and they kept bringing it," safety Taylor Mays said. "Something was wrong. Something didn't feel right."
After seven years of offensive smarts, they committed four dumb turnovers against the nation's 82nd-ranked defense while gaining 26 yards on their final four drives.
"I'm not sure I have the right words to describe being humbled like this," Coach Pete Carroll said.
Why not just pull out the script from the Washington and Oregon games? In one form or another, this has been happening all season.
The Trojans have played USC-dominating football, what, maybe three times? As the stakes get higher, the quality of effort and intensity drops, with this latest debacle costing them even the remotest of chances at a Rose Bowl or other Bowl Championship Series game.
