USC's Booty won't be shaken
He appears completely composed, not that he seemed rattled last season. Looks confident, very much at ease, calm as a lake sunrise.
Quarterback John David Booty is a man at peace, a young man very much in his element.
Expectations swirl around his USC football team, everyone's preseason No.1. They shroud every conversation about his season's personal prospects, constantly mentioning him as a leading Heisman Trophy candidate.
And John David Booty gives a slight smile, moves onto the next huddle, the next play, the next interview.
Old questions have given way to anticipation. Doubts replaced by lofty goals.
He feels ready for all of it. Has looked ready throughout camp. Looked at his challenge as grand opportunity. A quarterback ready for the next level.
"He's just way more confident," said USC coach Pete Carroll. "He knows what he can do. I don't think that's a concern. He's physically fit.
"The big question mark last year was how he was going to hold up. We didn't know. We just had to wade through that and figure it out. That's well behind him."
Last season he was coming off back surgery, and following in the footsteps of Heisman winning quarterbacks Matt Leinart and Carson Palmer.
Questions about John David Booty's back, his ability to follow the USC quarterback lineage, to simply be a high-level college quarterback remained to be answered.
And then he threw for more than 3,300 yards. Threw 29touchdowns and led the Trojans to an 11-2 season.
If not necessarily spectacular in the Carson and Leinart vein, he was amazingly consistent. A model of efficiency. A pin-point passer. Calm in the pocket.
After waiting three years for his turn at USC, John David Booty delivered. And now in his senior season, with a year's starting experience behind him, the bar is raised.
"I think you'll see a quicker, more decisive player," said USC offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian. "I think you'll see the hesitation will be limited. You'll see a guy that's much more confident.
"And in turn, I think that's going to carry over into our entire offense. They're going to feed off his demeanor, his confidence. It should make for us to have an exciting group."
They may need to feed off his confidence, because while the defense has 10 starters back, the offense returns only six. Despite the team hype, there is no proven game-breaker.
He lost both starting receivers to the NFL, Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith. And tailback, much like last year, remains unresolved despite a wealth of high school phenoms.
Yet John David Booty couldn't appear calmer than if he'd just finished a glass of warm milk. Eager for the season to begin Saturday, confident of the road ahead.
"I feel that way," John David Booty said. "I sure hope it would appear that way.
"I have a full season playing in big-time games, going on the road in tough situations, winning the Rose Bowl. That's a lot of things you add to your resume that you didn't have, that you really build off of and take from."
John David Booty wants to improve his .617 passing completion from last season, to recognize defenses quicker, to step forward in big games. Not re-invent his game, just step it up.
"The offense is the offense," Carroll said.
"Whatever we need from him, he'll do. If we need him to throw 40 times in a game, he'll do it.
"We've always prided ourselves on having a balanced attack, with both a running and passing game, and we want John to be the point man. Move that ball around and make good decisions, like he always does."
His first major decision was to graduate a year early from Evangel Christian High School in Louisiana after the school fired his father as quarterbacks coach.
At USC he waited his turn. Learned more about patience than he had ever desired, as Leinart led the Trojans to consecutive national titles and captured the Heisman in 2004 - then surprised most by coming back for his senior season.
John David Booty waited, spending the time studying under coaches Carroll, Sarkisian, Norm Chow, Lane Kiffin, and Leinart.
"Not everybody is in the situation to learn from the type of guys I was," he said. "It takes patience just to be a student and observer.
"Some guys come right up there and think they know everything. To me it was totally the opposite. I came in here knowing I hardly knew anything about college football. I just made my whole life, each and every season, dedicated to watching and learning from the guys who were before me."
Even when Leinart chose to return for his final season, John David Booty waited, fought his frustration, waited again.
"It did get to the point where I was like, `OK, man, now I'm ready to get out there. I've learned. I'm ready to go now,' " he said. "But it just wasn't my time quite yet. He came back for one more year.
"This is where I wanted to be. I didn't want to leave. I love this place. I knew that I would still have an opportunity to be a two-year starter. And two years here to me, is worth four somewhere else."
This year observers will watch to see if he can throw the deep ball. To see if he can handle the kind of pressure brought on him last season by UCLA. If he can lead USC to the national title.
John David Booty knows all this, but appears the eye of the storm. Boosted by last season, eager for the next.
"He's not going in afraid of what's going to happen, what the question marks are," Carroll said "He knows. He's played long enough, been around long enough.
"He really just has to go out and have fun playing football. He's well into that kind of level."
Steve Dilbeck's column appears in the Daily News four times a week. stephen.dilbeck
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