It’s Time Otton Learned to Show the Razor’s Edge

Brad Otton remembers wearing the starched white shirt, the 1950’s tie, the dark slacks, the name tag.

Sitting next to a fellow Mormon missionary on a crowded bus careening through downtown Rome, Otton remembers feeling very alone.

Until that scraggly looking fellow across the aisle--Otton refused him money because he was certain the guy was on drugs--stood and started shouting at the young Americans in Italian.

Made fun of their appearance. Ripped their manhood.

Incorrectly guessed that they didn’t speak his language.

Otton finally heard enough and stood up. The scraggly guy stood up to meet him.

“Then I looked down and saw the knife,” Otton recalled.

Being a missionary was one thing. Being a martyr was something entirely different.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Otton said. “So I did the first thing that came to my mind.”

He moved his tall, thin frame against the scraggly guy. With all his strength, he pushed him.

The scraggly guy went tumbling down the middle of the bus, and scrambled off at the next stop.

“You try to be a Christian, to turn the other cheek but, you know, we have emotions too,” Otton said. “Sometimes, things just get the best of us.”

He smiled as he finished telling the story over dinner, this unfailingly nice USC quarterback four years removed from his mission work, and one wondered.

Where is that fire now?

Where is that 20-year-old who wasn’t afraid to fight for himself and his friend?

Where is that passion to succeed in a hostile environment?

Where is that strength?

The Trojans saw none of it in their opener against Penn State.

They will need every bit of it this Saturday in Champaign, Ill., to salvage the start of their season.

Brad Otton, the most scrutinized football player in town this fall, the closest thing we have to an NFL quarterback, has every excuse and no excuse.

His two best running backs are in NCAA jail, rogues imprisoned by thieves.

He has only one receiver experienced enough to consistently run the correct routes.

His young offensive line forced coaches to draw a scheme against Penn State that involved seven blocking three.

Yet he is a senior with an accurate arm and and good head, and, well, let him say it.

“Every year I’ve been here, somebody has made a big play early in the season that has turned us around,” he said. “I get the sense that the person making that play has got to be me.”

He had that chance against Penn State.

Don’t care if Curtis Enis ran for 241 yards. Don’t care if the Penn State defense held two Trojan running backs to 146 yards.

If Otton makes the big plays, the Trojans win.

If he doesn’t lead a receiver out of bounds in the end zone. If he doesn’t overthrow another wide-open receiver en route to the end zone. If he doesn’t hit more goal posts than his kicker.

In his first chance to show that last season’s Rose Bowl brilliance was not a fluke against an overmatched team, he completed 11 of 28 passes with more interceptions (1) than touchdowns (0) while showing that maybe he really is better off as part of a tag team.

Made you mad enough yet, Brad?

That’s what the Trojans need from their quarterback Saturday. Forget about magic. They’ll take more mad.

Otton needs to scream at a receiver for breaking off a route, which led to one of his blunders last week.

He needs to scold a lineman for one of the many mental mistakes that made his constantly throw on the run.

A little anger can do wonder for the focus. And a little focus is all he needs to prevent the bad pass or the dumb one.

Not that he doesn’t feel it.

Teammates said he looked as if he was crying on the team plane, although he said he wasn’t. He was so upset, he barely slept on his first night home.

“You lie in bed all night and think about the pass you missed; every bad play, you see it,” he said.

Now he has to bring that passion into the huddle. And elsewhere.

Remember when the San Francisco 49ers’ Steve Young uncharacteristically stormed up and down the sideline against the Philadelphia Eagles two years ago . . . shortly before leading his team on a Super Bowl run?

The fact that Young is also Mormon is coincidental. Sometimes all it takes is a little tantrum to turn a mild-mannered guy into a champion.

“That’s just not my style, it’s just not me,” Otton protested.

It certainly is the style of many others in this town who have criticized him the last two weeks. He has even been politely questioned by friends at the Mormon church where he and wife Deanna teach Sunday school.

Otton might do well to think of his critics and opponents as that scraggly guy in Rome. He might do well to move his tall, thin frame against them . . . and push.

If there is not a knife there now, there will be soon.