ROSE BOWL SHOWDOWN / UCLA vs. USC : New Tenor of Sacks : USC’s McGinest Will Take Team Goal Over Statistics

Last August, during USC’s training camp, Willie McGinest looked boldly ahead to his senior season and set a goal for himself: 25 sacks.

Seemed like a nice, round number.

As a junior linebacker last season, McGinest had 16 in a 63-tackle season.

But the best-laid plans. . . .

McGinest, who was switched from linebacker to sort of a roving defensive end by Coach John Robinson, has come up a little short. Going into Saturday’s game against UCLA, McGinest has only five sacks.

Still, no one should conclude that McGinest is having an off year. Trojan defensive coordinator Don Lindsey points out that this USC defense is entirely different from last year’s, which produced 53 sacks.

This year McGinest and his teammates have 16 sacks. Moreover, USC has given up 204 points, compared to 249 in 1992.

“This is not a risk-taking defense,” Lindsey said. “So the opportunities Willie has had for statistics aren’t as great as they were last year. SC blitzed a lot last year, and we don’t do it as much.

“Willie has helped us by just being out there. He’s double- and triple-teamed a lot. Usually he gets blocked by a tackle and a tight end, or a tackle and a back. And that contributes to what we’re trying to do.

“Cal ran a Willie-watch defense against us. They’d check to see where Willie was lined up, then they’d run a play in the other direction.”

McGinest said the same thing happened in USC’s 22-17 victory at Washington last Saturday.

McGinest was a force in the game, yet was in on only five tackles.

“Napoleon Kaufman (Washington’s leading rusher) came up to me after the game and told me they audibilized on every play, running their plays away from me,” McGinest said.

McGinest says that chasing plays instead of making them suits him fine, if it puts the Trojans in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

“If I get double-teamed all year and we get to the Rose Bowl, fine,” he said.

“If I get double-teamed and that enables someone else to make a big defensive play, that’s great. I’ve been a target, and that’s fine, too. All my personal goals can go down the drain, as long as we win and go to the Rose Bowl.

“I’d give away all my sacks, all my stats, if it meant we’d beat UCLA Saturday.”

Personal goals aren’t entirely unimportant to a senior aspiring to play pro football, of course.

“I’m not worried about my stats,” he said. “I showed what I could do last year.”

His 16 sacks in 1992 tied him for the Pac-10 lead.

McGinest is thought of by many as a defensive player comparable to past Trojans such as Junior Seau--McGinest wears Seau’s USC number, 55--Mark Carrier, Duane Bickett and Rod Martin.

On the loose, in hot pursuit, he’s a fearsome sight--sprinting in his characteristic pounding stride, in black high tops.

His potential, Lindsey said last summer, is almost unlimited.

“Willie is potentially awesome,” Lindsey said. “One day in spring practice, he was working against two pretty good offensive players, Tony Boselli (a 6-foot-8, 295-pound offensive tackle) and Brad Banta (a 6-6, 250-pound tight end). “He had as fine a practice that day as any player I ever coached. When our staff came in and reviewed last season’s games, we saw a pattern where Willie would make a great play, then play kind of normally for the next two or three plays.

“We told Willie he had to play much harder, to work very hard at closing the gap between his great talent and his effort.”

McGinest said his practice wars against Boselli have made him a better player.

“Boselli is the best tackle I’ve ever played against,” he said. “He physically dominated Washington.”

He added that the best offensive linemen he has been up against in games this year are Notre Dame’s Aaron Taylor and California’s Todd Steussie.

When Robinson decided to switch McGinest from linebacker to defensive end, he envisioned a hot-pursuit player “coming from the outside, like Charles Haley or Lawrence Taylor.”

McGinest lines up at either end of the line, sometimes over the center, sometimes behind his tackles.

“That’s my favorite spot, because when I’m standing up behind our tackles it’s harder for the other team to double-team me,” he said.

Wherever McGinest is, he attracts attention. And sometimes he wishes the officials would pay attention, too.

“(Mark) Bruener was holding onto my jersey the whole game,” he said, referring to Washington’s tight end. “He had the ‘cuffs on me every play. I was dragging him around on the field.”

On Saturday, he hopes his low-stat role will help produce USC’s fourth consecutive victory and a Rose Bowl date.

“Sometimes you make a play even though you don’t make a tackle, like when you take out a pulling guard or chase the quarterback into someone else,” he said.

Staying calm, he said, is a key to a Trojan victory Saturday.

“UCLA has beaten us two in a row, and now this one is for everything--the Rose Bowl, the Pac-10 championship. I’m excited and ready to go, but I don’t want to be too excited.

“I want a great week of preparation in practice, and then I want to turn it all loose Saturday.

“I want to cause some chaos.”