April 2007 Archives

If ever there was any question whether the NFL Draft looked at players, or even considered programs, the results of Saturday's first couple of rounds made that pretty clear.

For those keeping score at home, the Arkansas Razorbacks, 50-14 losers to USC last season, did indeed have three players picked before a single Trojan was selected. And yes, again, two of the Arkansas players were on a defense that gave up those 50 points to an offense led by the three Trojans taken in Rounds 45 and higher.

And yes, again, for those noting that a Michigan team that gave up 32 points in a Rose Bowl thumping by USC, had four defensive players selected before USC had a second player, Steve Smith, picked.

And both Arkansas and Michigan each had a first-round selection to USC's none.

Go figure.

With just three practices left this spring, here are a dozen things we can think we know about this USC team that will go into next August almost everyone's preseason No. 1.

1) These linebackers can run, hit and separate people from the football the way Trojan teams with Lofa Tatupu and Matt Grootegoed could. And that's a big plus for a Pete Carroll team.

2) So can the safeties, although only Taylor Mays and Mozique McCurtis, an average of 230 pounds at that spot, are healthy right now. Adding Josh Pinkard and Kevin Ellison for the fall won't cause any falloff there.

3) USC is far advanced offensively from where the Trojans were a year ago in spring. The quarterbacks are far better, the running backs deeper and much more experienced, the wide receivers and tight ends are deeper and faster and the offensive line surprisingly productive with two new starters.

4) This will be Carroll's fastest, most-athletic team in his seven years at USC, he agreed.

5) David Buehler looks awfully good as a placekicker going a perfect 10 of 10 despite the absence of starting long-snapper Will Collins and the need to adjust to snaps here, there and everywhere.

6) As good as the spring secondary is, the Trojans badly need the return of cornerbacks Terrell Thomas and Kevin Thomas along with safeties Ellison and Pinkard.

7) The wide receiver position will be fine. No one or two studs may step up the way USC has been accustomoed to with Mike Williams and Keary Colbert or Steve SMith and Dwayne Jarrett but with numbers and depth, and pure speed factored in, this group may not have to take a back seat to any of those in previous years.

8) Stanley Havili and walk-on Cooper Stephenson have done a fine job at fullback but there will be a chance for Norco freshman Jordan Campbell to make an immediate impact in August when he arrives at USC.

9) Michael McDonald is a heck of a backup quarterback. He went five of seven passing with with a pair of TD passes and made it look easy Saturday, as the senior-to-be always does.

10) From the two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for excessive celebrating on touchdowns, it's clear that this generation of Trojans grew up watching Reggie Bush reach the endzone rather than the more reserved way that Carson Palmer and Troy Polamalu played it just five years ago.

11) The shotgun will help. USC won't use it all that much but in obvious passing situations, the only time it was used Saturday, the shotgun clearly allowed both Booty and Sanchez to see the rush and adjust to it in ways they might not have taking the snap from center.

12) From special teams to speed, from depth to defense, from athleticism to accuracy, from experience to just about every other way you can measure a football team, these Trojans are just so much further along than last year's team was at the end of spring.

John David Booty not only hit on 15 of 17 passing, he also completed 14 straight at one time in not putting a single ball on the ground all day.

"I'm able to pick things up so much more quickly now,'' Booty said after missing last spring with back surgery.

He's bigger, stronger and in much better shape now, Booty said, after a full offseason of weight and conditioning work that has him up to 217 pounds from 210.

That may have been the problem for backup quarterback Mark Sanchez, whose 11-for-23 passing with two interceptions and a failed two-minute drill at the end, had Pete Carroll's understanding Saturday.

"He moved arounf pretty well and played pretty solid,'' Carroll said, especially in the first half. But did seem to be pressing at times to make things happen.

Redshirt freshman fullback Stanley Havili had USC coaches Pete Carroll and Steve Sarkisian unable to contain themselves in talking about his play this spring.

