White might slip to Panthers - Charlotte Observer
The "other" Southern California running back available in the NFL draft, LenDale White, looked like a potential top 10 pick less than three months ago, but could be slipping far enough to be in serious consideration for the Carolina Panthers with the 27th overall selection.

White's stock -- at least in mock drafts -- has fallen steadily the past week after he looked out of shape and didn't run a 40-yard dash at Southern Cal's pro day Monday, saying he had a sore hamstring...

Preview 2006: USC Trojans - College Football News
...There isn't a more talented team in America with a who's who of high school all-stars brought in by Pete Carroll. It's hard to fall too far when you have the best recruiting class in the country two years in a row. But there are big things to worry about...

...The season will be a success if ... USC plays for the national title. Would just winning the Pac 10 and going to a BCS game be good enough at this point? It should be, but the bar is set ridiculously high after going 54-10 under Pete Carroll and losing two games in three years...

Preview 2006: Trojan offense - College Football News
...there's hope for the explosion to continue, albeit to a lesser degree, thanks to the nation's best receiving corps, a good foundation on the offensive line with tackle Sam Baker and center Ryan Kalil, and more high school All-America prospects than one team should have...

...Quarterbacks - So who wants to be a superstar?...

...Running Backs - Can you imagine what the running game would've been like had Reggie Bush and LenDale White stuck around for their senior years?...

...Receivers - This group will keep the NFL stocked for years to come...

...Offensive Linemen - The line has to overcome the loss of mauling guard Taitusi Lutui and all-stars Winston Justice and Fred Matua, but there are great players to rebuild around in All-Americans Sam Baker and Ryan Kalil...

Preview 2006: Trojan defense - College Football News
...What the D lacks in overall experience it makes up for in ridiculous talent and athleticism. The linebacking corps is one of the best in America with a third string that would form a killer starting trio for about 95 other teams...

...Defensive Line - This could be the Achilles' heel early on, but it should turn into a killer of a pass rushing unit as the season goes on...

...Defensive backs - Only one starter returns to the secondary, versatile corner Josh Pinkard, but last year's pass defense was a bit of a disappointment...

...Special Teams - USC plugs in talent as well as anyone, and that counts for kicker as Mario Danelo came up with a terrific season replacing all-star Ryan Killeen. Now the question becomes whether or not Taylor Odegard or Troy Van Blarcom can adequately replace punter Tom Malone...

USC student will swim to help disabled students - Daily Breeze
...Joey Pulford of Redondo Beach hasn't touched the ocean since the day he crushed his spinal cord in July 2000, leaving him confined to a wheelchair at 16 years old.

But it hasn't stopped him from getting on with his life.

Now 22, Pulford is a senior on the dean's list at USC, where he studies public policy and planning. He drives a truck, hangs out with his friends and today will take to a swimming pool, where he will help raise money so other physically challenged kids can attend college...

...In its 26th year, the annual Swim With Mike event at USC offers tuition and financial assistance for athletes who have become handicapped.

Pulford is a recipient of the scholarship and said he wouldn't have been able to attend USC without it. So he rounded up some sponsors and plans to raise more than the $750 he did last year...

Pinkard faces surgery - LA Daily News
...Josh Pinkard is the latest Trojan facing surgery this spring to repair a sports hernia that has bothered him for the past six weeks.

Pinkard said he will undergo surgery April 18 for the injury and is expected to be out about two months.

"It will affect me as far as not getting reps in the offseason and being in the flow of things but I'll still come back and play for the season," Pinkard said.

The hernia has hindered Pinkard during spring practice but he has attempted to practice anyway...

Ashley Making Strides After Late Start - LA Times
Walker Lee Ashley arrived at USC a year later than expected, but the freshman defensive lineman is beginning to make an impression.

During most of the first three weeks of spring practice, Ashley has backed up junior Chris Barrett.

On Sunday, however, Barrett must attend a class field trip, so Ashley is expected to start with the first-unit defense during the annual "Trojan Huddle" scrimmage at the Coliseum.

"I have a good chance to get in there and make some plays and make a name for myself," Ashley said Friday...

