SEASON LOOKS LIKE A KEEPER.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Today's sports section goes in the drawer. The account of USC's first game of what could be a historic season goes in the drawer, the cupboard, the shoebox or wherever it is that you file away the newspapers with the family's wedding announcements, the earthquake coverage and the ``Spice Girls to Reunite'' headlines.

Keep every article, every game program, every Coliseum ticket stub this season, at least as long as the Trojans stay unbeaten and on track for a third national championship in a row.

It's looking like a clip-and-save kind of college-football year around here.

Where sports history is concerned, most of us are the guy in the Kirk Gibson highlight tape, break lights flashing in the Dodger Stadium parking lot, hearing the home-run call on the radio, watching the scene in the rear-view mirror. Sports history usually can't be anticipated. It's appreciated after it has happened. If he'd had any idea, do you think that Dodgers fan would have been trying to beat the traffic in the ninth inning of a World Series game? If I'd had any idea, do you think I'd have watched the ball go through Bill Buckner's legs on a TV monitor in the Shea Stadium interview room?

That's what's special about what USC is trying to accomplish in a season that opened - finally - with the Trojans' 63-17 victory over Hawaii in Honolulu on Saturday afternoon.

Not since UCLA's basketball national-title streak in the 1960s and '70s has L.A. had a sports story this big that is so long expected, allowing us to revel in it while it's happening, obliging us to collect mementos as we go.

So, into the permanent videotape collection goes Saturday's Trojans win over Hawaii, the first keepsake.

If - and it's still a big if - the Trojans run off 12 more victories this season, they'll add a national title to the one they shared with LSU in 2003 and the one they won outright in 2004. It will be college football's first national-title threepeat.

And we will have seen this one coming since, well, before the last one.

The Trojans haven't been lower than No. 1 in the Associated Press rankings since they beat Oregon State at the Coliseum on Dec. 6, 2003, in that season's final regular-season game. They remained No. 1 after beating Michigan in that season's Rose Bowl. They were No. 1 from gate to wire in the 2004 season. They were No. 1 going into Saturday's game.

Ignoring the technicality that there are no official rankings between the end of one season and the beginning of the next, the Trojans have been No. 1 for 635 days in a row, or 90 weeks, or 20 months.

Their championship potential for the 2005 season was talked about during the 2004 season, hinging mostly on whether Matt Leinart would stay for his senior season or go to the NFL.

Once Leinart settled that issue on Jan. 14 - 249 days ago, or 35 weeks, or seven months - the anticipation could begin.

Use the news section to line the parakeet's cage tonight. Save the sports section for the grandkids.

Of course, not everybody goes out of their way to collect tangible reminders of the greatness before them.

``Just my game-plan folders (are saved),'' Trojans coach Pete Carroll said this week. ``I have a stack of those through the years. I'm not a big memorabilia guy. My office may look cluttered, but it's not from memorabilia.''

Trojans center Ryan Kalil saves the game programs that are placed at players' lockers before every game.

``So I have those,'' Kalil said. ``But mostly, I just have the memories.''

Then there's defensive end Lawrence Jackson, who saves nothing from game to game.

``Then again,'' Jackson said, ``we (players) have the rings.''

The rest of us must settle for more modest artifacts.

Put aside today's stories, about how Leinart and Reggie Bush - and Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith - led the predicted wipeout of Hawaii after the Trojans defense showed some cracks early. Dig them out at the end of the season. Maybe they'll be the first chapter of a season of routs, or they'll be a reminder of the promising beginning to a disappointing (anything less than national-title) season. Maybe they'll mark the start of the defense's growth, or maybe they'll reveal an early sign of weakness.

This was the team's 23rd victory in a row, two short of the school record set in 1931-33. The second of Leinart's three touchdown passes was the 73rd of his career, breaking Carson Palmer's school record. The Trojans made the Hawaii Warriors of Sept. 3 look as hapless as the Oklahoma Sooners of Jan. 4.

A good start to a season that's looking like a keeper.