SOONER OR LATER, USC WILL RALLY.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

First, the comparisons.

Oklahoma claims six national championships. USC claims eight national championships.

Oklahoma had a coaching god, Bud Wilkinson. USC had a coaching god, John McKay.

Oklahoma celebrates touchdowns with horses named Boomer and Sooner pulling a wagon called the Sooner Schooner around the goalposts. USC celebrates touchdowns with a horse named Traveler carrying a guy in a skirt called Tommy Trojan around the field.

Oklahoma kept winning titles following Wilkinson in the 1970s with a coach dogged by the NCAA police, Barry Switzer. USC kept winning titles in the 1970s with a coach dogged by the NCAA police, John Robinson.

Oklahoma slipped under coaches Gary Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger and John Blake. USC slipped under Ted Tollner, Larry Smith and Paul Hackett.

Oklahoma staggered from the ranks of the perennial powers, and hasn't finished a season in the national top 10 since 1987. USC staggered from the ranks of the perennial powers, and hasn't finished a season in the national top 10 since 1989.

Now, here's where the comparison ends and the envy begins.

Oklahoma is a power again. USC is still plummeting.

What does Oklahoma's sudden resurgence, to No. 1 in the polls after staying undefeated with consecutive victories over Texas, Kansas State and Nebraska, mean for the Trojans and their fans?

Good news: As dark as the skies may look, sunshine might be only a day away, judging by the suddenness of Oklahoma's turnaround.

The Sooners won 12 games in 1996, 1997 and 1998, total. Their Sooners' collapse was accompanied by a steady stream of scandal on the drugs, violence and classroom fronts.

The Trojans were never that far down. They've shaken their numbskull image. Things have changed so much that now we find UCLA basketball players beating each other over the head with the furniture.

The bad news: The key for Oklahoma was finding the right head coach, and USC is one right head coach short of a loaf.

Bob Stoops arrived in Norman, Okla., before the 1999 season as an obvious pick for success. He'd been successful as an assistant coach at Kansas State and Florida State.

Stoops improved the Sooners to 7-5 in his debut, including a loss to Mississippi in the Independence Bowl, their first bowl since 1994. And now he has them 8-0.

He has done it with a roster whose talent can't be compared to that of the Oklahoma glory days (so Switzer said recently, anyway). He has done it with a quarterback, Josh Heupel, from South Dakota by way of a junior college in Utah.

Interesting that when Hackett was asked Tuesday to assess the lessons of the Sooners' rise, he homed in on their spread offense, a wide-open passing game.

``I think if you take the lesson from our own conference, that's the way to go,'' Hackett said. ``The best teams are the teams that are just lighting it up on offense . . . the teams that are getting 500 yards of offense.''

Changing a team's offensive approach sounds like coaching to me.

So does having the imagination to show your players videotapes of their team's greatest victories from decades past and inviting the greats of yesteryear to give pep talks.

The official pronouncements out of USC have stopped referring to the head coach as ``energetic and innovative Paul Hackett.'' Unfortunately, energetic and innovative is still what the Trojans need.

So, good news and bad news. USC can turn this around, as Oklahoma has done. But it's going to depend on the coach.