Orange County Register

It’s plastered right on the front of the spring media guide: six consecutive AP top-four finishes, BCS bowls, Pac-10 titles, 11-win seasons.

Hershel Dennis should be proud. He might not have had the career, or even one season, he and many of us envisioned after that 38-yard touchdown near the end of his freshman season against UCLA. But his collegiate career spanned one of the greatest dynasties in college football history.

From 2002-07, USC won 89.7 percent of its games (70-8), including two national championships, five BCS bowls and 11 of 12 against UCLA and Notre Dame. The Trojans had win streaks of 35 (at home), 34 (overall) and 27 (in the Pac-10).

Also in the past six years, they have been ranked going into every game. Now it’s time to rank those teams against themselves, with a projection for where this year’s team will figure in the conversation to boot. (The 2001 team, Pete Carroll’s first season, went 6-6 and loss to Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl. Enough said.)

I’m breaking things down by the numbers, players, games and ever so important intangibles from each season.

And now, the sixth best team of the Carroll Dynasty:

2006

The NUMBERS

• They gained less than 2,000 yards rushing for the first time since 2001.
• They went five consecutive games without scoring 30 points.
• They held five opponents to 10 points or less.

The PLAYERS

• Quarterback John David Booty had an all-conference season, but the rushing offense produced just 128 yards per game.
• Dwayne Jarrett set the team record for career receptions and the conference record for touchdowns. Both he and Steve Smith were All-Americans.
• The defense was led by its linebackers, Rey Maualuga, Keith Rivers, Brian Cushing and Dallas Sartz. Safety Taylor Mays was a Freshman All-American.
• USC had five All-Americans in total.

The GAMES

• USC opened with three impressive victories but then came close to losing each of its next three games. It finally did, to unranked Oregon State, snapping its 27-game conference win streak.
• After playing its way back to No. 2 in the nation, USC lost to an unranked UCLA team at the Rose Bowl, 13-9. That loss broke a 63-game streak of 20-point games for the Trojans and ended their national title hopes.
• They again beat Michigan by 14 in what proved to be another uncompetitive Rose Bowl by the second half.

The INTANGIBLES

• Former Daily Trojan writer Ben Malcolmson, who had not played organized football since fifth grade, made the team as a walk-on and appeared in a game.
• From the moment you walked in the Rose Bowl on Dec. 2, it never felt like USC would beat UCLA.
• Steve Smith was better than Dwayne Jarrett.

In 10 WORDS OR LESS…

• Too often this team played down to its opponents.

Also see: No. 1. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. Where will 2008 rank?

Plus: You make the call — vote for Carroll’s best squad.

amaya@ocregister.com

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