For fans who watched their teams win Saturday and worried about the margin not being decisive enough, Southern California provided its annual reminder that there is no such thing as a bad victory, only bad — sometimes really bad — losses.

THE BIG STORY

90-16.

That's Pete Carroll's record in nine seasons at USC. Take out his 6-6 first season and it's 84-10, with seven consecutive Pac-10 titles, Bowl Championship Series appearances and top-five final rankings. No team in the country over the past decade has had such a sustained run of success.

To be critical of the Trojans' coach is to expect perfection. Even the best teams have off days. But USC's habit of losing to unranked and seemingly overmatched opponents — five times it has happened over the past four seasons — leaves Carroll open to criticism.

Why does this keep happening to the Trojans?

The players change. The assistant coaches change. The man in charge does not — and he's fine with accepting the blame.

"I'm not doing a good enough job of making the points of how we win," he said after Washington's 16-13 victory.

Ultimately, the latest "stunning" upset loss for USC had many of the same components as the others: Too many turnovers (three inside the Washington 35), too many penalties (eight) and some injuries (quarterback Matt Barkley and All-America safety Taylor Mays sat out).

But what Carroll said later was more telling.

"The other side of it, looking at it, we're not real good right now and we weren't really good last week either," he said. "To tell you the truth, we got a great victory on the road and all that but we didn't do a whole lot different than what we did this week."

USC, which has scored three touchdowns the last two games, including one after an interception gave the Trojans the ball inside the Ohio State 5, might have some real problems. Probably not 7-5 problems, but maybe 9-3 and no Pac-10 title problems.

But here's why it's so tough to be critical of Carroll. USC never gives away a season, never takes a step back the way all the other superpowers do. Oklahoma lost four games in 2005. Florida lost four games in between its championship seasons. Texas has not won a conference title since winning the 2005 national title and lost three games in each of Colt McCoy's first two seasons as a starter. LSU lost five games last season after winning a national championship in 2007.

So if you're inclined to take a shot at Carroll because he's not getting through to his talented teams that they must take every opponent as seriously as they take the Rose Bowl, that's fair.

But beyond that, trying to diminish what Carroll has achieved at USC because of five losses that were a play or two away from being victories over four seasons is a waste of time.

NOT SO SWEET REVENGE

No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Texas didn't quite bring down the pain on their rivals as their fans had hoped.

The Gators beat Tennessee and its talkative coach, Lane Kiffin, 23-13, and the Gators were never in real danger of losing.

Texas faced a greater test against Texas Tech, the team that kept the Longhorns out of the national title game. McCoy had his ups and downs and Texas came away with a 34-24 win.

Signs of weakness among the top two teams in the polls? Not really. Just another example of parity in college football.

BOISE STATE BENEFITS

Big weekend for Boise State. The Broncos passed what was probably the toughest remaining test on their schedule Friday night by winning at Fresno State, then watched potential BCS busters BYU and Utah lose Saturday.

Boise State was squeezed out of a BCS bid last year by undefeated Utah because only one team from the five leagues without automatic BCS bids can earn an automatic bid.

The Broncos should be a substantial favorite in each of their remaining games. Meanwhile, the other ranked teams hoping to earn a BCS bid from outside the big six conferences, Houston and TCU, have major hurdles to clear in and out of conference.