[Maisel] Rose Bowl loss to Texas all but forgotten by USC - ESPN
..."You gotta bounce back," offensive tackle Sam Baker said. "You can't dwell on the past. That happens in the Super Bowl, too. All the [losing] teams in the Super Bowl struggle the next year. That's not going to be us. We're going to go back and work just like we've always worked. It's really not about one game."

And that is where the mark of Pete Carroll can be seen on these Trojans, as clear as the lightning bolt on Harry Potter's forehead. The Rose Bowl, as big as it was, amounted to one game, same as the previous 34. USC did the best it could do, and for the first time in nearly three seasons, it wasn't enough.

"The way we handled that fits right hand in hand with our philosophy," Carroll said after practice the other evening. "I think our system, the way we do stuff, the way we talk, from day one, A to Z, prepares us to deal with whether you win or whether you lose that game. Not that we accept it, any of it...

[Silver] Back against the wall - CNNSI
...Perhaps White's refusal to run the 40 was not a direct reaction to his disdain for such a system, but I do know from our very brief conversation on Sunday that we share the following three-word mantra: Film doesn't lie.

In other words, many of us spent numerous Saturdays in the autumns of 2003, '04 and '05 watching White play pivotal downs for an elite team, and though success in college is not always a direct predictor of success in the pros, especially at the running back position...there is a mountain of visual evidence that suggests White has what it takes...

Can't-miss Bush makes choice easy - Houston Chronicle
...It's not about the Texans or anyone doubting Vince Young and never has been. It's about not finding so much as a hint of doubt in anything about Bush. It's about the NFL's greatest football minds studying and analyzing Bush in every way and not finding a flaw in his game or personality. Not so much as a wrinkle in his shirt. Not so much as a hair out of place or a conversation that does not include at least one, "yes sir."...

USC's successor to Bush, White lost for season - AP via MSNBC
Southern California tailback Hershel Dennis, who entered spring practice No. 1 on the depth chart, has torn ligaments in his left knee and is expected to miss the 2006 season.

Dennis was injured in practice Tuesday, apparently trying to cut on the wet artificial turf at USC’s Cromwell Field. An MRI taken Wednesday night revealed the damage...

...Dennis was the only experienced tailback participating in spring practice. Desmond Reed and Michael Coleman, who both played as backups last season, are recovering from operations — Reed on a knee and Coleman on a hip.

Chauncy Washington, who has been academically ineligible the past two seasons and isn’t participating in spring practice, hopes to play next fall...

Carr getting up to speed in Houston - USA Today
...Carr does concede that Southern California running back Reggie Bush, a strong candidate to be Houston's top choice, would give the Texans a dynamic, immediate boost with his potential to create mismatches.

"I don't know what we're going to do with the pick, but I don't know how a guy like Reggie Bush can't help you," Carr says. "I haven't ever seen a player who turns a corner like Reggie Bush does."...

...The biggest reason Houston may decide to select Bush? Southern California runs the same zone-blocking, one-cut-and-go system last year's fifth-ranked Broncos did.

"Reggie's been around that same system," Kubiak says. "I told the players recently, 'There's no greater friend to a quarterback than a running game.'...

The Ramble - Blogcritics.org
...Who Wouldn't Want To Play Football At USC? Like the most beautiful supermodel in the world, USC picks whom they want, and not the other way around. And that's the way it should be. I could never figure out how the USC program could ever fall into disrepair. Being a New Jersey, football-obsessed football guy I always felt that USC was the place to go if you were a hot high school football recruit. Heck, if you were ANY kind of recruit. The weather, the cheerleaders, the school, the girls, Hollywood, the girls, the film school, the girls...you get the idea. Pete Carroll has the best job in all of sports and he is doing a great job at making the job even better...

...if I were Pete Carroll the only way that I'd leave this job is if I was carried out feet first...

Tuesday Question - College Football News
Give five early Heisman favorites and one wacky choice...

[Fiutak]...3. QB Mark Sanchez, USC - The only question for the starting USC quarterback is whether or not there will be a Trojan backlash after winning three of the last four Heismans...Sanchez is a big-time talent with the nation's best receiving corps to throw to...

