USC’s Smith Keeps His Starter a Secret : Trojans: He delays announcing whether Marinovich or Foley will be quarterback.

After watching them compete in practice all week, Coach Larry Smith announced Friday that USC’s starting quarterback in today’s game against California would be . . .

Todd Marinovich.

Or Shane Foley.

Calling the competition too close to call--”Both Todd and Shane had great practices this week,” he said--Smith promised at least to choose before the Trojans take the field at the Coliseum.

When Marinovich was suspended by Smith last week for cutting class, Foley filled in capably, if not spectacularly, passing for 125 yards and running for 60 in a 13-6 victory over Arizona State at Tempe, Ariz.

It has been assumed that Marinovich, who was reinstated Monday, would win back the job in practice this week and would call the signals as the Trojans attempt to give Smith his 100th victory as a major college coach--by winning for the 50th time in USC’s 78 games against Cal. The Trojans, incidentally, have beaten no other team more often.

Whichever quarterback is tabbed by Smith, he will line up against a Cal defense that ranks eighth in the Pacific 10 Conference against the pass, seventh against the run and last overall.

“We’re kind of scrambling a little bit defensively,” Coach Bruce Snyder said. “We have been inconsistent in terms of our secondary play. We’ve also been injured in the secondary, which has added to the inconsistency, (and) we’re thin at inside linebacker.”

Cal has given up 435.5 yards and 33.1 points a game. Washington ran for 396 yards against the Bears; Miami passed for 473.

Five times in eight games, however, the Bears have outscored their opponents. They are 3-2 in the Pac-10 and, for a change, stayed in the Rose Bowl race longer than USC.

A 46-7 defeat by Washington last Saturday all but knocked them out, but the Bears still hope to end the season with a winning record for the first time since 1982 and attract a bowl bid for the first time since 1979.

Led by quarterback Mike Pawlawski, tailbacks Russell White and Anthony Wallace and an experienced, resilient line, Cal ranks third in the Pac-10 in total offense.

Pawlawski, a fiery junior from Troy High in Fullerton, was one of the first players recruited by Snyder, who formerly coached running backs for the Rams and USC.

“I was damn near a neighbor of his while I was coaching (with) the Rams,” said Snyder, who is in his fourth season at Cal. “Mike is a very competitive, physical player.”

A backup to Troy Taylor in his first two seasons, Pawlawski has completed 58% of his 226 passes for 1,550 yards and 12 touchdowns. He has thrown 10 interceptions.

Cal’s strength, though, is a running game that has averaged 202.8 yards to rank third in the Pac-10.

White, a sophomore from Crespi High in Encino and a nephew of former USC tailback Charles White, has yet to start, but has rushed for a team-high 737 yards and scored eight touchdowns.

“He has changed the whole Cal team,” Smith said of White, who was recruited by USC.

White ran for a state-record 5,998 yards at Crespi, but he sat out last season after failing to meet the academic requirements of the NCAA’s Proposition 48.

He has had a major impact on the Bears, averaging 5.3 yards a carry, but he has been only slightly better than Wallace, a senior from Altadena who has rushed for 731 yards and three touchdowns, averaging 4.6 yards a carry.

“(White) has been a tremendous addition to our team from Anthony Wallace’s perspective,” Snyder said. “Anthony is playing better because of Russell White.”

In the Washington loss last week, Wallace ran for only 16 yards in six carries before a sprained knee forced him out of the game. White ran for 121 yards in 19 carries against a defense that ranks first in the nation against the run.

Both will play today.

Trojan Notes

Larry Smith’s coaching record in more than 14 seasons at Tulane, Arizona and USC is 99-65-4. He is 33-10-1 at USC. . . . Smith said it was possible that both Todd Marinovich and Shane Foley would play today. . . . Marinovich needs 14 completions to move past Sean Salisbury and into second place on USC’s all-time passing list. . . . Cal’s Anthony Wallace and Russell White are both on pace to rush for more than 1,000 yards.

Seven freshmen are expected to start for USC. . . . Cal, which ended an 18-game losing streak against UCLA with a 38-31 victory two weeks ago at Berkeley, hasn’t beaten UCLA and USC in the same season since 1958. . . . Eight of Cal’s 11 offensive starters are from Southern California.