Last night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum the USC Trojan football team crushed the Notre Dame Fighting Irish by a score of 44-24, before more than 91,000 fans.

This marks USC’s fifth straight victory over the Irish, though Notre Dame is still eleven wins ahead of the Trojans in overall wins since these two rivals first began meeting more than 75 years ago.

But it was an unlikely triumph when viewed from the perspective of just a month ago.

That’s when USC fell to lowly Oregon State by a score of 33-31. Most people thought the Trojans were done, at least when it came to contending for a national title, with a dwindling point spread during their three games leading up to Oregon State, having to rely on the heroics of the fourth quarter just to get wins.

But the opposite happened.

Losing seems to have been just what the doctor ordered to invigorate a team that seemed to have lost motivation. After the OSU loss, the Trojans roared and whitewashed Stanford and convincingly defeated Oregon and a very strong California team.

And now, after last night’s Irish loss, USC could be one win away from competing in their third straight BCS National Championship game if they can get past rival UCLA.

This is not the first time USC has benefited from a loss. A few years ago, the Trojans lost to Cal in overtime, and this setback launched them on an unbroken winning streak that continued until they lost to Texas in last year’s championship shootout.

It goes to show that USC may look like it’s on the brink of collapse, but it knows how to forge success out of failure, right itself and make the kind of quick adjustments that true winners are expected to make.

You don’t have to be a Trojan to benefit from this example!