Peete Says Shoulder Is Healed : But Painful Loss to Notre Dame Won’t Go Away

Rodney Peete, USC’s senior quarterback, is as experienced at answering questions as those who are asking them, and sometimes he even punctuates his responses with a few surprises.

For example, when recently asked about the condition of his left shoulder that was separated in the Trojans’ Nov. 26 loss to Notre Dame, his reply was less than expected.

“Well, I don’t know if I can play in the Rose Bowl game,” he said with a straight face.

Then, he grinned, enjoying the reporters’ puzzled expressions.

Peete always seems to be having a good time, playing small jokes on his teammates and disguising his voice on fake phone calls to USC’s sports information office.

He is apparently at ease in any situation, but he still shakes his head over what he calls the 2 craziest weeks of his life.

In that span during November, Peete became a celebrated measles case before the UCLA game, then had laryngitis for a few days before the Notre Dame game.

“It’s just something I have to laugh at now,” Peete said. “To get the measles when you’re 22 years old is very strange. And to get it before the biggest game of your career is even stranger. As for laryngitis, it was very frustrating. I’m a guy who likes to talk.”

Peete laughs about his ailments now, but there is one lingering hurt that that may be with him for a while.

He is still bothered by USC’s 27-10 regular-season-ending loss to Notre Dame when college football’s No. 1 ranking was on the line.

“I’m still trying to get it out of my mind, but I keep replaying the game,” he said. “I wish I had it back. It’s tough to take when you’re playing in a game of that magnitude. You want to play your best game and we didn’t do that.

“It’s not a way you want to end your career at the Coliseum as a USC Trojan.”

So now Peete and his teammates must forget about the Notre Dame game, if possible, and concentrate on Michigan in Monday’s Rose Bowl game. Easier said than done.

“A win over Michigan would relieve some of the feelings, but I’ll still feel the effects of the Notre Dame game for a long time,” Peete said. “However, if we aren’t focused on Michigan, we’ll get beaten.”

Peete is mindful that USC hasn’t won a bowl game during his career, losing in the Aloha (1985), Citrus (1986) and Rose (1988).

The 20-17 loss to Michigan State last Jan. 1 is particularly galling to Peete.

“That was a worse feeling than the Notre Dame game,” Peete said. “So often USC wins the Rose Bowl game, not just goes to it. To walk off the field a loser was an ugly feeling.”

Peete could also be upset because he didn’t win the Heisman Trophy, finishing second to Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders.

However, he looks back on the Heisman experience as rewarding and enjoyable.

Peete said he was thrilled by the Heisman Trophy award ceremony, the trip to New York, the pictures on the wall of the Downtown Athletic Club of previous Heisman winners and the tradition.

“We were waiting in a room for the show to go on, and there was so much tension in the air,” he said. “I was sitting next to (UCLA’s) Troy Aikman and I had more butterflies then than I’ve had getting ready for a game.

“Everyone pretty much knew who was going to win the trophy, but there was that little piece of doubt in everybody’s mind.”

Peete added that Sanders had a phenomenal season and deserved to win the trophy.

“It would have been great to win it, but I didn’t,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Peete holds virtually every passing record at USC and has won his share of individual honors, including first team Coaches’ All-American team, The Pop Warner award as the best senior player on the West Coast, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm award given to the country’s best senior quarterback and the Washington D.C. Quarterback Club college quarterback of the year.

He doesn’t believe that his previously injured left shoulder will hurt him against Michigan. “It doesn’t bother me now, but I don’t know how it will respond after I get hit,” Peete said. “Hopefully, it (getting hit) won’t happen in the Rose Bowl.

“If I had injured my right shoulder, I wouldn’t have been able to play because I use my right (passing) arm so often.”

Peete is, of course, aware that Michigan lost to Notre Dame and Miami by a total of only 3 points. He said his biggest challenge will be trying to read the Wolverines’ secondary.

“They have a great secondary that disguises their coverages,” he said. “You take 10 snaps and they have 10 different coverages.”

As a standard for what he considers his best game, he referred to USC’s 50-0 victory over Arizona State Nov. 12 when he completed 23 of 33 passes for a career-high 361 yards and 3 touchdowns.

“I had a feeling in that game that everything was moving in slow motion,” he said. “You want to bottle it and keep it for every Saturday. My passing was sharp and I was reading the whole field.

“It was just one of those days, like a basketball player on a hot streak, or a baseball player in a groove.

“And I’m approaching the Rose Bowl game like it’s going to be my best game. It’s the last time I’ll play for USC.

“I’ve had some good games and bad games in the past, but this is the future and I’m looking forward to playing a great game.”