COLLEGE FOOTBALL : Trojans Find Truth at the Right Moment : Pacific 10: Winning drive succeeds when Wachholtz keeps soft Stanford coverage off balance.

With 2 minutes 51 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter Saturday against Stanford, USC reached its Rose Bowl moment of truth.

The Trojans found themselves trailing, 30-25, and 80 yards away from a winning touchdown.

“We really didn’t need any big pep talk [from USC Coach John Robinson] because we knew what we had to do,” said John Michels, USC’s senior left tackle. “We just had to keep doing what we had been doing, and that was to take it right to them and show them that we are a dominant team.”

Quarterback Kyle Wachholtz knew that Stanford was not about to allow the Trojans any bigpass plays, so he anticipated soft defensive coverages underneath.

“I was prepared to take whatever they gave us,” said Wachholtz, who completed 15 of 28 passes for 198 yards in playing the final three quarters. “The key for us was to not panic and for me to stay focused on my reads.”

Offensive coordinator Mike Riley made the Trojans’ line happy when he called for a draw to Rodney Sermons for five yards to start the drive.

“That was important because everyone expects you to pass when you have your two-minute offense in the game,” said Phalen Pounds, USC’s sophomore right guard. “That first run opened things up and made things easier for us up front.”

On USC’s next play, Wachholtz scrambled seven yards for a first down after he found all of his receivers covered downfield.

With the clock running, Wachholtz looked for his running backs, Sermons and Terry Barnum, in front of Stanford’s linebackers on the next two plays for gains of four and six yards, respectively.

Then, Riley surprised Stanford again with a draw to Sermons, who gained nine yards to give USC a second down and one with 1:37 remaining from Stanford’s 49-yard line.

“We know that our two-minute offense is sweet,” said Keyshawn Johnson, who faced double coverage throughout the game. “It’s tough for any team to stop our passing game from making plays when we are in that situation.”

After giving up short gains on USC’s first five plays of the drive, Stanford allowed Johnson to break open across the middle on a play that had been open earlier in the drive.

“The first time we ran it, I had come off of Keyshawn a little bit too early and passed to [Barnum] in the flat,” Wachholtz said. “This time I saw him break across, so I stayed with him on the route.”

Johnson caught the ball in stride at Stanford’s 32-yard line and battled to gain 15 more yards to complete the 32-yard pass play to Stanford’s 17 with 1:01 left.

After an incomplete pass, Wachholtz completed a nine-yard curl pass to Larry Parker to give USC a third down and one from Stanford’s nine-yard line with 44 seconds remaining.

The Trojans called a timeout, but it did not take them long to figure out who would get the ball.

“I kind of knew that the ball was going to come to me,” said Johnson, who finished with four catches for 69 yards. “They know that I want the ball, especially in crunch time.”

Wachholtz obliged on the next play.

With Stanford showing an inside blitz, Wachholtz waited patiently for Johnson to break open against a trailing defender in the middle of the end zone before completing the winning touchdown pass.

“I had been beating them on that play all game long, but we weren’t getting enough time to throw the ball,” Johnson said.

Thanks to their second fourth-quarter comeback in as many weeks, the Trojans are only a victory away from winning their first Pacific 10 Conference title since 1989.