"It was neat to watch Stanley Havili today,'' Sarkisian gushed after a season where so many fullbacks went down with injuuries that USC went with a one-back attack out of necessity.

Havili's hands and hitting ability have USC working up special plays, like the goal-line fake run left with Havili reversing field to the right for a quick TD pass from a yard out. That's a return to a tactic USC favored under Norm Chow but hasn't had the personnel to do in recent seasons.

USC's trio of freshman running back starters from the fall, Emmanuel Moody, Allen Bradford and C.J. Gable, were all sidelined Saturday on what turned out to be Senior Day.

Bradford's hip flexor stopped him this week as has Moody's tight hamstring but what was the issue with Gable?

"A neck sprain from a blocking drill,'' Offensive Coordinator Steve Sarkisian said.

Bradford said he's got his eye on the big back, LenDale White role in the USC offense this fall. "I think we're going that way,'' Bradford said.

Pete Carroll said he has no preconceived notions about how it's going to go. Will it be one back who steps up and takes the position over?

"I'm not expecting that,'' Carroll said after the Huddle. "If it takes shape that way, fine, but whatever it takes to get it done.''

There are lots of candidates to make a big jump on this USC team, especially in the important offseason between freshman and sophomore years.

But if there's a single player who just jumps out as improved this spring, it's a bigger, stronger, faster, more confident senior Keith Rivers, as he heads into his third starting season as an outside linebacker.

"I'm trying to be like (safety) Kevin Ellison, a real student of the game and it seems like I just have a sense from the formation of where the play is going,'' Rivers said after starting off the defense with an extremely athletic pick downfield against John David Booty.

"We need that badly,'' USC Coach Pete Carroll said of the ability to return to the tops nationally as a takeaway team thanks to the work of the linebacking crew made up of Rivers, Thomas Williams and Kaluka Maiava Saturday.

"Those guys (with Brian Cushing, Luthur Brown and Clay Matthews all out with injuries) made some big plays,'' Carroll said.

All that NCAA rules would permit Pete Carroll to say Saturday was that yes, indeed, potential transfer quarterback Mitch Mustain did make it to LA for the Trojan Huddle Saturday. And USC is recruiting him.

The starter at Arkansas as a true freshman for most of last season, Mustain, the national high school player of the year the season before at Springdale, Ark., is considering transferring to USC after completing the second semester in Fayetteville. His former high school and Arkansas teammate, wide receiver Damian Williams, has already made the move.

Mustain, who moved back home to Springdale after informing Arkansas that he was leaving, is also considering Tulsa, where his former high school coach and Arkansas offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, who also decided to leave after the season, is now coaching.

Mustain would have to sit out next season as a transfer but then would contend with Mark Sanchez for the starting spot after John David Booty's departure.

After being elevated to the No. 1 spot at center for USC this week, 6-foot-6, 305-pound Coronan Matt Spanos had his right ankle rolled up on in the first half Saturday.

The high ankle sprain kept him out the rest of the day and had Spanos' ankle in a boot afterward.

"I'm not lying to you, it hurts like heck,'' Spanos said as he looked to at least several weeks of intensive rehab to get ready for summer worlkouts and be back by the fall. But as bad as the timing was for Spanos, to have it happen in the spring game the week he went to first team, he said it'd be far worse "if it happened in the fall.''

Spanos' injury allowed USC to give left guard Jeff Byers some work at the center spot that the coaches had wanted to give him while redshirt sophomore Nick Howell stepped in the rest of the day.

UCR has formed its search committee to find a new men's basketball coach, and it's going to be chaired by Dr. Anthony Norman, the school's Faculty Athletics Representative and a professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences.

Athletic director Stan Morrison will be on the committee, as will associate AD Janet Lucas, vice chancellor of administration Al Diaz and women's basketball coach John Margaritis.

Norman said that there have been more than 100 inquiries about the position and over 70 applications received by the UCR human resources department, which posted the job on line.

"The time frame is urgent," Norman said Wednesday.

- Jim Alexander