COLLEGE FOOTBALL : The Key Question : Is It, ‘How Little Are the Cornerbacks on Keyshawn Johnson?’ Or Perhaps, “Will He Be Back at USC Next Year?’

Look out, you little Texas Tech secondary players, here comes “the Key.”

Keyshawn Johnson, USC’s 6-foot-4 wide receiver, says that the best part about college football is that there are so many 5-9 cornerbacks.

Johnson can look 8 feet tall in such matchups, particularly when he’s high in the air, clasping a pass from Rob Johnson while an overmatched defensive back looks up helplessly.

“I love those little corners!” Johnson was telling a couple of Texas reporters Thursday at a Cotton Bowl news conference.

“I’m 6-4 and still growing. When a game starts and I see the other team is trying to cover me with little guys, I get a big smile on my face.”

And of course, the Key has already inspected Texas Tech’s depth chart.

Asked a Texas reporter: “How many little corners play for Texas Tech, Keyshawn?”

“Two!” Johnson said, trying to suppress a cackle.

His exuberance broke everyone up, but then Johnson tried to apply some damage control.

“Of course, just because a guy’s short don’t mean he’s not a good player,” he said.

“Their cornerbacks have got to be pretty good, or they wouldn’t be in the Cotton Bowl.”

Too late, Key. And stop dry-washing your hands.

These are the best of days of Keyshawn Johnson’s 22-year life.

After a troubled childhood, years of knocking about Los Angeles’ inner-city streets, he’s a star.

In one football season, he has become a media favorite. He signs autographs. He’s a busy speaker at sports awards dinners.

And no athlete ever loved the attention more. His joy knows no bounds, even when his coach, John Robinson, deems it out of bounds.

In USC’s 61-0 victory over Cal on Oct. 22, Johnson made a great catch in front of Cal’s bench, fell out of bounds, then performed a taunting dance amid Cal players, incurring a 15-yard penalty.

Robinson blew his stack.

“I knew right away I shouldn’t have done it,” Johnson said.

“First thing I see is Larry Parker (freshman wide receiver) coming in for me, and I thought, ‘Oh, wow! I’m really going to catch it now.’

“Coach Robinson was really mad. He said: ‘You’re killin’ us!’ And he kept me out of the game for about a series and a half.”

Robinson recalls the exchange a bit differently.

“I told him if he ever did that again, his funeral would be at 4 o’clock the following day,” Robinson said.

Nearly everyone at USC expects Johnson to return next year for a senior season, but there are mixed signals.

He said recently at a high school awards dinner, “I got a chance to be a millionaire, just by coming out for the NFL draft. But I’m not going to do it. I’m going to do something no one ever thought I could do--get my degree.”

Two days later, at USC, center Jeremy Hogue handed Johnson a football he wanted him to autograph for friends.

Said Johnson: “Who knows? This may be the last ball I autograph as a Trojan.”

And, at USC’s awards banquet, he said, “Who knows? This could be my last banquet as a Trojan.”

Said quarterback Rob Johnson: “Key enjoys saying stuff like that. He likes keeping everybody nervous.”

Hogue said, “He’ll be back. He just likes having everybody talking about it, whether he’s coming out or staying.”

Johnson said he hints of an early departure to rattle his coaches.

“I like making them jumpy,” he said. “You should see them when I say stuff like, ‘Well, you know I really don’t like going to class that much.’ ”

Asked recently whether he was coming out or staying, he said, “I never gave it a thought. People who think I should come out early don’t know what it will mean to me to get my degree.”

Then, not five minutes later, Johnson asked the reporter, “Let me ask you a question. What do you think I should do?”

“You just said you’re staying in school,” the reporter replied.

And Johnson said, “Yeah, but what do you really think I should do?”

Is this an athlete in agony over the biggest decision of his life? Or is he simply enjoying the attention? Robinson isn’t sure.

“I think there’s a small chance he might come out, but I hope he doesn’t,” the coach said. “I think he’d be making a big mistake.”

Johnson, in essentially a nine-game season, became exactly what Mike Sanford, who coaches the wide receivers, hoped Johnson would become a year ago--a big-play receiver similar to Johnnie Morton.

Last season, Morton became USC’s all-time leader in receiving yardage by a margin of nearly a thousand yards.

Morton’s 1,520-yard season last year, in 13 games, is the Trojan record by more than 500 yards.

Enter Johnson, who averaged 22.6 yards a catch last year at West Los Angeles College.

This season, Johnson has caught 58 passes for 1,140 yards and six touchdowns, averaging 114 yards a game and 19.6 yards a catch.

“He does everything Johnnie could do, and he’s bigger and faster,” Sanford said during spring practice.

But coaches overworked the prize recruit during summer training and the price was two games. Bleeding thigh muscles in both legs slowed Johnson to a crawl. He caught only one pass in the opener against Washington, then didn’t play at all the next Saturday, at Penn State.

“I’d never gone through two-a-days before, and my legs were killing me when I’d get up in the morning,” he said.

“I didn’t say much, because I didn’t want to get held out. Besides, I could get up in the morning and walk it off. Then, after it got worse, I couldn’t walk it off anymore.”

Another element in Johnson’s decision about staying in school is the Heisman factor.

It doesn’t take much imagination to picture him at least making it to the New York telecast, given a strong showing in a successful USC season.

“The Heisman is a factor, sure,” he said. “I hope I’d be a candidate. That would make me play even better. I play best when I’m under pressure. I love pressure. I love coming out of the hole, with all that focus on me.”

But for now, the question is, how about the pressure Monday on Texas Tech’s two cornerbacks, Shawn Hurd and Cat Adams?

Each is 5-8.