Foley Worked While Waiting : College football: USC’s seldom-used backup quarterback has been staying late after practice for the last 1 1/2 seasons.

Approaching a flank of minicams and reporters Tuesday night after practice, Shane Foley wasn’t quite sure what to do.

“Where do I stand?” asked USC’s new starting quarterback, fidgeting as he spoke.

A seldom-used backup since the day he arrived on campus from Newport Harbor High in Newport Beach four years ago, Foley is unaccustomed to the spotlight.

He found it this week, however, when Todd Marinovich was suspended by Coach Larry Smith for academic reasons. Marinovich is expected back next week, so Foley’s only chance for glory may be Saturday’s game against Arizona State at Tempe, Ariz.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound senior won’t be unprepared.

Although he usually plays only a mop-up role for the Trojans, Foley has stayed late after practice almost daily for the last 1 1/2 seasons, preparing for a day that most thought would never come.

“(There) came a time in my college career, before my junior year, when I knew that I wasn’t going to be given anything and I was going to have to go out and work for everything I was going to get,” Foley said. “So, I decided to go out there and give it my best shot.

“A lot of that had to do with staying out there (after practice) and throwing the ball, just working on fundamentals--timing and techniques, things like that.”

Foley’s drive to succeed hasn’t gone unnoticed by Smith, who has lavishly praised Foley’s work ethic, but it has done little to increase Foley’s playing time.

An All-Southern Section player at Newport Harbor, where he established an Orange County passing record that was later broken by Marinovich, Foley has played only once at USC when the outcome of a game was still in doubt.

When Marinovich sprained his left wrist in the second quarter of a game against Ohio State last season at the Coliseum, Foley went in and directed the last 27 yards of an 80-yard drive, capping it with a three-yard touchdown pass to Scott Galbraith.

Marinovich returned for USC’s next possession, however, and promptly hooked up with John Jackson on a school-record 87-yard touchdown pass play. He threw three more touchdown passes, leading a 42-3 rout, and went on to complete one of the best seasons for a Trojan quarterback.

Meanwhile, Foley was left with memories of what he said this week was “probably the most exciting moment of my college career.”

He hasn’t had many.

As a redshirt freshman, he was so far down the depth chart that he volunteered to play on special teams so that he could make the traveling squad. A defensive back in high school, Foley made two tackles for the Trojans.

He was taken off the suicide squads as a sophomore, but Foley, who passed for 5,361 yards in two seasons at Newport Harbor, seemed destined to spend his entire college career as a third-string quarterback. Two years ago, when USC won at Arizona State, 50-0, Foley didn’t even play.

His status changed less than two weeks before last season, when Pat O’Hara, the Trojans’ projected starter, injured his knee and was lost for the season. Marinovich took over as the starter and Foley moved up to the second team.

While Marinovich earned recognition as college football’s freshman of the year, Foley languished in the background, completing 10 of 14 passes for 131 yards and two touchdowns. He was on the field for 14 possessions, leading USC to five touchdowns.

This season, he has thrown for 55 yards, completing four of nine passes, all of them in the fourth quarter of a 31-0 loss to Washington. One of his passes was intercepted at the goal line, preserving the Huskies’ shutout.

His career numbers include 186 yards passing and 104 rushing.

Still, his high school coach, Mike Giddings, a former USC assistant who owns an NFL scouting service, said that Foley has the potential to play in the NFL.

“I’ve seen quarterbacks in NFL camps that do not have the physical or mental makeup of Shane Foley,” said Giddings, 56, who has coached on the high school, junior college, college and professional levels. “You could be sitting on a Cinderella deal, a Lou Gehrig-Wally Pipp (situation).

“When it comes down to it, you have to produce, and now it’s up to Shane to produce. Lou Gehrig produced and Wally Pipp was gone. I know one thing you can say about Shane Foley: He’ll bust his butt. My bet is that he’ll do well.”

Nobody has suggested that Marinovich won’t be back, but Foley doesn’t see his unexpected opportunity as a one-shot deal.

“I don’t really think in terms of all-or-nothing,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been in college. I’ve learned not to get down and not to look back. It’s not going to do you any good.

“I realize it’s my senior year and, sure, everybody comes to college to start. They don’t come to sit around, but anything can happen.”

His lack of playing time has frustrated him, but Foley never considered transferring. He picked USC after making recruiting trips to Arizona and Stanford.

At Arizona, he turned down Smith, who is grateful now.

Smith is confident that Foley will move the Trojans. Of USC’s four quarterbacks, Foley throws the ball deep as well as any of them, Smith said. And he runs the option better than the others.

Usually, however, he does those things only in practice.

“I think I have something to prove to myself,” Foley said. “I just want to go out there and do the job, and do it well.”

Even if he doesn’t, he’ll have to meet with the media again.

This time, he’ll be ready.