A good win, but room to get better

USC beat a team it was supposed to beat, building a big enough lead that coach Clay Helton could take quarterback Sam Darnold out in the fourth quarter and let backup Matt Fink enjoy a star turn.

Fink made the most of his moment in the warm late-afternoon sun on Saturday, running for a 51-yard touchdown on the first series of his Trojans career to cap the scoring in a 38-10 rout of injury-weakened Oregon State.

It was a feel-good moment in a victory that had some good points for the Trojans but also had enough disjointed plays and mistakes and inconsistencies for them to feel that there was something missing.

They won. They got 13 receivers involved and seven rushers. They improved to 5-1 overall and 3-1 in the Pac-12. Their defense held the Beavers to three points in the first half.

“I really felt like our defense did an amazing job

after being put in some situations in some field positions when we muffed a punt and a turnover offensively off a fumble,” Helton said. They extended their winning streak at the Coliseum to 13 games and they got by despite their stillbattered offensive line.

Yet, no one felt that it was a total victory. And it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

“The score says we played well. The stats say we played well. I mean, I think we’ve got a lot to go,” senior safety Chris Hawkins said. “We can get a lot better. I’m not satisfied, but I think it was a good win for us.”

It was a good win against a team whose starting quarterback was missing because of a back injury, a good win against a team that had lost its previous three games and is woeful in just about every major defensive category — and most offensive categories, too.

But there’s the catch: It was a good win for USC, but not a signature, convincing, cohesive win. The Trojans have had only one truly great victory so far — their 42-24 decision over Stanford on Sept. 9 in their second game of the season — and they’re halfway through their regular-season schedule.

“We could always be better. Everybody knows that,” Hawkins said. “We’ve got to start dominating teams. It seems the college football world takes us lightly. No matter if we win by a little or a lot. So we’ve just got to start dominating teams.”

From where they are now to being capable to dominating opponents is a big leap. But Helton, speaking before he had a chance to analyze Saturday’s game in depth, acknowledged that his team is still a work in progress. That process will be measured and tested when the Trojans play host to Utah next Saturday and at Notre Dame the following week.

“We’re nowhere near a finished product. Let’s be honest,” Helton said. “There’s going to be things we see on this tape that frustrate you as a coach and there’s going to be some things that we say, ‘Wow, we’re progressing.’

“It is October and that’s our hallmark here, has been to improve in the month of October and take big leaps. We have two major competitors coming up. Utah is leading the South right now and we sit right behind them. So obviously it’s going to be a huge game for us next week.”

Helton cited several positives, including the defense’s stalwart effort after a muffed punt and a fumble. In addition, getting so many inexperienced receivers into the game, he said, “is really going to benefit us.”

Darnold also found reasons for optimism, saying the Trojans ran the ball well (they netted 184 yards) and that the receivers were locked into their assignments. But Darnold, who was 23 for 35 for 316 yards and three touchdowns with one interception, admitted his biggest takeaway from Saturday’s game would be to focus on his shortcomings.

“I focus on the bad, honestly, just because you want to improve on the things that you didn’t do well and learn from it. That’s how I am. That’s how the coaches are. That’s how I think any player would be honestly,” he said. “The turnovers is not good. It’s never good for an offense when you turn the ball over like that. I’ve got to be better, and I think I will be the rest of the year.”

The team, he said, will “look at the good and what we did well in this game and keep the positives. I think that’s always a good thing during the course of the season, is to stay positive no matter what’s going on.”

If the best is yet to come for Darnold and the Trojans, it had better come soon.