USC Disciplines Foley After Alcohol Arrest : Football: Backup QB loses chance to start bowl game after being taken in on a public intoxication charge.

Shane Foley, a backup quarterback for the USC Trojans, was arrested early on Christmas Eve on a public intoxication charge after he allegedly kicked a window on a taxi cab without provocation, police said today.

Foley and the rest of the USC team are currently in El Paso, Texas, preparing for the John Hancock Bowl on Monday against Michigan State.

USC coach Larry Smith said today that as a result of the incident, Foley will not start in the game and is confined to the team hotel. Smith said that if Foley breaks any team rules he will be sent home.

There had been a chance that Foley would have started against Michigan State because Todd Marinovich has been battling an ear infection.

Foley, 22, a former star player at Newport Harbor High School, allegedly emerged from the Village Inn on Marine Avenue on Balboa Island along with a former Loyola Marymount University basketball player, walked up to the cab and kicked at it repeatedly, said police Lt. Tim Newman.

The quarterback was arrested at 2:30 a.m. Monday by a police officer who “smelled a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage on the breath and person of Mr. Foley,” according to the police report. Foley spent six hours in custody before he was released on his own recognizance, Newman said.

Police reports stated that Foley came out of the Village Inn at 2:15 a.m. along with Jeff Fryer--a former point guard for Corona del Mar High School and Loyola Marymount--and a woman identified as Elizabeth Clock and approached a cab driven by Robert Excell of Fountain Valley. Foley then allegedly kicked the cab’s right rear window repeatedly.

“When asked about the taxi incident, (Foley) said he kicked the taxi window, but he couldn’t tell the (arresting) officer why,” Newman said.

Foley then left the scene in a car driven by Clock, who Newman said met Foley in the bar and agreed to drive him and Fryer to a friend’s house. Police stopped the car several blocks away and Excell identified Foley, Newman said.

Neither Clock nor Fryer was charged in the incident. Excell declined to press charges against Foley, Newman said.