PE.com - College Sports Blog

Schedule Poster Jinx Too?

It was a cool idea, and well-executed too. That full-color USC schedule poster featuring 16 Trojans in action poses showed the strength and numbers of this year's USC team.

But if you look at it closely, or did so at the end of Saturday's Arizona game, of the 16 original starters on that poster, guess how many were up and active, healthy and unscathed, at the end of the game?

Let's do the math.

Josh Pinkard and C.J. Gable are gone for the season.

Sam Baker limped off with a hamstring pull, more serious than the one that hit Terrell Thomas at the end of the game. Oh, and Kevin Ellison broke his nose. And Rey Maluaga had his hip speared by Cary Harris and is out with a painful hip pointer.

That's six.

Then there was John David Booty, out for the game with his fractured finger.

Brian Cushing didn't go either, with his ankle sprain that's kept him out more than 21 of the 24 quarters this season.

Neither did Chilo Rachal with his sprained knee.

Lost count by now? Well, it's nine.

That leaves the seven hanging in there: Taylor Mays, Chauncey Washington, Lawrence Jackson, Keith Rivers, Fred Davis, Patrick Turner and Sedrick Ellis.

And of that number, three (Rivers, Turner and Washington) have all missed time with injuries.

So when USC comes calling for the cover guys for next year's schedule poster, maybe you might just want to think twice.