Finally, after weeks of wrong turns and wasted chances, they've arrived.

Remember the top-ranked, all-world, future-champion 2007 USC football team?

They're here.

They're a day late and a national championship short, but they're here.

With a full moon over their heads, gifts under their arms and wonder in their eyes, the Trojans swaggered back into the college football landscape last night like they owned the joint.

Which, if their 44-24 victory over seventh-ranked Arizona State is any indication, they probably do.

Yes, sigh, the best team in the country finally played like the best team in the country.

"We got hungry!" shouted tight end Fred Davis afterward, standing on a Sun Devil Stadium field that was filled with the echoes of the USC fight song.

Hungry enough to gain 508 yards while holding the Sun Devils to barely half that, including just 16 yards rushing.

"We know what we're all about!" shouted quarterback John David Booty above the same Trojan noise.

That would be Heisman-like leadership, which Booty finally showed in throwing for four touchdowns while running for another.

"We'd like the finish the season making people wonder who the best team in the country is," said Coach Pete Carroll later, in the quiet of tunnel that had just been rocking with USC players singing that fight song.

That wonder has already started.

Bob Davie, the former coach and current ESPN commentator, spent the night standing behind the Trojan bench as they danced and howled and busted lips and bashed dreams and simply steamrolled the one-loss Sun Devils.

Davie had two observations.

He said, "I have never seen a team have as much fun as this team had, they were what college football is all about."

He also said, "By the time we get to Jan. 1, nobody is going to want to play this team. They could be the best team in the country."

Too late for that.

"It's a long season ... it still is," protested Booty. "Even with one game left, a lot can happen."

Not long enough to make up for two losses, particularly one to Stanford team that has won only two other games.

Instead of following the giant cleat marks of the national title teams of 2003 and 2004, these Trojans must be content to imitate 2002.

That was the season that the Carson Palmer-led Trojans lost two early games, then finished strong to dominate Iowa in the Orange Bowl and be considered by many as the best team in the country.

The players must have been told about 2002. Even though he's only a sophomore, safety Taylor Mays was even talking about it.

"Sometimes it's frustrating, when you think, what if we don't lose to Stanford, what if we don't lose to Oregon," said Mays in a thumping locker room. "But look at 2002. That team finished as the best. That's what we want to do."

With one remaining regular-season game against UCLA, followed by a bowl game probably against either Ohio State or a Big 12 loser, the goal is reachable.

After Thursday night, anything seems possible.

Or, in the case of Arizona State, impossible.

Said quarterback Rudy Carpenter: "We were just a little overmatched."

Said safety Troy Nolan. "We were just too overwhelmed."

Weren't we all?

With their preseason starting offense intact for the first time this fall, the Trojans scored like the Leinart-Bush Trojans, quickly and harshly, with touchdown drives that demoralized.

Fifty-one yards in 1:47. Fifty-four yards in 2:27. Fifty-four yards in 2:19. And so forth. And so on.

"We knew this is what we could become," said Carroll. `'It's just taken us a while to get back to that."

With their defense seemingly playing together for the first time this year, the Trojans stifled like the Sean Cody-Mike Patterson Trojans, with crushing stop on nearly every big play.

After the first quarter, they didn't allow a drive of more than 42 yards. If it wasn't for a scoring kickoff return, a blocked punt and a bad penalty, they would have allowed but three points.

"To have the heart, the tempo, the sense of urgency all night long, that's what I'm happy about," said Booty.

Which raises the question of the night.

Where was all this stuff before?

No doubt there were members of the Trojan nation who greeted yesterday's success with a scream.

What took so long?

Healed injuries surely account for some of the difference. But surely, so does a battered ego.

It was as if these Trojans, for the first time this year, took nothing for granted. With locker room chants that lasted long after the game ended, they have never acted more like big kids.

It was as if, after a couple of seasons of feeling entitled, they finally understood what the early Carroll teams understood, that none of this is easy, that all of it must be earned.

Davis earned it while breaking three tackles on a rollicking 34-yard touchdown catch that made his teammates dance with glee.

Joe McKnight earned it with a he's-here-he's-gone seven-yard touchdown catch that made everyone just stare.

Lawrence Jackson earned it with four sacks that left Carpenter bloody and cursing.

"They know ... they know now ... they know what they are capable of doing," said a pleased Carroll.

It is a lesson these baffling USC Trojans learned far too late. But it is a lesson learned nonetheless.