Michael Ventre

LOS ANGELES - To understand why USC will defeat Texas in the Rose Bowl for an unprecedented third straight national championship on Wednesday, study the example of Fresno State.

For years, the Bulldogs have been hopelessly plagued by an inferiority complex. They defeated USC in the 1992 Freedom Bowl 24-7, but all that did was get Larry Smith fired. Since then, they’ve longed for, pined for, craved another shot at USC. It would make their lives. They could then die happy.

This season, after long last, they got their wish. Coach Pat Hill and his staff schemed and planned. The players were pumped. They stormed into Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, played a magnificent game, threw a major scare into the No. 1 team in the nation, lost 50-42, then proceeded to go deep into the tank, ending the season with three more straight losses.

They put all their chips on one crazy roll of the dice, and lost.

The USC Trojans have precisely the opposite approach. Every game is equally big. No one game is treated any differently — mentally, physically or emotionally — than another. And every week another Fresno State is lurking around the corner. Sometimes it’s Notre Dame. Sometimes it’s Arizona State. Always it is a team looking to bag the biggest trophy in its history.

Meanwhile, the Trojans are riding a 34-game winning streak.

USC’s track record of winning big games is second to none. At the end of the 2002 season, the Trojans faced Iowa in the Orange Bowl, a rough, tough, Midwestern smash-mouth thresher of a football team. The Trojans physically whipped the Hawkeyes en route to a 38-17 victory.

The following year they opened at Auburn, a team some picked as No. 1 in the land, with a new quarterback named Matt Leinart who had never thrown a pass in a college game. USC rolled 23-0.

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There was the Rose Bowl two years ago, a 28-14 win over Michigan. There was the opener last season on the road against Virginia Tech, a 24-13 triumph. There was last season’s UCLA game at the Rose Bowl, when the Bruins had three weeks to prepare and USC had just one, and the Trojans averted a season spoiler with a 29-24 win. There was the 55-19 blowout over Oklahoma at the Orange Bowl. There were the Notre Dame and Fresno State bullet-dodgers this season.

College football

USC is the No. 1 battle-tested team in the country. It established itself as such because coach Pete Carroll has instituted a pattern of behavior that emphasizes attention to detail, lots of energy and enthusiasm, careful scrutiny of opponents, competition and fun.