There goes the now-annual choke job against a Pac-10 minnow. Didn’t take long.

Just like last year, actually. Uncanny, really, how similar it was. An important victory over Ohio State, followed immediately by a crushing Pac-10-opening defeat on the road.

Washington 16, USC 13. In Seattle.

That would be 20-point-underdog Washington. The Washington that hadn’t won a game since 2007 until last week. That carried a 10-game Pac-10 losing streak into the game.

What happened? In a lot of ways, we could just read our blog entry from 359 days ago, when USC managed to lose at Oregon State. USC turnovers, maybe a little bit of USC fat-headedness. More than a little uninspired leadership from USC coaches, starting with Pete Carroll.

The only difference that matters, this year is the answer to this question:

Can USC get to the BCS title game with one defeat?

Sigh. So disappointing.

Well, there is this: USC aspires to play for a national championship this year, but no sober analyst thought it likely the Trojans could go 12-0. Not with inexperienced quarterbacks, an overhauled defense and several key assistants gone to other programs.

And this: This defeat is not overtly fatal, as the loss at Oregon State was last year.

USC actually may get some help from the Pac-10 this time around. Last year, after the debacle at Oregon State, it was clear that USC wouldn’t get to the BCS game unless every SEC and Big 12 team in the country lost at least twice. Didn’t happen.

This time, the Pac-10 is getting some key results. Cal is 3-0 and ranked No. 8 in the country and won at Minnesota today. Oregon probably will be ranked again after defeating No. 18 Utah 31-24 today. UCLA won at Tennessee — which turned around and gave Florida a good game. Oregon State was close with No. 17 Cincinnati midway through the third quarter tonight.

The Pac-10 isn’t good, but it isn’t horrible, and that could mean something if (somehow) the Trojans win their next nine and pollsters have to pick between them and some other one-loss team. USC probably loses out, if that one-loss team is from the Big 12 or SEC, but against anyone else, they have a pretty good shot. That’s better than a year ago.

Now we’re back to the game at Washington. And wondering how USC could lose.

–The three turnovers. That’s a big part of it. Stafon Johnson lost a fumble at the Washington 26 early in the second quarter. Stanley Havili fumbled a reception at the Washington 16 midway through the third quarter. And USC was at the Washington 22 when Aaron Corp threw an ugly interception, early in the fourth quarter. That’s at least three field goals the Trojans didn’t get.

–Horrible game management by USC coaches before the half. USC was at the Washington 29 with no timeouts and about 25 seconds left. Instead of sending out the field-goal team, then and there, for a 46-yarder that might have broken a 10-10 tie, Carroll decided to run another play. Leaving us to think they would take a shot into the end zone, going for a touchdown or incompletion.  But no. Carroll’s crew had the Trojans try to run for a first down, and didn’t get it. Havili lost 3 yards, the clock kept running and time ran out about one second before the field goal crew kicked the ball — for what would have been a successful field goal.

–Another overly conservative game plan. OK, we get it; Pete and his coaches don’t trust their quarterbacks. Not Matt Barkley at Ohio State nor Aaron Corp at Washington. But if they don’t throw it upfield at least a little, they have to run into eight- and nine-man fronts all day, and that’s a hard way to go. USC won at Ohio State because its defense produced a turnover that set up a 2-yard TD drive. It didn’t do that, at Washington, and it lost.

–Aaron Corp.  He will be pilloried unfairly, just as Barkley was praised all out of proportion — when their performances in these two games were highly similar. Corp was  13-for-22 for 110 yards and one interception. The offense scored 13 points. Barkley was 15-for-31 for 195 and one interception. The offense scored 11 points. Barkley led a field-goal drive just before half, and a touchdown drive at the end of the game. Corp led USC into field-goal range just before half (before Pete let the clock run out) and led USC to a field goal on USC’s final possession. The difference being that USC’s final possession ended with 4:07 to play. The Trojans never got the ball back.

So, we’re back to where we were a year ago, acknowledging that Pete Carroll is an excellent recruiter and a dynamic, charismatic personalty — and apparently not a great in-game coach.

USC has lost eight Pac-10 games over the past seven-plus seasons. USC was heavily favored in all but one of those games (at Oregon, 2007) … and didn’t get it done. USC is particularly vulnerable in Pac-10 road games; seven of those eight defeats were away from the Coliseum, where Pete seems to get nervous if his team doesn’t get up by three touchdowns early.

And it’s not one or two teams that are troubling USC. Seven different Pac-10 teams have beaten the Trojans in that span, with only the Arizonas missing out.

So, please, let’s agree that Pete Carroll does lots of things well or very well. But calling a game from the sidelines absolutely is not one of them. (And I’m also not sure how adept he is at identifying talented assistants, either. His new guys got out-coached by his old guys, Washington’s Steve Sarkisian and Nick Holt, today.

In conclusion, the Trojans aren’t quite dead in the BCS chase. But they need lots and lots of help.

And that assumes they win their next nine. Which they could do, as they did last year, but seems altogether less likely, with road games at Cal, Oregon and Notre Dame still out there. And with green quarterbacks and timid playcalling.

What is galling about this is knowing — knowing — USC has far better talent than does its Pac-10 opponents, but somehow contriving to lose. Pete Carroll may be winning lots of games, but he’s not winning all the games his teams ought to win.