Trojans tough to stop when big stakes are on the table

Should USC beat Notre Dame and UCLA, they'd likely face Ohio State.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A strong finish is a big deal at Southern California. The coaching staff talks about it, the players, too.
Whether it be finishing games or the season, the philosophy is to perform at the highest level when it means the most. The Trojans have consistently done that under the leadership of Pete Carroll.
"It means a tremendous amount to a team in any sport," the USC coach said Tuesday. "It's been an outstanding characteristic of this program, I'm real proud of it."
A perfect example of finishing a game came last weekend, when No. 3 USC outscored No. 22 California 17-0 in the second half for a 23-9 victory. That gave the Trojans an unprecedented fifth straight Pac-10 championship and kept their national championship hopes alive.
Team trait
It was just another step toward a strong finish to this season -- something the Trojans have managed in each of Carroll's six years as evidenced by their 19-0 record in November. They're 3-0 this November, scoring 100 points while giving up only 19.
"The fourth quarter is crunch time. The season is won or lost in November," junior defensive end Lawrence Jackson said. "Something is sparked in the competitive nature of this team. When I was a freshman, that's all I knew. That's all I know now."
Senior center Ryan Kalil points to being in better shape than the opposition as a factor.
"I think a lot of it has to do with being a well-conditioned team," he said. "We do well in finishing games -- we last longer than teams. That's our whole philosophy, we want to finish games around here."
Should the Trojans (9-1) keep it up by beating No. 5 Notre Dame (10-1) on Saturday night at the Coliseum and crosstown rival UCLA on Dec. 2 at the Rose Bowl, they'd have a good chance at being picked to face No. 1 Ohio State in the national championship game.
Carroll isn't fond of looking into the future like that, saying: "It's not up to us, it's up to a system to choose us. We're very pleased with where we are right now. Whenever you talk BCS, I get confused. I don't know how to figure these things out."
Thriller worth recalling
Carroll seemed much more comfortable speaking about the USC-Notre Dame rivalry and of last year's stunning finish, when the Trojans rallied to beat the Fighting Irish 34-31 on Matt Leinart's 1-yard sneak with 3 seconds left.
"It's just all very, very rich and very special," he said of the rivalry, which Notre Dame leads 42-30-5 although USC has won the last four games between the teams.
Regarding last year's game at Notre Dame, Carroll said: "It was a pretty special win because of the heroics at the end. Every single person there was screaming at the top of their lungs for Notre Dame to win on that fourth-and-9 play."
Notre Dame took a 31-28 lead with 2:02 left, and shortly thereafter, USC faced fourth-and-9 at its 26-yard line. Leinart kept the winning drive alive by completing a 61-yard pass to Dwayne Jarrett.
"They're the same team, they've got all the same guys playing," Carroll said. "We know them, we know their personnel, we know their style."
Coaches' methods
While this will be the sixth Notre Dame game for Carroll, it will be just the second for Irish coach Charlie Weis, who said following his team's 41-9 victory over Army last weekend that he had already watched every offensive and defensive play USC had run this season.
And, Weis added, two-thirds of the plays the Irish practiced last week were to prepare for the Trojans, although he didn't tell that to his players.
Carroll's approach is much different.
"I stay with the team we're playing," he said. "I don't go ahead and look at stuff ahead of time, but you can't help see stuff when you cross over."
Carroll referred to his team's preparation for a game against Stanford on Nov. 4. The Cardinal lost to the Irish 31-10 three weeks earlier. USC beat Stanford 42-0.
"He's from New Jersey, I was born in San Francisco," Carroll said regarding Weis. "Totally different backgrounds growing up, totally different backgrounds in coaching. There's just a big difference between us.
"We just come from a different background, a different lineage in coaching."
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