COLLEGE FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : USC : Dean Smith Is on Their Side, Too

North Carolina Coach Mack Brown, on whether the success of North Carolina’s basketball program is a plus or minus for his football program:

“It’s both. The minus is that we’re overshadowed sometimes, and this is the time of year when people make cute remarks about how much bigger basketball is here.

“The plus is that the basketball team helps us when they win a national championship. Every kid we want to recruit for football watched that Final Four last season. That helps us. And Dean Smith genuinely wants us to have a great football program, so that’s a plus, too.”

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The USC players and coaches checked into an Orange County hotel Friday morning, attended a news conference, visited Disneyland, then had a closed practice at Orange Coast College. North Carolina practiced at Corona del Mar High. The game is Sunday night at Anaheim Stadium.

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It figures that USC was invited to play in the Disneyland Pigskin Classic.

USC’s first Academic All-American, in 1952, was Dick Nunis, who today is chairman of Walt Disney Attractions.

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Junior defensive back Jesse Davis had a midweek arthroscopic knee procedure and is out three to four weeks. Reserve lineman Dong Koo had an appendectomy Tuesday.