Trojans Script It and Rip It

The opponent is different but the script will remain almost entirely the same.

When top-ranked USC conducts its first full-squad practice today for the Rose Bowl game Jan. 4 against Texas, the Trojans will begin what has become a familiar -- and successful -- pre-bowl schedule.

The bowl championship series title game against the second-ranked Longhorns will be USC’s fourth BCS bowl-game appearance in four years. The Trojans are unbeaten in BCS games.

“We have a lot of confidence in the system we put together over the years; we’re sticking to it,” Coach Pete Carroll said Thursday.

USC will practice 13 times over the next 2 1/2 weeks before playing Texas, which is in the BCS title game for the first time.

“There’s a comfortable rhythm to it,” said Carroll, whose team has won 34 consecutive games. “We have expectations about focus and the players should know what we expect.”

On Dec. 4, the day the matchup against Texas was officially announced, USC players said their experience in BCS games would be an advantage during the anticipated media buildup to the Rose Bowl.

“We know how to do this,” senior defensive end Frostee Rucker said.

Just as it did before the 2004 Rose Bowl, USC is conducting all workouts on campus for what is virtually a home game in Pasadena. The Trojans begin participating in official bowl game activities -- and will move into a Beverly Hills hotel -- Dec. 29.

Most of the Trojans practiced twice last week, the first time they were on the field since their 66-19 victory over UCLA on Dec. 3 that capped a second consecutive unbeaten regular season.

Those practices, however, were conducted without tailback Reggie Bush and quarterback Matt Leinart, who were in New York for the Heisman Trophy announcement. Tailback LenDale White also was excused from a workout so he could celebrate with Bush, who became USC’s seventh Heisman winner.

In Leinart’s absence, redshirt sophomore John David Booty and freshman Mark Sanchez began a quarterback competition that is expected to be hotly contested during spring practice. Safety Darnell Bing took snaps at running back to fill the void left by Bush and White.

Booty and Sanchez probably will continue taking most of the snaps today and Saturday before the Trojans break for two days. Carroll said Leinart would assume full control next week, when the Trojans “go into game-plan mode.”

Carroll and his staff formulated their successful bowl-preparation script after the Trojans’ flameout at the Las Vegas Bowl in 2001.

USC lost to Utah, 10-6, in a game played on Dec. 25.

“We want to disassociate from the whole Las Vegas Bowl experience,” Carroll said with a laugh.

In 2002, Carroll said the Trojans looked at bowl practices as “another spring practice” before their first appearance in a BCS game. USC traveled to Miami for the 2003 Orange Bowl against Iowa and routed the Hawkeyes, 38-17.

The next season, denied by computers a chance to play in the BCS title game, USC stayed home and beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, 28-14.

Last year, the Trojans returned to the Orange Bowl and, using the blueprint they followed in 2002, demolished Oklahoma, 55-19, in the BCS title game.

The Trojans will spend the night before the Rose Bowl at the same downtown Los Angeles hotel that housed them before the game two years ago.

Carroll, however, will add at least one new wrinkle next week when he conducts a seminar for players about the pros and cons of leaving school early for the NFL.

The Trojans will break for three days for Christmas, then report back on Dec. 27 to begin the final push to the Rose Bowl.

“We’re rolling now,” Carroll said. “This is the time we knock it out.”

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On a bowl roll

Pete Carroll is coaching USC in its second consecutive BCS championship game, its fourth consecutive BCS game and fifth bowl game in five seasons:

*--* Bowl Result W-L Las Vegas Utah 10, USC 6 6-6 Orange USC 38, Iowa 17 11-2 Rose* USC 28, Michigan 14 12-1 Orange USC 55, Oklahoma 19 13-0

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*co-champion with LSU, which won BCS championship game. USC voted No. 1 in Associated Press poll.