Shock and bewilderment remained on the faces and in the hearts of the Trojans at the onset of this afternoon's team meeting, the first full-squad gathering since Saturday's defeat.
"Never in my wildest dreams could I ever fathom that happening to one of our teams," Coach Carroll told his players, referring to the 55-21 loss. "You all find this really hard to accept, and I feel exactly the same way. But the truth is, it happened.
"The fortunate part is, we get to move on."
Then after Carroll shared his basic thoughts on the game, the attention turned to bouncing back and correcting the wrongs. The operative phrase became "move on" during the 15-minute meeting in Heritage Auditorium, where players were actively listening and visibly responding to Carroll's message.
"I hope we can put the embarrassment, the discomfort, the shame somewhere where it can help us as we move on," Carroll told the players. "We've got to put our care into something that can help our team."
Carroll then addressed the high expectations -- the self-imposed ones being the most important -- the team has fallen short of in light of this weekend's loss, the Trojans' third this season.
"We have marvelous, extraordinary expectations that we live with here -- it's the only way we want it to be," Carroll said. "But it brings pressure and attention when we're not like that."
So as the emphasis then turned to bettering their football -- "we need to get right," Carroll said -- the Trojans could do so with a newly bestowed sense of freedom from their past failures because of Carroll's soothing, liberating words. Moving on, thankfully, was in effect.
"Last week was last week," Carroll said to conclude his address, cracking a tiny, relieved smile. "We can do nothing about that except respond. So let's go out and capture everything that's out there for us."
University Southern California Trojans
Wednesday, July 08
Wednesday, July 08
Wednesday, July 08
Monday, July 06
