The cost of progress can often be taking a few steps back. Everyone, of course, wants to win and be successful all the time. For USC, there have been many seasons of rough sledding as of late.
Part of the benefit of not having the types of years that a blue blood should have, however, is the ability to reference eras in which there was a lot of winning and the ability to bounce back in relatively short order compared to other programs.
The standard in focus needs to always be to win a national championship.