Trojans Already Working Overtime

At first, for USC’s football players, August football sounded great.

The Kickoff Classic. It’s almost like starting the season with a bowl game. Two weeks before most everyone else starts the season, USC and Penn State would be the only performers on college football’s stage.

A national TV audience and a sellout of 77,409 in Giants Stadium.

And best of all, the two schools get a nice payday--minimum $675,000 each.

And worst of all, the players get . . . the shaft.

One item overlooked in the buildup to today’s 14th Kickoff Classic is that USC and Penn State had to report to preseason practice more than two weeks earlier than would have been the case had they declined the New Jersey invitation and stuck to their original Sept. 7 opening dates.

In two weeks, NCAA football players can make some nice money at their summer jobs.

“Going to the Kickoff Classic is going to cost me about $800,” said R.J. Sansom, USC’s backup punter.

“I had a good summer job, I was a data analyst for Hughes’ propulsion section. I mean, I’m excited about us playing Penn State, but leaving that job two weeks early hurts.”

Said USC kicker Adam Abrams, who spent most of the summer working for a San Diego music promoter: “It’s not only having to leave your job early, it’s the good-paying jobs you didn’t get when you told employers you had to leave by Aug. 1.”

Joe Paterno, the Penn State coach, said the decision to accept the Kickoff Classic invitation was put to a vote of his players. No one will say what the vote count was.

There was no vote at USC.

It can’t be said USC Coach John Robinson was dragged kicking and screaming to New Jersey, but when the Trojans were tendered the bid last spring, he wasn’t doing handstands over the idea, either.

“We ask so much of these kids, and now we have to ask them to leave their summer jobs two weeks earlier, and the coaching staff gets its vacation cut by two weeks,” he said at the time.

Last week, he was asked if his players had a vote.

“No, they didn’t,” he said. “But if they had, it would have been something like 81-6 to play.”

Middle linebacker Taso Papadakis affirmed that.

“Everyone would have voted to play,” he said. “I mean, I went to SC to play the great teams. We all did. This is what it’s all about.”

And so play they will today, downsized summer paychecks or not.

Robinson has 10 starters--six on defense--returning from last season’s 9-2-1 Rose Bowl championship team.

Joe Paterno, like Robinson, expects his defense to carry the day, at least in the season’s early stages. Penn State has eight defensive and three offensive starters back from a 9-3 team that finished third in the Big Ten and had 10 players drafted by the NFL.

Penn State people are saying the Nittany Lions will suit up their best defense today since joining the Big Ten in 1993. All of Paterno’s linebackers and defensive backs are back.

The key offensive players are tailback Curtis Enis, who led the team in rushing last season and won the Big Ten’s award as freshman of the year, despite not starting a single game.

The quarterback is Wally Richardson, a senior who threw for 18 touchdown passes and 2,198 yards last year.

USC’s defense is spearheaded by 300-pound tackle Darrell Russell and cornerback Daylon McCutcheon.

Russell is paired with Matt Keneley at tackle, and USC appears solid in the middle, with sophomore Papadakis trying to hold off freshman Chris Claiborne at middle linebacker.

Offensively, the ringmaster is senior quarterback Brad Otton, who threw for 14 touchdowns and 1,923 yards last year, sharing the position with Kyle Wachholtz.

The Trojans start off thin at tailback, with LaVale Woods and Rodney Sermons scheduled for most of the duty, with returning starter Delon Washington out with an unexplained, one-game suspension and Shawn Walters ineligible until the season’s fourth game.

One thing is certain today. With the new overtime rule in effect, the 3-3 USC-Penn State deadlock will be broken. The series dates to 1923, when USC won in the Rose Bowl, 14-3. They didn’t play again until 1982, when Penn State won in the Fiesta Bowl, 26-10.

The Trojans prevailed in the Coliseum in 1990 and 1991, 19-14 and 21-10. Penn State won at State College in 1993 and 1994, 21-20 and 38-14.

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Kickoff Classic

* 1983: Nebraska 44, Penn State 6

* 1984: Miami 20, Auburn 18

* 1985: BYU 28, Boston College 14

* 1986: Alabama 16, Ohio State 10

* 1987: Tennessee 23, Iowa 22

* 1988: Nebraska 23, Texas A&M; 14

* 1989: Notre Dame 36, Virginia 13

* 1990: USC 34, Syracuse 16

* 1991: Penn State 34, Georgia Tech 22

* 1992: North Carolina State 24, Iowa 14

* 1993: Florida State 41, Kansas 0

* 1994: Nebraska 31, West Virginia 0

* 1995: Ohio State 38, Boston College 6