Revisiting ‘What’s Your Deal’

Three-loss, unranked team gets hot and takes down a top-10 opponent in the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, shifting the foundations of power in the Pac-12. Ironically, as the underdog Trojans look to do just that against the most physical team in college football, and break a four-game losing streak to Stanford, they can look to their 55-21 loss to the Cardinal in 2009, the one that started the skid, for inspiration. In retrospect, the November 14, 2009 Stanford upset of No. 9 USC doesn’t seem as shocking as it did four years ago, when Cardinal quarterback Andrew Luck, running back Toby Gerhart and cornerback Richard Jefferson were merely considered really good players. Heck, at that time, Gerhart, a junior, was the only one of the three who had any name-recognition coming into the game. Behind true freshman Matt Barkley and running back Joe McKnight, the Trojans hung in with Stanford through three quarters, pulling to within 28-21 on a 28-yard McKnight touchdown run with 2:21 left in the third quarter. By that time, coach Jim Harbaugh’s punishing offensive system, which put as many as many as eight blockers in front of the physical Gerhart, had taken its toll on a thin USC defense that had lost an entire starting line-backing corps to the NFL the previous spring. Stanford scored the next 27  points, mixing in a 43-yard pick-six from Sherman with three long touchdown drives. The last one ended with a one-yard run by then-freshman Tyler Gaffney, who will occupy the “Gerhart” role when coach David Shaw’s Cardinal line up against ‘SC Saturday. Of course, it’s what happened immediately after Gerhart’s 6-yard scoring run with 6:21 left in the game that most Trojans and Cardinal fans remember most. Up 48-21, Harbaugh called for a two-point conversion attempt (which the anemic Trojans defense actually managed to stop). It was ugly stuff. Typically poised after the few losses he endured as Trojans coach — remember when he kept his fecal matter together after that Texas game — Pete Carroll famously lost, just a bit, on Harbaugh, asking the coach when time expired, “What’s your deal?” Rather apologize for what was obvious and uncalled-for unsportsmanlike conduct, the Cardinal embraced it, using the phrase “What’s your deal?” to sell season tickets nine months later. And for his part, Carroll lost all moral high ground two weeks later, when he inexplicably called for Barkley to lob a touchdown pass over the UCLA defense in the final minute rather than assume the victory formation. Since Bruins coach Rick Neuheisel hadn’t done much of anything to offend Carroll, save for putting a bad product on the field, it wasn’t one of Uncle Pete’s better moments. Circling back to the point, one wonders if Ed Orgeron’s suddenly surging Trojans can flip the script on Stanford Saturday. The general consensus is that the Cardinal are way to physical and deep across the offensive line for the sanctioned-thinned Trojans to stop. I actually think USC has its most physical defensive front […]