[Cirminiello]...Wacky, off-the-wall pick – QB Mark Sanchez, USC – These days, if you’re the starting quarterback at USC, you should automatically begin the Heisman race in the Top 20. Sanchez is a monster talent, and if John David Booty’s back problems linger, those skills could be on display as early as this fall. The redshirt freshman has never thrown a collegiate pass, but then again, neither did Matt Leinart the year before he went ballistic for 38 touchdowns and more than 3,500 yards...

[Pasquarelli] Bing only defensive prospect projected as first-rounder - ESPN
...Although the Trojans could have as many as six players selected in the first round on April 29, the lone defensive player with a chance to be a No. 1 pick is safety Darnell Bing, certainly regarded as one of the lottery's premier prospects at his position. But after Bing goes off the board, likely in the second half of the first stanza, it could be a while before another Southern California defender hears his name called...

...The unusual dearth of top-shelf defensive talent in the draft for USC shouldn't be that surprising, however, to anyone who saw the Trojans play in 2005. The defense struggled throughout much of the season...

[Pasquarelli] Justice, pair of guards impress scouts - ESPN
Since 1970, Southern California has supplied 17 first-round offensive linemen to the NFL draft. But the Trojans haven't had a first-round blocker since 1996 and none of note since 1995...

...But this is the year the unusual drought ends for the Trojans. And the year in which the proud tradition of producing quality offensive linemen -- guys such as Pro Football Hall of Fame member Anthony Munoz, Bruce Matthews, Keith Van Horne, Marvin Powell, Ken Ruettgers and Don Mosebar -- is revisited.

In behemoth offensive tackle Winston Justice, clearly the prospect whose draft stock was most enhanced by Sunday afternoon's pro day workouts, the Trojans will have their first top-round offensive line pick since Green Bay selected John Michels in 1996...

The Reggie Bush Mercedes CLS - EMercedesBenz.com
Picture for a moment that you are Reggie Bush... star running back/tailback/wide reciever for the USC Trojans; soon to be top pick in this year's NFL draft.

Now picture what you would drive.

If your selection was the Mercedes CLS fitted with an ASMA-Design CLS Shark II body kit and Lowenhart wheels, then you and Reggie have something in common - you both picked the same vehicle, and you're both insane...

[Pasquarelli] High school recruits get a glimpse of future - ESPN
...If you were a potential recruit in the stands at the Cromwell Field track as players participated in the 40-yard dash, or among those who ringed the field at the Howard Jones practice facility as quarterback Matt Leinart threw passes to tight end Dominique Byrd, you couldn't help but notice familiar faces such as Casserly. Or head coaches John Fox of Carolina and Jeff Fisher of Tennessee. Or prominent player agents such as Joel Segal, David Dunn, Eugene Parker and Leigh Steinberg.

And it was hard not to catch the ever-conspicuous Carroll, schmoozing with all his old NFL buddies.

If you mused that, "Hey, this can be me at the end of my career here, with NFL scouts all wanting a piece of me," Carroll's production was a success...

[Vote] Who is the nation's top amateur athlete? - USA Today
...Ballots for the 76th annual Sullivan Award were sent out this week by the Amateur Athletic Union to AAU officials, U.S. Olympic Committee members, college sports information directors and others...

...Vince Young and two University of Southern California teammates, running back Reggie Bush and quarterback Matt Leinart, were so far ahead of the field that the Heisman Trophy Trust didn't invite a fourth nominee to the ceremony...

Plenty of players make names for themselves during USC's Pro Day - Daily Trojan
...USC linebacker Collin Ashton came through with a very respectable 25 reps of 225 pounds and ran a 4.67 in the 40-yard dash. Those numbers put him on par with Iowa's Chad Greenway, a projected first-round pick...

...Another Trojan, wide receiver William Buchanon, had the unfortunate luck of playing behind a host of current and future professional receivers, including Keary Colbert, Mike Williams, Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith.

However, a couple of 4.38s in the 40-yard will get you noticed...

...And finally, there was offensive guard Fred Matua...