Wow. It had been that long?

I covered at least 15 Rose Bowl games, maybe 20, and  should have known this. But I may have mentioned I’ve been away.

What I know for sure is that USC is supposed to 1) be in the Rose Bowl more often than this and 2) win the Rose Bowl more often than this.

USC 52, Penn State 49. Just another Rose Bowl victory for the Trojans.

But the first since 2009? Really?

Really.

If you are an old Trojan, Priam’s age or up, you have a mountain of Rose Bowl/USC memories.

No school has played in The Granddaddy of Them All more often than USC, with 34 appearances. No one has won more Rose Bowls than the Trojans, with 25 victories.

Trojans born since, say, 1953 easily could have memories of 21 Rose Bowls in which USC played, winning 16 of them, from 1963 to today.

But if you are a tiny Trojan of say, 10 years of age, you have no memory of USC playing in the game — because (until today) they had not done so since 2009, in coach Pete Carroll’s final game with the school.

I somehow missed that glaring omission by USC football. In 2009, I was working in Hong Kong and by January 1, 2010, I was in Abu Dhabi (and the Trojans were on NCAA probation) and, well, the years piled up and the Trojans were routinely eclipsed by Oregon and Stanford, and one or the other of those played in six of the past seven.

That the Trojans got to play in Pasadena today was something of a break, as opposed to a statement that they really are, again, one of the country’s top few football schools.

Pac-12 champion Washington normally would have been in the game, but the Huskies qualified for the semifinals of the national championship, opening the door for USC.

Fact is, USC kinda snuck up on people living a lot closer to Heritage Hall than I do.

They were nuked by Alabama, 52-6, in their opener, a game most college football fans would have seen, and that seemed to be that, in terms of USC making any noise on a national level.

And if anyone somehow missed that embarrassment, the Trojans were handled 27-10 at Stanford in their third game and lost 31-27 in a come-from-ahead defeat at Utah.

They were 1-3, and coach Clay Helton, asked to pick up the pieces after the Steve Sarkisian disaster the season before, looked like a guy who would be sending out his resume sooner than later.

But in the Utah game, Helton gave the QB job to redshirt freshman Sam Darnold, and things got better from there.

How much better? USC ran off eight consecutive victories, beating Colorado, which won the Pac-12 South Division, and Washington, which won the North. And UCLA and Notre Dame, which is always fun.

And then today they leaked lots of points, and trailed Penn State 49-35 after three quarters before Darnold (453 passing yards, five touchdowns) led them to 17 fourth-quarter points, capped by a decisive field goal as the clock hit 00:00.

The Trojans may not quite be “back” but at least they can see it from where they are now — with a Rose Bowl victory over a solid Big Ten team on their resume.

Darnold and Helton could have two or three more years together, and today they probably are thinking bigger thoughts about the 2017 season, and for good reason.