McCullough to Have His First Test at USC

A once-tainted tailback returns to the Coliseum tonight when Oregon’s Saladin McCullough gets his first and last chance to play against USC, the school that turned him away four years ago because of an invalidated admissions test score.

McCullough last stepped onto the field at the Coliseum as a high school recruit eager to play for the Trojans. He returns tonight as a player who has rebuilt his career at Oregon, where he has rushed for more yards in seven games than USC’s entire team has in six.

“I’ve always wanted to play at the Coliseum, but I wanted to be playing for the home team, not the visiting team,” said McCullough, a senior whose career has been punctuated by trouble, winding its way from Pasadena Muir High to Pasadena City College to El Camino College before settling peacefully in Eugene last season.

“I’m pretty excited,” he said. “I get to play, but not for the team I expected.”

McCullough needs only 260 yards to reach 1,000 this season and is averaging 105.7 yards rushing as well as 175.4 all-purpose yards, the seventh-highest average in the nation.

No running back in USC’s rotation averages more than 39 yards a game, and the Trojans, 3-3 overall and 1-2 in the Pacific 10, know too well what they will be facing tonight in McCullough, who had a 93-yard kickoff return against Arizona in the Ducks’ first game.

“He’s a very good runner, very quick,” USC Coach John Robinson said. “He has speed, moves, athletic ability.”

Ken Haslip, a USC cornerback who played with McCullough at Muir, has a pretty good idea what’s coming. After all, he saw him rush for 36 touchdowns as a high school senior.

“I expect him to just play like he always plays. I expect Saladin to show up and be himself,” Haslip said. “There are so many amazing plays I’ve seen Saladin make, I can’t even count.

“He’s going to come in fired up, with a lot of emotion. Any school you want to come to first, then don’t get accepted, you want to get even. You want to show the school they should have had you.”

McCullough is the centerpiece of an offense for Oregon (4-3, 1-3) that defensive coordinator Keith Burns calls “the best group of skill players we’ve seen since Florida State.”

“Florida State had [quarterback] Thad Busby and [receiver] E.G. Green, but there was a question at running back,” said Burns, who must prepare his defense not only for McCullough, but also for the quarterback tandem of Jason Maas and Akili Smith. Maas is tagged as the drop-back passer, and Smith, with his great speed, as the two-way threat.

“We need them both and what they bring to the table,” said Oregon Coach Mike Bellotti, who not only alternates quarterbacks during games but sometimes during a series. “[We’ll need] Akili’s athleticism and speed, because USC probably has more speed on the defensive side of the field than we’ve seen all year.

“Jason, in terms of pure drop-back throwing and reading the field, is more advanced than Akili at this point because he’s been in the program for four years.”

Just when it seemed Smith, a transfer from Grossmont College, was about to beat Maas out after a big first half against UCLA, Maas turned around last week against Utah and had the 10th-best passing day in Oregon history, throwing for 369 yards.

“I would like to play the whole time, but if we need somebody to run the option, it’s good to put Akili in,” Maas said. “Everyone wants to put me in in passing situations, but I feel Akili can pass too.

“I’d like to say it’s not going to be like this for two years, but who knows? Ohio State is going through the same thing, and even North Carolina. At some time, they’ll pick a guy, but it still hasn’t been proven who it should be.”

Said Smith: “We’re both playing well right now. When he gets in, he’s doing a good job. When I get in, I try to do my best. Whoever starts, the other guy always plays. It’s been that way all year.”

McCullough once seemed destined to become USC’s next great tailback, but he was denied admission in 1993 after the Educational Testing Service invalidated his Scholastic Assessment Test score of 1,200 after a jump of more than 500 points.

McCullough sat out a year, was suspended twice during a season with Pasadena City College, transferred to El Camino the next season and wound up at Oregon when it became clear that USC was no longer interested in him.

“You know when somebody doesn’t want you,” McCullough said of USC. “We got the hint they didn’t want me, and I started a new life. . . . Oregon was the only school that really gave me a chance.”

Bellotti made the decision to offer McCullough a scholarship.

“I brought him up here for his recruiting trip, and we sat and talked very candidly about his background and the whole deal,” Bellotti said.

“We went into a lot of detail and I don’t think we left any stones unturned. I came away feeling that he was a very good young man who I believed deserved another chance. . . . Obviously, it’s worked out very well for him and us.”

The saga of Saladin McCullough and USC will finally be a closed chapter after tonight’s game--the first between the Trojans and Ducks since 1994.

But USC may yet see a McCullough wear the Trojan uniform. Sultan McCullough, Saladin’s younger brother, is a highly regarded senior running back at Muir, and he is strongly considering USC.

“I just told him to pick the best for you, pick where you want to go to,” Saladin said. “I’m happy whatever decision he makes.”

As for his own lost opportunity to play for the Trojans, Saladin says, “I got over it.”

“When I found out I couldn’t go there, I was hurt and sad,” he said. “But everything’s going good now and I feel good about it.

“They’re kind of struggling down there. They had a chance to pick me up. Things didn’t work out.

“I think it’s going to be a good game. I think we can pull it out.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NEXT FOR USC

WHO: Oregon

WHERE: Coliseum

WHEN: Today

TV: Fox, Sp. West

RADIO: KLSX-FM (97.1)