BLOOM OF THIS ROSE? USC MIND-SET BIGGEST QUESTION AS IT GETS READY TO PLAY MICHIGAN.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

There's saying the right thing, and then there's doing it. There's trying hard to be coolly logical, and still succumbing to emotion or lack of it.

USC is in a rare place right now. Facing an obstacle it has never been up against in its six years under Pete Carroll.

A letdown.

Not just any letdown, the mother of all college football letdowns. One that has left them out of the championship picture for the first time in four years. That has left them with the oddest of all consolation prizes.

The Rose Bowl.

In most any other year, for most any other team, making it to the Rose Bowl would be the accomplishment of a lifetime (see: Cal).

But this isn't just any year, and USC is far from just any other team.

The Trojans were one final regular-season victory away from making it back to the BCS national championship game. One little victory over a UCLA team it had beaten seven consecutive times.

And was outplayed. Lost the game, its No. 2 ranking, its invite to a third consecutive BCS title game, and now it just has to hope, not its edge.

Michigan will arrive for the Rose Bowl one irate team. A team that firmly, and rightly, believes it should be playing in the national championship game. A team that will want to prove it Jan. 1.

USC will have to play its best game to win. Will have to not only bring focus and commitment, but something it was sorely lacking against UCLA -- emotion.

It is, after all, the Rose Bowl, so there remains an excellent chance the Trojans will arrive finely honed and at their best.

Yet for the Trojans, there is also a frightening possibility that in the deep recesses of their cardinal-and-gold minds, they just won't be as fired up. They won't play with the same hunger and passion.

The only reference available on this point, curiously comes from crosstown rival UCLA. The Bruins were one final victory away from playing for the national championship in 1998 when stunned 49-45 by Miami. They were then upset 38-31 by Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.

The Bruins had a letdown. It is, as they say, human nature. Something USC followers have to be concerned over, even if Carroll says he is not.

``That's all anyone can ask about, so I have to make sure I'm on it,'' he said. ``But as far as we're concerned, if you guys weren't asking about it, it wouldn't even be a topic.

``But because it won't die, we have to deal with it a little bit, but we're not spending much time on it.''

Carroll is already getting irritated by the topic and there's 11 days to go before the game, still a week before the national media arrives and starts asking anew. It could get interesting.

This is all pretty new territory for Carroll. He's never lost a major game -- and then had to get his team up to play another major game.

Of course, he hasn't lost much at all. He won his past eight consecutive games, and in impressive fashion, in 2002.

He lost his fourth game of the year the next season to Cal, beat a 5-7 ASU team the next week for the first of nine consecutive victories and a national championship.

``We've always bounced back,'' Carroll said. ``I don't expect anything different this time.''

The next season USC went 13-0. Last year it won its first 12 games before Texas snapped its 34-game win streak with its last-second victory in the Rose Bowl.

This year it lost in its seventh game of the season, but the next week had 1-11 Stanford.

Never was there a loss followed by a monster game. Never a defeat to one team, followed by a more challenging team in the next game.

``I guess I haven't looked at it in that vein,'' Carroll said. ``There's a little bounce-back there for both of these two teams. They're kind of in the same situation we're in.

``But it seems like a long time ago. We're at practice getting ready for Michigan, and that's all that's on everybody's mind. I feel very confident that we're tuned into the preparation. The guys are practicing great.''

USC is another victim of its own success. It has been great for so long, that anything slightly less than a game with the national championship on the line -- say, this year's Rose Bowl -- can seem unsatisfactory.

And don't believe for a millisecond the Trojans weren't just disappointed at losing to their rival, but also for missing out on the BCS game in Arizona.

``We let it soak in,'' senior center Ryan Kalil said. ``It was obviously a bitter taste to swallow. We were so close. Nobody took it from us, we took it from ourselves.

``For us, it's just looking at this the best way we can. If you really look at it, it's a great game.''

No question. USC is still 10-2 and ranked eighth in the country. No. 3 Michigan is 11-1, its only loss a heartbreaker at No. 1 Ohio State.

Two great teams. A traditional Pac-10 and Big Ten matchup. A classic Rose Bowl.

But you just wonder if the Trojans aren't trying to talk themselves into believing all this, trying to be rational while battling a subconscious letdown over the game that got away.

Carroll is renowned for getting his players to focus on each individual game, on each specific task at hand. That was also the rationale leading into the UCLA game, their fourth consecutive big game, and the Bruins will be happy to remind you how that turned out.

``We lost that Oregon State game and I thought we did a great job of rising from it, not throwing in the pads and saying our perfect season was over with and all,'' Kalil said. ``We kind of had those championship dreams and hopes.

``We did a good job of beating some very good football teams. For whatever reason, we didn't get that last one. Now coming off of that, it's a little better feeling knowing we have another game to come out and leave the way we want.''

A chance at a reprieve. A chance to redeem.

To overcome any letdown. To do something no Carroll USC team has done.

And at the Rose Bowl.

``I don't know how you can get more motivated that you can in being the Rose Bowl champion,'' Carroll said.

Unless, of course, it's a chance to be national champion.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) PETE CARROLL

Photo by Getty Images

(2) UCLA's Chris Markey, right, reacts to a first-down run against USC in the Bruins' win Dec. 2. The Trojans now have to regroup for the Rose Bowl.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer