Coaches tab USC as team to beat - USA Today via Asbury Park Press
...traditional powerhouses are prominently represented. The top four teams … No. 1 Southern California, No. 2 LSU, No. 3 Florida and No. 4 Texas … each have a BCS title in the last four years. It's the third time USC has started No. 1 in the last four seasons.

USC received no votes lower than No. 3...

[Maisel] Sarkisian: Nice head start but early arrival no guarantee - ESPN
With the benefit of four years of hindsight, USC quarterback John David Booty can see the folly.

Never mind that the Trojans were coming off an Orange Bowl victory and a top-five finish. Never mind that the guy who won the job, a third-year sophomore by the name of Matt Leinart, would go on to win a Heisman Trophy. Or that another quarterback, Matt Cassel, would be drafted off the USC bench by the New England Patriots in 2005.

When Booty arrived in Los Angeles in January 2003 from Shreveport, La., fresh from the recruiting wars, he believed he could play right away...

[Celizik] Carroll could be the next Rockne - AP via MSNBC
When I think about Pete Carroll, the name that keeps jumping into my head is Knute Rockne. I keep telling myself that there have to be better analogies, and there probably are. But my brain won’t cooperate. It keeps whispering “Rockne.”

This isn’t an opinion based on careful analysis. It’s a gut feeling. If it were anything else, I’d flippantly fling it in the recycle bin and move on.

It shouldn’t be hard to do. Carroll isn’t anything like Rockne, college football’s first celebrity coach. Rockne was born in Norway and worked in the U.S. Post Office in Chicago before enrolling at Notre Dame. He was a star end at the age of 25 on the team that beat Army in 1913 and introduced the nation to the forward pass...

Also, [Video] Trojan Pride - MSNBC

USC: Leader of the Pac - Daily Californian
...“I think they should be in that league I was so successful in,” said new Arizona State head coach Dennis Erickson, referring to his unsuccessful stints as an NFL head coach...

“USC’s not only the best team in the country, but maybe the best team in the history of college football,” Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh said of USC’s 2007 squad.

While the new Cardinal head coach’s praise may be a bit overstated, there is no denying the fact that in many preseason polls, the Trojans are the top team in the country. USC is projected to be so good that it garnered only the third unanimous No. 1 conference ranking in the 46-year history of the media poll. The other two teams? The 2004 and 2005 Trojans which featured Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush and LenDale White...