PRESSURE’S ON

This is what awaits John Fox, not even two weeks from now. A huge crowd at the Coliseum, an ornery Florida State team that lost its last game by 32 points and a Seminole defense that likes to make sack lunches out of quarterbacks.

Fox looks forward to it every day, and maybe that’s what USC needs when it sends the sophomore quarterback out to make the first start of his career against the third-ranked Seminoles--someone who has a little disregard for personal safety.

Fox, named the Trojans’ starter by Coach John Robinson on Saturday, isn’t a reckless sort after he takes the snap--he’s big, strong-armed and strikingly composed for someone who has never completed a college pass.

But he nearly sabotaged his career for love of a motorcycle in 1996, only to zoom back from scout-team oblivion and roar past Quincy Woods to win the battle to be USC’s next quarterback.

“He’s grown up, like all of us,” Robinson said. “You get older and you get better.”

Nerves and extra self-imposed pressure affected Woods during the three-way quarterback battle, and though Woods is an exciting option quarterback, Fox is the one who proved self-assured, steady and able to run the Trojans’ new offense, a varied attack that is meant to rely on the run but has elements of a West Coast passing game.

“I tried to tell myself, ‘Don’t try so hard,’ ” said Woods, who put even more pressure on himself thinking about providing for the future of his new infant son, Quincy or “Little Q,” who is living with Woods’ mother in Chicago while both his parents attend college.

There are other, more public pressures on USC’s quarterback this season after last year’s 6-6 record and the sizable brush fire Robinson survived when USC President Steven Sample stepped in and made it clear Athletic Director Mike Garrett’s frustration with the season wouldn’t end Robinson’s tenure.

It’s a fire that could always flare again, and that’s a fact that isn’t lost on USC’s players.

“I don’t think we’re going to let that happen,” said Fox, whose college resume consists of a fourth-quarter stint in USC’s 46-17 victory over Oregon State last season. “It makes me mad that it could happen. We’re going to make sure it doesn’t. I thought people saying Coach Robinson should leave was crazy. I was [upset] everybody was talking that way. But I won’t be thinking about Coach Robinson losing his job. I want to win. That comes first. Players shouldn’t have to worry about losing their head coach. That’s way too much.”

Woods played briefly in the crucial season-ending victory over Notre Dame and was so anxious he forgot the clock and took a delay-of-game penalty.

“Let’s say I was the quarterback in the Notre Dame game, and we lost it,” Woods said. “You might feel you were the reason the team lost its coach. That’s something you’d think about all your life--because we didn’t play hard, Coach lost his job.”

Close games like the overtime victory over Notre Dame are one reason USC ended up with a starting quarterback who has thrown only two passes in his career, one of which was intercepted.

Brad Otton threw 370 of the 404 passes USC attempted last season, and despite the prospect of starting this season with a quarterback who has hardly gotten his big toe wet, Robinson stuck with senior Matt Koffler as the backup. Fox and Woods between them have taken only 22 college snaps, and redshirt freshman Mike Van Raaphorst has never played in a college game.

For Fox, this is a comeback story, even though he is only 20. He spent most of last season far from the sight of the offensive coaches, running the scout team in a voluntary banishment after he arrived at camp out of shape and out of the running for playing time.

Unlike many people who have a chance to make a nice living on the strength and soundness of their arms and legs, Fox likes to partake in some decidedly risky activities: skiing, snowboarding and motorcycle-wrecking.

His yearning to own a motorcycle took him home to Corona--and away from the USC weight room--after his redshirt year in the summer of 1996. Fox--who passed for 3,446 yards and 24 touchdowns in three seasons as a starter for Corona Centennial High--worked odd jobs on construction sites that summer, running errands, digging ditches and painting fences to earn money for his bike.

He got the motorcycle--and later scraped himself up in a spill on the way to a team meal last season.

“I crashed it, and I sold it right away,” For said.

But that summer of lost conditioning and arm strength had already taken its toll before he returned to USC for fall practice last year. He knew immediately he was in trouble.

“It was clear the very first day,” Fox said. “I was out of shape. I couldn’t throw the ball. I had no accuracy. I was just lost.

“I had gone away and no one had heard from me. Brad [Otton] was here and I knew I wouldn’t be playing the next year. I wanted to go home, and I wanted a motorcycle, and the only way I could get it was to work a lot. I told myself I’d try to throw, but I didn’t.”

Not only was Otton the clear starter, but Koffler was the backup, Woods was ahead of Fox as quarterback-in-waiting, and Van Raaphorst was a 6-foot-5 freshman with a future.

How deep was Fox on the depth chart?

“Oh, geez, as deep as it got,” Fox said. “There was Brad, Matt, Quincy and Mike. Mike was redshirting, and he still might have played ahead of me.”

Scout-team duty rotated at first, but before long, Fox just took it permanently.

“I felt so bad, I wanted to get away from the offensive side of the ball,” he said. “And I wanted to try to go get back in shape.

“I volunteered to go down there and make it my job. It was fun. I got to play against the first-string defense. I could throw a bad ball and it was OK. The coaches would even praise an interception. But I was going against people who were really good.”

Jackson was still the offensive coordinator at California when Fox started running Cal’s offense.

“I ran theirs, Arizona State’s. . . . “ Fox said. “That was one fun thing. I got to run so many offenses. You learn to make decisions.”

When spring practice came, Jackson replaced Mike Riley as coordinator after Riley was named coach at Oregon State, and Fox was no longer in last place.

“Everybody starts over again. You’re at the same point,” Fox said. “Whether Quincy was ahead or not, Coach Jackson got here and it started all over again.”

Scout-team quarterback to starting quarterback might not be the easiest path, but it’s hardly unheard of.

“It depends on what you do while you’re on the scout team,” Jackson said. “Since there are so many different styles in the Pac-10, you get a lot of different systems. Last year, you had Cal with the West Coast, Arizona State with a mix and Oregon State running some wishbone. I’m sure a guy who takes it seriously and prepares himself would get better and better.”

Jackson tried to withhold judgment until this fall, and Fox kept up his comeback, taking an apartment near USC this summer and lifting and throwing with the same intensity he once applied to acquiring a motorcycle.

“I worked my butt off this summer, and that’s why this is where I am now,” he said

At 6-4 and 205, he is what Robinson calls “almost the perfect physical size for a quarterback” and he runs well for a man his size. By August, he was ready to take on Woods and Van Raaphorst.

“He’s a big kid, he throws extremely well and he’s smart, which all the kids are,” Jackson said. “It’s his ability to run and throw and make the right decisions to help us be successful. The guy has to be able to help us win.”

Robinson likes Fox’s composure, but who knew he had it?

“He hadn’t played,” Robinson said. “Composure ain’t part of the deal when you’re running the scout team.”

No matter what his abilities prove to be, Fox is in a tough spot with so little time to get ready and such a test so soon. And right behind him lurk Woods and Van Raaphorst.

“I’m not planning on losing my job,” Fox said. “I worked hard enough to get it. I’m going to keep it.”

USC will try to emphasize its running game with Delon Washington and an experienced offensive line early, but the quarterback has to take over sooner or later.

Sooner would be best.

“What’s going to happen September 6, no one knows,” Jackson said. “I’m smart enough to know that he’ll be in front of 92,000 screaming fans, playing one of the best teams in the country. A lot of me says he’ll be able to do it. Another part of me says that’s a lot of stress.”

Stress? Fox grins. The Florida State game is almost all he thinks about.

“Every night, every day. Right now,” he said. “I hate losing. I haven’t thought about that. If we do lose, we’d have to kill Washington State. Take it out on them.”