Steve Sarkisian’s not as bad as you think, but it doesn’t matter. This is USC.

It would be easier if there were a formula. Against Boston College last year, the USC defense couldn’t stop the option. Against Arizona State, the defense lost its mind on a Hail Mary. Against Utah, it was a series of late-game breakdowns on both sides of the ball. Against UCLA, it was a team-wide dud.

Against Stanford this year, the defense couldn’t stop a suddenly potent passing game. And against Washington on Thursday night, in a 17-12 loss, the offense suffered breakdown after breakdown.

In the Trojans’ five losses in Steve Sarkisian’s 17 games in charge, the D has been the culprit more than the O, but it was all on the latter Thursday.

If it were just one thing, you could point to it and make a clear conclusion: Sarkisian can’t [insert here], and if he can’t fix that, he’s done. Because it’s not, we’ve settled on He Just Stinks. It feels right. But while Sarkisian has given everyone plenty of reason to doubt that he’ll get the job done -- at this point, it’s on him to provide reason not to doubt -- he doesn’t simply stink. That’s too easy.

I’ve always defended Sarkisian ... to a degree.

The “seven-win Steve” reputation was all sorts of harsh; in 2009, he inherited a team that had gone 0-12, and while there was more talent than on your customary winless squad, the fact that he went 5-7 in his first season (with a win over Pete Carroll and USC), then 7-6 in his second, was remarkable. That he went 7-6 for each of the next two seasons was on the stagnant side, but Washington was still at 21 wins in three seasons for the first time in a decade. In his fifth year, his Huskies went 9-4, and only a three-point loss at Stanford prevented his team from winning 10 games for the first time in 13 years.

Sark’s tenure wasn’t an extreme success, but he left the program far better than he found it. And he left new head coach Chris Petersen with three eventual All-Americans in 2014.

As our own Bud Elliott noted following the Trojans’ loss to Stanford (a loss that has begun to look more forgivable as the Cardinal rain fire down on all comers), the depth problems from the NCAA’s semi-ridiculous sanctions haven’t gone away.

USC has recruited about as well as any team in the country over the last four years on a per-player basis. But the NCAA sanctions that feel like forever ago really are still impacting this team in a quantifiable way.

Do you know what team has signed the fewest recruits in the last four classes?

That’s right, it’s USC, with 71. For whatever reason, USC had the fifth-best odds to win the national championship this preseason, yet the top 15 teams in those national title odds aside from USC signed an average of 94 players in that span. That’s basically an extra recruiting class in that time frame.

Even more stark is the number signed in the three classes before the most recent, or, in other words, the players who are now in their second, third and fourth years in college football. In that time, USC signed just 46. The other teams in the national championship preseason odds inked an average of 71, or roughly 53 percent more.

That lack of bodies means every injury hurts USC more than the average elite program, as does every bust.

Depth issues can be decimating, and combined with a few recruiting busts, you could pin part of defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox’s struggles* on a lack of other options.

Still, there has not been a lack of star power. This year, you’ve got four-star quarterback Cody Kessler handing to four-stars Tre Madden, Justin Davis and Ronald Jones II and throwing to five-stars JuJu Smith-Schuster and (on occasion) Adoree Jackson.

Recruiting has boosted USC because of star power and limited it because of pure numbers.

* While Wilcox has not yet figured out all the right buttons, he had proved plenty before his arrival in Los Angeles. His 2008 Boise State defense ranked 11th in Def. S&P+, his 2011 Tennessee defense ranked 14th, and his Washington defenses ranked in the top 25 in both 2012 and 2013. That Sarkisian didn’t retain ace coordinator Clancy Pendergast when he arrived can be critiqued, but it’s not like he brought in a no-name schlub to coach the defense.

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
While USC will dominate the story lines any time the Trojans lose, it bears mentioning that Petersen is doing one hell of a job.
While his offense has been drastically limited by youth -- freshman quarterback (Jake Browning), freshman running back (Myles Gaskin), freshmen and sophomores littering the two-deep on the offensive line -- the defense has thrived. And it’s not an experienced unit itself: four of the six leading tacklers are sophomores.
Washington entered with the No. 18 defense in the country according to Def. S&P+, and that will almost certainly rise after what it did to a previously elite USC offense.
With trips to Stanford and Arizona State remaining, along with home games against Oregon and Utah, the 3-2 Huskies still have work to do to reach bowl eligibility in this rebuilding year, but they gave us an impressive glimpse of where they could be in 2016.

Despite late-game collapses in 2014 and 2015, Sarkisian is 16-12 in one-possession games as a Pac-12 head coach. Expanding the umbrella to games decided by two possessions, he’s 18-13.

If anything, the problem has been the other games. His Washington teams looked spectacular at times. But that simply raised the bar and made the blowout losses -- 45-24 to Oregon and 53-24 to Arizona State in 2013, 52-21 to Oregon and 52-17 to Arizona in 2012, etc. -- more difficult to take. He raised the bar, then failed to clear it, and last year’s thumping at the hands of UCLA furthered that reputation.

UCLA rocked Arizona and got rocked by Arizona State. Arizona State’s win over UCLA came on the heels of an outright pasting by USC. Arizona, which won the South last year by being the only team not to lay an egg in a game it should win, is banged up and laying eggs left and right.

In the North, Stanford looks amazing right now but couldn’t score against Northwestern a month ago. Oregon got run out of its own building against Utah, and there are rumbles that Mark Helfrich’s seat is hotter than the reigning national runner-up’s seat should ever be.

When your last remaining undefeated teams are Utah and California, you’ve gone off-script. The Pac-12 has a lot of good teams, but none is stable, and that’s not all USC’s fault.

But this is USC. The standard is different. Like Texas in the Big 12 or Ohio State in the Big Ten, the Pac-12 is perceived differently when USC, the bellcow program, is good. This is a funny phenomenon, by the way. Like Texas, USC’s success rate in coaching hires isn’t nearly what you think it should be.

Here are USC’s hires over the last 30 years, since John Robinson left for the L.A. Rams:

Smith was a success for three years before three years of regression, and Tollner, Robinson and Kiffin had brief moments of success. But of the last seven hires, only Carroll created sustained success.

Like Texas, this job probably isn’t as easy as we think it is. But Carroll’s success, like Mack Brown’s, has created an immense shadow, even if, like Brown, he left the program with issues.

***

Thursday, it was the little things. Smith-Schuster’s fumble early in the third quarter, which led to a trick play touchdown. Madden’s dropped two-point conversion, which kept USC down five points in the fourth quarter instead of three. Veteran Kessler taking a gotta-know-better sack on third down and watching a longer field goal come up short. Washington gaining six yards on third-and-5 to ice the game.

The problem is that little things don’t happen at USC. Sarkisian’s now got big problems.

USC’s upside, proved two weeks ago in a thumping of Arizona State, is still immense. But with remaining games against Notre Dame, Utah, Cal, Oregon and UCLA, the breakdowns probably won’t go away. Add in what we’ll call extracurricular issues -- namely, an alcohol-related incident in August -- and it’s becoming difficult to see Sark lasting a third year. And if he doesn’t dump Sark following another couple of losses, it will become difficult to see athletic director Pat Haden surviving with his own job intact.