Booty carrying on USC's quarterback tradition
LOS ANGELES — Within Heritage Hall, headquarters of the powerhouse Southern California football program, these are the Heisman Trophy standings:
Running backs 5, Quarterbacks 2.
But as time passes, and as USC continues to pass, the running backs figure to lose ground in this in-house race for glory.
Tailback U? Try Quarterbacks R Us.
Two of the last five Heisman Trophy winners were USC quarterbacks — Carson Palmer in 2002, Matt Leinart in 2004
Running backs rallied when Reggie Bush won in 2005, but quarterbacks could be back in the Heisman hunt in coming years. Starting this year.
USC, with two national titles and a 59-6 record the past five years, opens this season with a No. 1 ranking in the USA TODAY Coaches' Top 25 and another Heisman Trophy candidate — quarterback John David Booty.
THE RANKINGS: USA TODAY Top 25 Coaches' poll
"We're real excited about J.D.," says USC coach Pete Carroll, who has orchestrated this amazing run since his hiring before the 2001 season. "A year ago, he was coming back from back surgery. But he's made an effort to get in the best shape of his life. He's faster and stronger than he's ever been."
Maybe the Trojans are, too. They are flat out loaded at nearly every position. Wide receiver is the only real question mark because of the departures of Dwayne Jarrett (Carolina Panthers) and Steve Smith (New York Giants).
Carroll hopes to improve the Trojans' production in the running game, where an accumulation of young talent includes incoming freshman Joe McKnight of River Ridge, La., who has drawn comparisons to Reggie Bush.
Yet there is no question the 2007 Trojans hope to ride the impressive right arm of John David Booty the same way they relied on big plays from Palmer and Leinart. It's the way they hope to benefit from similar aerial feats in the future by Mark Sanchez or Mitch Mustain or Aaron Corp, who could all probably start at another school right now.
Although the players have changed and the coaches have changed, the production has been stunningly consistent: USC quarterback has become the position in college football.
Blossoming of Carson Palmer
Some think this rise in the quarterback profile began when Carroll hired Norm Chow, the longtime offensive coordinator at pass-happy Brigham Young, as his first offensive coordinator.
Chow was certainly a major factor. But in Carroll's and Chow's first season, 2001, Palmer was an average player (13 touchdown passes, 12 interceptions) and the Trojans were an average team (6-6).
That offseason, changes were made. Carroll, a defensive coach by trade, made adjustments to his offensive staff. Lane Kiffin, who coached tight ends in 2001, became the wide receivers coach. Steve Sarkisian, a former BYU quarterback who came in with Chow as a graduate assistant, became the quarterbacks coach.
Kiffin and Sarkisian would rise to become offensive coordinators, Kiffin in 2005 when Chow left to become offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans, Sarkisian this year after Kiffin was hired as head coach of the Oakland Raiders. (Sarkisian says he turned down Raiders' owner Al Davis before Kiffin was hired. "When you get an opportunity to be a head coach, you want to do it your way," Sarkisian says. "That wasn't the job for me.")
After the 2001 season, Carroll, Chow, Sarkisian and Kiffin went about retooling the offense and finding a way to harness all that supposed talent that had not emerged from Palmer.
"We started to work on things with the offense to enable the quarterback to just play and not worry about so many mental aspects," Sarkisian says. "We did a lot of nice research, looking back at some of the things Bill Walsh did in San Francisco, some Indianapolis Colts things, some New England Patriots things.
"They were quarterback-friendly things. Getting the quarterback completions. Slant routes … (and) things to get the quarterback out of the pocket. That enabled Carson to utilize his physical ability and not have to manage everything mentally.
"And you have to give Carson a lot of credit. The guy just matured."
Then, after a brilliant senior season (3,942 yards, 33 touchdown passes, 10 interceptions) capped by winning the Heisman, Palmer was gone.
Ascendance of Matt Leinart
In the spring of 2003, the Trojan coaches were happy with their offense but not necessarily in their choices of quarterbacks to run it.
