STARS OF 2007: QB John David Booty...LB Rey Maualuga...DE Lawrence Jackson......FS Taylor Mays...
Pro days for 2007 are just about in the book as several major schools hosted NFL decision-makers last week. A number of first-round prospects worked out and the results were varied.
IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL, USC is here.
...A bright spot...was the play of running back C.J. Gable, who has put together an impressive spring thus far.
Receiver Jamere Holland, perhaps the fastest player on USC's roster, finally got his football career out of the starting blocks Sunday. The redshirt freshman, who sat out last season after shoulder surgery, participated in a scrimmage for the first time as the Trojans marked the midpoint of spring workouts.
...rather than claim he was misquoted, Harbaugh has said in subsequent interviews that he was only repeating what he heard.
Both of Southern California's losses last season can be traced to deflected passes at the line: one against Oregon State that stopped a 2-point conversion, the other against UCLA that ended with an interception. But instead of tweaking QB John David Booty's mechanics or throwing motion this spring, the Trojans will use the shotgun set occasionally for the first time under coach Pete Carroll. The change will be enough to force defenses to adapt when facing a team that has had its quarterbacks strictly under center...
The transformation of Reggie Bush from college football star to NFL luminary to global icon came suddenly and spectacularly after last April's draft.
At USC's first practice in full pads, Trojan defensive backs were more likely to be seen in sweatpants than shoulder pads.
The USC Trojans are accustomed to all eyes being on them. Two national titles in the past five years will do that.
Joe Danelo surveyed the scene as USC players ran from one drill to the next during practice on Sunday, the flurry of activity stirring fond, cathartic memories for the father of late Trojans kicker Mario Danelo.
...Mark Sanchez got the majority of the snaps with the first team in USC's first practice in full pads as the first week of practice ended.
As USC's starting center in spring practice, Nick Howell might naturally feel some pressure. His predecessor, Ryan Kalil, left a hole, in terms of talent and leadership, that won't be easy to fill.
When O.J. Mayo was in eighth grade, he already was dealing with comparisons to LeBron James.
...don't feel too bad for [John David Booty]. He could be back in his native state next January, only this time with his helmet on. The national championship game returns to the New Orleans Superdome in January 2008, and lots of folks figure the Trojans will play for a third title since 2003, their first two a split of the AP title and the BCS crown.
...Neither team was in great shape when Garrett became athletic director 14 years ago. The football team had just lost to Fresno State in the Freedom Bowl. The basketball team was playing in front of a handful of fans in the aging Sports Arena.
..."He said he wanted to play for a coach that coached in the NBA, wanted to have a transition city to the NBA, wanted to be in a major city so he could learn to live on his own in a city, that he wanted to be able to leave his name on a program," Floyd said. "He didn't want to be the next great player at Duke or Carolina or Kentucky or Ohio State."
...North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson, the nation's best high school player at that position a year ago, had the answer.
...If you're a freshman, or an incoming one such as the fabulously talented O.J. Mayo, it matters less where the Trojans have been. What's more important is where they are...and where they're headed. The furthest USC has advanced in the tournament's current format is the Elite Eight in 2001.
With numerous players sitting out because of lingering injuries, the sideline looked like a hospital waiting room at times at USC football practice on Thursday.
...With four starters between 6-4 and 6-6 capable of guarding multiple positions, Floyd turned loose his peculiar brand of defense to get USC deep into the NCAA tournament. North Carolina coach Roy Williams said USC's defense is unlike any the Tar Heels have faced...
The University of Southern California has awarded the 2007 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement to Gatze Lettinga, a Dutch scientist who invented an anaerobic wastewater treatment in the 1970s and who, by choosing not to patent his work, has strived to make it available all over the world.
...Two years ago, when Taj Gibson first told his peers in Brooklyn that he had commit to USC, the response was much different.
It's halftime, and they can't hold back the tears.
USC returned to the football field Tuesday for the first time since its Rose Bowl victory over Michigan. Rain and cold weather greeted the team's first spring practice for the third consecutive year.
Jack Kirby, 84, who scored the only [TD] in USC's 6-0 victory over UCLA in 1947 that propelled the Trojans into the Rose Bowl, died...of lung and heart complications at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital...
Three years ago Hershel Dennis arrived at spring camp as USC's starting running back. He lost that role after a two-game suspension in the fall of 2004, before multiple leg injuries knocked him out the past two seasons.
Struggling to come to grips with the decision to retire, Ed Hervey sought the opinions of those who mattered the most -- his mother and sister.
...When Floyd answered the phone, he heard a teenager’s voice on the other end: “Coach, this is O. J. Mayo. I’d like to come to your school.”
Nick Young and Lodrick Stewart shot well last year, too. Gabe Pruitt could drive and dish or shut down opposing guards a year ago, just as he does now.
When it comes to football, there is an old saying that offense sells tickets but defense wins championships...
USC coach Pete Carroll and his Trojans football team open spring practice today. For Carroll, this is his seventh spring at USC.
"Michigan State wasn't as talented as the remaining teams the Tar Heels will face, starting Friday night in the Sweet 16 against Southern Cal."
Daniel Hackett looked up at who many think is the best player in college basketball - four inches up to be exact.
This was supposed to be a preamble to their one shining moment, the calm before USC and star recruit O.J. Mayo stormed back into the NCAA tournament in 2008...
Willie Wood sat up in his bed and used his hands to help lift and maneuver his legs so he could face his breakfast tray...He has gout and has been unable to walk for the past four months, and he's about to undergo replacement surgery on his left knee to go with his previously replaced right knee and right hip...
While USC will return star QB John David Booty, the Trojans lost two of the best receivers in America in Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith, who combined to catch 141 balls for 2,098 yards and 21 touchdowns last season. Booty will use the spring to gain a good rapport with Vidal Hazelton (7) and Patrick Turner (1).
This could be the best year of basketball coach Tim Floyd's life.
...USC Trojans
...it was reasonable, critics believed, to speculate about how the Trojans, especially Pruitt and Young, are not tough enough, serious enough, intense enough or whatever enough to win big games.
Fresh off a week of calling seven straight playoff basketball games, KMTS/KGLN news and sports director Ron Milhorn on Monday will put his vocal chords to work for a big prize: to become the public address announcer for the Colorado Rockies...
There are six words Chad Doreck is dying to hear.
To Pete Carroll, it looked like the opposite of a team at the center of a racial controversy.
Barry Glassner has made it his business to set credulous consumers of mass media straight. His best-known book, “The Culture of Fear,” took apart several stories poised somewhere between urban myth and the lead item on the evening news, arguing that according to statistics, teenage moms aren’t really tearing up the fabric of society, road rage is less of a problem than lightning strikes, and gun control, not building more prisons, might be the best way of stopping violent crime.
The five new changeable message signs around Exposition Park should remind Robert Nubine to take a different route to work when USC's football team is playing at the Coliseum.
Sorry, Dad, but living up to your reputation isn't the biggest burden on the shoulders of Dwayne Polee Jr. these days.
...I wrote in a blog a year or so ago that the football recruiting process has sped up by about six full months over the past two or three years. In other words, players who used to be offered in June of their junior year in high school were now being offered in January...
...What profession would you have gone into if you had not entered real estate? --Wade Henley, Mechanicsville, Va.
It has been 26 football seasons since Sean Salisbury, a three-sport star, graduated from Orange Glen High...
