USC Takes First Step in Journey Back : College football: Rebounding after forgettable opener, they flatten Houston, 49-7, behind Johnson, Morton and a dominant offensive line.

John Robinson told everyone how it would be this year. It was a month ago, at USC’s preseason training camp.

“I want us to physically dominate people, I want us to control the ball and I want us to complete a lot of high-percentage passes,” he said.

And Saturday, for at least one game, he was dead on.

USC, playing almost flawlessly before 49,438, routed Houston, 49-7. It was the first game played in the remodeled, now football-only Coliseum.

Wide receiver Johnnie Morton set a school record by catching 15 passes. He scored three touchdowns and accounted for 186 yards, almost all of them during the first three quarters.

The Trojans, who needed to win to avoid their first 0-2 start since 1960, John McKay’s first season, were led by Morton, junior quarterback Rob Johnson and an offensive line that pancaked Houston’s defensive front all afternoon and into early evening.

Robinson, who saw his team lose to North Carolina, 31-9, last Sunday in Anaheim, had to grope to find bad news in this one. He tried, but it didn’t wash.

“We have 1,000 miles to travel to get to where we want to go, and we’ve got 998 or 999 to go,” he said.

If he’s right, then it seemed like Morton covered most of those one or two miles Saturday.

By halftime, when USC was up by 28-7, he had caught 11 passes for 146 yards and three touchdowns. Robinson later sent him in with 40 seconds to play to get the record. It broke the mark of 14 set by John Jackson against Notre Dame in 1989.

Robinson, who spent all week deciding which of two young tailbacks would start, now must pick from three worthy candidates before USC plays at Penn State next Saturday.

He chose freshman David Dotson minutes before kickoff Saturday, and he had a workmanlike afternoon, 15 carries for 66 yards. Sophomore Scott Fields had a 13-for-35 day, with a touchdown and a lost fumble.

But another freshman, Shawn Walters, appeared in the fourth quarter to overshadow both.

Walters, a 6-foot, 225-pounder who had been hurt most of the preseason, exploded around the left side behind a great Rory Brown block and sprinted 54 yards down the shadowed left sideline for a score that gave USC a 42-7 lead after Cole Ford added the conversion with 9:43 left.

Walters, from Arlington, Tex., finished with eight carries and a game-high 83 yards.

Another Trojan who had a productive offensive game was Deon Strother, a senior who was switched this season from tailback to fullback.

Robinson had indicated last spring that USC fullbacks would be brought fully into the pass offense, and Strother caught four passes for 61 yards. He also ran five times for 41 yards.

“Dean Strother is a terrific football player and Rob Johnson will be able to use him more and more as we go along,” Robinson said.

The Trojans had 7-0, 14-0 and 21-7 leads in the first half, but seemed to put it away with 17 seconds left before halftime when Johnson’s career-high fourth touchdown pass found Morton for his third touchdown, equaling a career high.

That made it 28-7, and Houston quarterback Jimmy Klingler hadn’t shown any indication that his offense could keep up with USC’s.

Kim Helton, in his debut as Houston coach, yanked Klingler early in the fourth quarter. The prolific quarterback who had averaged 342.6 yards in total offense last season, left the game with 115 yards passing, two rushing.

Afterward, Helton seemed to prefer Johnson.

“The quarterback on this football team is very accurate,” he said.

“The strength of their offensive team is actually the passing game. Their pass protection was excellent. We simply were no match for them.

“We saw today that USC can overcome a whupping. Now, we’ll see if Houston can.”

Robinson went right to work with Dotson.

In the Trojans’ first series, the 5-11, 185-pounder from Moreno Valley rushed for 37 yards in nine carries, including a two-yard dive to the one-yard line.

From there, Johnson passed to a wide-open Tyler Cashman in the end zone.

Fields closed a USC scoring drive with authority in the third quarter. In a drive that produced a 35-7 lead, Fields carried four of the last six plays and scored the touchdown on a one-yard run.

Walters’ explosive 54-yard run when the game was on ice brought USC partisans to their feet. It was a big play on a day of a lot of little USC plays.

Said Robinson: “Shawn had the luxury of the other guys softening up the other side, but Shawn is a big guy who can bowl you over.”

Most of his praise went to his quarterback. In the preseason, Robinson had said of Johnson: “I want Rob to be a surgeon, not a bomber.”

After Saturday’s game, after Robinson had rung up 25-for-33 and 279 yards, Robinson said:

“Rob Johnson is perfectly suited for this kind of offense, he has generalship,” he said. “His understanding of what we’re trying to do offensively is excellent.”

It became 14-0 late in the first quarter when Johnson, behind stone-wall protection, hit Morton in the end zone on a 12-yard play.

Houston’s only touchdown was scored at the end of a Klingler-led, 11-play, 80-yard drive that began late in the first quarter and ended early in the second with Klingler passing four yards to Lamar Smith.

After the game, offensive line coach Mike Barry probably had the widest smile of all of USC’s coaches. His players, led by All-American tackle Tony Boselli and his sophomore running mate, Norberto Garrido, gave Johnson ample time to pass throughout.

Barry, asked if his line dominated Houston physically, smiled and said only: “They’re pretty good.”

Houston, 4-7 a year ago, was definitely dominated on the stat sheet.

--USC had 29 first downs, Houston 13.

--USC had the ball for more than 34 minutes, Houston for less than 26.

--USC had 530 yards, Houston 170.

The Trojans had a well-mixed offense, 46 running plays for 246 yards and 39 pass plays for 292 yards.

And how did Robinson like the remodeled Coliseum, with the crowd much closer to the field?

“I like it,” he said. “I turned around once and I could actually see my wife. Also, I’m undefeated at the new Coliseum.”