The decision came down to two Matts — Leinart, a redshirt sophomore, and Cassel, a redshirt junior who backed up Palmer in 2002.
Carroll chose Leinart primarily because he had to choose one or the other.
"There was a lot of uncertainty about that," Sarkisian recalls. "Leinart hadn't exactly set the world on fire in practice."
There was a feeling early that fall that Leinart was merely a caretaker until the widely hailed John David Booty, a true freshman who had bypassed his senior season in high school to enroll at USC in 2003, learned the offense.
A loss to Cal in the fourth game didn't help Leinart's cause.
But then Leinart launched one of the greatest careers in college football.
"He just came into his own," Sarkisian says. "Matt realized we had great players on this team. It was a case of letting these guys go make plays. Guys like (wide receivers) Mike Williams and Keary Colbert, a young Reggie Bush.
"His confidence grew, then the players' confidence in him grew and the coaches' confidence in him grew. Everyone just started to feed off that. We knew we had a guy we could count on."
Leinart produced three consecutive stellar seasons, winning national championships in 2003 (Associated Press) and '04 (Bowl Championship Series). He was the '04 Heisman winner, then surprisingly came back for his senior year and fell one game short in '05 — Texas 41, USC 38 in a classic BCS title matchup in the Rose Bowl — of winning a third consecutive national title.
Patience of John David Booty
As a junior at Evangel Christian in Shreveport, La., in the fall of 2002, John David Booty watched what Palmer was doing at USC, was aware of what Chow had accomplished with quarterbacks at BYU and could see himself stepping right in to the USC offense.
"I had always wanted to live in Los Angeles for whatever reason," John David Booty says. "I started to look at coordinators and head coaches. As far as passing goes, Norm Chow was one of the best. Our high school was sort of like BYU. We didn't necessarily have the best athletes, but we could beat good teams because of a good game plan and a good system.
"I thought, 'What if you have a great team with that same system? The sky's the limit for that team.' That's kind of how I ended up here, and it's turned out to be that way, you know?"
Except for the three-year wait, that is.
Leinart's emergence as a sophomore and his surprising decision to return for his senior year after winning the Heisman as a junior kept John David Booty on the bench.
Last season, despite a running game that struggled after the departures of Reggie Bush (New Orleans Saints) and LenDale White (Tennessee Titans), John David Booty emerged as a worthy successor to Leinart. The redshirt junior threw for 3,347 yards and won first-team all-Pacific-10 honors.
He says the wait was worth it — he has had great teaching, he's playing with great teammates and he's playing great football.
For the same reasons, John David Booty says, he understands why his backup, Sanchez, a redshirt sophomore with star potential, is waiting patiently. And why Mustain, an eight-game starter last season as a true freshman at Arkansas, has transferred to USC, where he will sit out this season and run the scout team at practice. And why Corp, a prep All-American last year at Orange (Calif.) Lutheran, would choose USC despite so much talent ahead of him on the depth chart.
For a while, as he rode the bench, people kept asking John David Booty if he was going transfer. He kept looking at them like they were crazy.
"Leave this?" he says. "Heck, everybody wants to be a part of this. Some guys are fortunate enough to play and get their time, and some won't be. But it is so worth the risk. That's why I never left. If you don't play, you still get a degree from USC and call it a day. If you do play, then you go on and do great things. Everybody just wants a chance at that."
John David Booty is wrong about one thing. If you don't play, you don't have to call it a day.
Remember Cassel, who lost the battle of Matts to Leinart in the spring of '03? He never became a starter at USC. He threw 33 passes in his Trojan career. He was picked by the New England Patriots in the seventh round of the 2005 NFL draft. He's Tom Brady's backup.
Cassel's path is a huge motivator for a guy such as Sanchez, who was considered the top high school player in the country in 2004 and, three years later, has thrown seven passes for USC.
"Being in this program, it's like being in an NFL classroom," Sanchez says. "There are all these great young coaches and players. It's a melting pot of knowledge. The competition we have in practice is unmatched around the country, and the pros know that.
"It's probably better being a backup here at USC than a starter at some other school."
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