LOS ANGELES – Some pretty weird things have been going on this summer at USC.
The Trojans' top offensive lineman came down with Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
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USC's starting quarterback, Mark Sanchez, has been slowed by a dislocated knee. The junior is likely to be ready for Saturday's season opener against Virginia.
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About a quarter of the team suffered from tinea cruris, otherwise known as jock itch.
The starting quarterback dislocated his knee cap before practice one day while throwing a routine pass.
Then a top running back had his fingers slammed in a door, a few days before hyperextending his elbow in a scrimmage.
“Hopefully, we're going to get all these fluke accidents behind us,” said Jeff Byers, the starting guard who caught the aforementioned fever while hiking in Colorado. “Luckily it happened early on, and not in Week 4 or Week 5” of the season.
Even so, it's hard not to wonder: Are bad things finally catching up to USC after so many years of good fortune? Could it be that maybe the Trojans are vulnerable?
They've got a new starting quarterback, several new starting linemen on both sides of the ball, plus two tough early games – at Virginia on Saturday, then home against No. 2 Ohio State on Sept. 13. The team's offensive line coach, Pat Ruel, said as recently as last week: “We've been struggling.”
Even the NCAA might join the gathering clouds. Its investigators are believed to be a document or two away from cracking down on alleged rules violations involving running back Reggie Bush in 2004 and 2005.
Add it all up and it sure looks like the worst disaster at USC since . . . well, 2006. That was the year the USC offense was trying to recover from having eight players drafted into the NFL. It also was the year the NCAA started looking into the program. Back then, conventional wisdom was that the Trojans defense would have to carry the load. It did – sort of. USC finished with an 11-2 record and a victory over Michigan in the Rose Bowl. Its defense held opponents to 15 points per game while its offense averaged “only” 30, down from 49 the previous year.
The difference this time is that the quarterback, junior Mark Sanchez, might be better than the last one, John David Booty, who took over in 2006 for Matt Leinart. Sanchez's kneecap has been put back in place, and he's likely to be ready Saturday. Likewise, the defense is probably faster and better than it has been in a while, too.
“That's something that's definitely out there,” said senior standout linebacker Brian Cushing, who wasn't inclined to downplay such rumors.
As for the offense as a whole, it hasn't looked so great in practices. It has experience issues: Byers is the only full-time returning starter on the line. But it's all relative under eighth-year head coach Pete Carroll, whose program has a 70-8 record since 2002, including at least a share of six straight Pac-10 Conference titles.
Just as in 2006, a common theory is that the USC defense will have to carry the offense early.
“It's a really, really good group,” Carroll said. “They're solid, tough, fast and smart, with some depth.”
The USC defense lost three first-round NFL draft picks from last year, but this year might have several more among its seven returning starters. In intrasquad practices, such a defense tends to make even USC's offense look worse than it really is.
“It's been one of those things where the defense is throwing a lot at us,” Ruel said. “We've seen a multitude of different types of things, and it's hard to prepare guys when they've seen a ton of stuff. So my job has increased a lot in order to get them ready because they'll see more in one practice here than they'll see in two games.”
Life is that tough these days at No. 3 USC. Freak accidents aside, practices seem nightmarish in comparison to actual games. It's what happens when almost half the players on your roster were national top 100 recruits, according to Rivals.com. USC has signed 50 such prospects since 2004. In comparison, UCLA has signed seven top 100 players in that time. Many teams don't have any.
In 2005, Rivals.com ranked Sanchez the nation's seventh-best prospect out of high school. Let's say he dislocates his kneecap again. What happens then? The Trojans actually might have to put in the nation's 10th-best prospect from 2006, Mitch Mustain, a transfer from Arkansas.
“By the end of the year, Sanchez will be an improvement over the previous two years, absolutely, no question,” said Bobby Burton, recruiting analyst for Rivals.com. “He has more tools than John David Booty will ever have.”
Brent Schrotenboer: (619) 293-1368; brent.schrotenboer@uniontrib.com
