Just win, baby.

It’s a mantra made famous by Oakland Raiders owner and Syracuse alumnus Al Davis. One that was likely branded into the brain of Southern California head coach Lane Kiffin during his ill-spent tenure as Raiders head coach.

Winning was the only thing that mattered to the USC football program for the past decade, when the Trojans finished ranked in the Associated Press top 5 every year from 2002-08. When the only definition of a successful season was a national championship.

But that’s not entirely the case anymore.

‘It’s important to win,’ Kiffin said in his press conference previewing Syracuse this week. ‘And it’s important to improve as a team.’

Doesn’t have the same punch. And neither does the current incarnation of these Trojans. USC fell out of the Top 25 after a two-point win over Big 10 Conference bottom feeder Minnesota and didn’t return after a win over Utah last week.

So riddle me this. How does one win over Southern California — unranked Southern California — propel Syracuse into ‘elite Big East’ status? Forget that calling a team in the Big East elite is likely an oxymoron. This win — as glorified as it would be — doesn’t put Syracuse in the upper echelon of anything.

This win would be important for Syracuse, of course. The Orange hasn’t won on the West Coast since 1967 and has failed to beat the Trojans in two tries.

But right here, right now, this win doesn’t mean the world.

Quick trivia question: When was the last time Syracuse beat an unranked team? Look no further than last Saturday (or Thursday, Sept. 1, if you want a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent).

Thus, it is important that this game is kept in perspective. It’s more important for Syracuse to be 3-0 than for it to have one win over the Men of Troy.

Leaving it all on the field Saturday is one thing, but SU could still leave too much on the field.

‘If we let this game feel bigger than us then I feel like we’re going to get so caught up in the media and what everything else has portrayed this game to be,’ SU offensive lineman Lou Alexander said. ‘I mean, this is just a normal week. This is just like every other week that we played. We have to just go in with the same attitude.’

SU is actually facing a team that has played worse than itself the first two weeks. The Trojans have a negative-2 turnover differential. And the Golden Gophers team USC barely beat in its opener subsequently lost at home to New Mexico State by a touchdown.

So while there is a hint of panic in the Syracuse camp after its poor first three quarters against Wake Forest and close win over Rhode Island, the Trojans have plenty of their own problems.

‘I think we showed a lot of improvement from game one to two, but just the things that killed us were just turnovers,’ Trojans’ left tackle Matt Kalil said. ‘I mean, like last game there was three times when we were inside at least the 20-yard line and we had a turnover. And those are what kill our rhythm as an offense.’

No one would have said that about the dominant USC teams of the last decade. The Trojans won 35 straight games in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum over six seasons.

But it took a blocked field goal from Kalil as time expired last week against Utah to avoid overtime in the same venue.

Under then-head coach Pete Carroll, all USC did was kill opponents’ rhythms. They butchered defenses to the tune of 37.8 points per game over the seven-year run of top 5 status and stifled opposing offenses, holding them to 16.1 points per game.

Under second-year head coach Lane Kiffin, the Trojans allowed the most total points in school history last season, 347 over 13 games.

There are two Big East teams, West Virginia and South Florida, ranked in the Top 25 coming to the Carrier Dome for Friday night games later this season.

Those two games will decide if Syracuse is an elite Big East team. Not this weekend.

‘The next game on your schedule is the biggest game and it’s the truth,’ Syracuse defensive coordinator Scott Shafer said. ‘Outsiders will say it’s a cliché as well, but there’s a reason that there are so many clichés because they’re real and they’re true.’

Despite all the pomp and circumstance, the cliché holds true this week.

Mark Cooper is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at mcooperj@syr.edu or on Twitter at @M_Coops_Cuse.

Published on September 14, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr