Trojan Middlemen : Linebackers Anno and Davis Try to Throw Up Roadblock for USC in Football’s Equivalent of Freeway Interchange

USC’s Sam Anno and Keith Davis are in the middle of the traffic pattern on the field. As inside linebackers, they play a perilous position.

It’s like crossing a busy freeway on foot.

“You can get hurt more on the inside because people are coming at you from all different angles,” said Anno, who plays the strong side.

“The position is a challenge,” said Davis, who plays the weak side. “It’s intense and complex.”

Anno and Davis, the Mr. Insides of the USC defense, have been playing together since their junior season at Santa Monica High School. It’s important, for USC’s sake, that they stay together for the rest of the season.

With Rex Moore sidelined indefinitely with a lingering hamstring injury, there aren’t any experienced replacements for Anno and Davis. Mike Serpa, a redshirt freshman, is listed on the depth chart as filling in at both inside positions.

Anno and Davis are regular starters this season for the first time. They share the team lead in tackles, each with 71. Anno also has contributed two sacks and intercepted a pass in the first quarter of USC’s 31-13 win over Washington State Saturday when the Cougars were threatening to score.

“There is a tremendous amount of pressure going from a reserve role to a starter and defensive signal caller as Sam has done,” said Artie Gigantino, USC’s defensive coordinator and inside linebacker coach. “But he has done a great job in the transition. Both Sam and Keith are hard workers, tough guys in that Riki Ellison and Jeff Brown mold as inside linebackers. How well we do defensively depends a lot on how well they play.”

Defense carried the Trojans last year when they won the Pacific 10 championship. And players such as Anno and Davis may be key factors again as USC tries to stay alive in the Pacific 10 race.

USC is one of five teams with one conference loss. The others are UCLA, Washington, Arizona State and Arizona. The race could tighten next Saturday. UCLA and Washington will play Arizona and Arizona State, respectively, while USC is in Berkeley for a game with California.

Anno, a junior, came to USC as an outside linebacker, but he was asked by the coaching staff to move inside midway through the 1984 season. He readily agreed.

“I knew I wasn’t going to play much behind Jack Del Rio and I wanted to get on the field,” Anno said.

Davis, a consensus high school All-American at Santa Monica, was about to become a starter as a freshman in 1983, but he suffered a season-ending knee injury in the fifth game against Washington State.

“It was on a cut block,” Davis said. Neither he nor Anno particularly likes to play against option teams because of their blocking schemes.

Davis was able to retain a year of eligibility because he played only 17 minutes in 1983. Last year, as a redshirt freshman, he was a backup inside linebacker.

USC was strongly criticized in the aftermath of its 37-3 loss to Notre Dame Oct. 26. Both Anno and Davis want to put that game out of their minds.

Anno shrugged off such criticism, but Davis said: “I felt people should just be quiet. When you’re playing with all your might, you feel bad enough within yourself. I don’t think people recognize how a player feels being on the field for the entire 60 minutes. That was the worst defeat in my career because of the importance of the game and the fact that we had prepared so well for it.”

Anno played for St. Monica High School as a freshman and sophomore before transferring to Santa Monica High.

He was even used as a quarterback at St. Monica for a few games in the run-and-shoot offense in which receivers scatter all over the field.

He said that if USC ever needs another quarterback, he’s ready. It would get him out of that mess in the middle of the defense.

Anno said that he’s about one-quarter Japanese along with a mixture of Polish, Irish and American Indian.

“The name was originally Aono,” he said. “But when my grandmother, my dad and my sister were supposed to go to an internment camp during World War II, my grandmother changed the name to Anno to keep her kids out of the camp. She spread the word they were American Indians.”

Anno would fit right in if he changed his name back to Aono when USC plays Oregon Nov. 30 in the Mirage Bowl in Tokyo.

Trojan Notes Tailbacks Fred Crutcher and Aaron Emanuel are listed as probable for Saturday’s game with California. Crutcher reinjured his left shoulder against Washington State. Emanuel sprained his left ankle. . . . USC hasn’t lost to California since 1977. The Bears are 3-6 overall and 1-6 in the Pac-10.