Fresh Starters

Ready or not, a player’s moment will arrive in its own good time.

Mike Van Raaphorst’s moment came last November, in front of 73,000 at Husky Stadium.

A redshirt freshman who had attempted only seven passes in his college career, there he was, starting for USC against No. 7 Washington.

Ready or not.

“It was a little nerve-racking,” Van Raaphorst said.

He thought he was as well prepared as he could have been that day, thanks to the counsel of his brother Jeff, a former Arizona State quarterback who was MVP of the 1987 Rose Bowl and is now a color commentator for Sun Devil radio broadcasts.

Jeff told Mike how loud it was going to be in Seattle, which end of the stadium the noise would come from--and to be ready for a horn that sounded like a Coast Guard cutter bearing down on him every time Washington scored.

It wasn’t a day for the Trojans to remember--Washington’s 27-0 victory was the first time USC had been shut out in seven years. But hidden in Van Raaphorst’s statistics were the seeds of a career. He completed only five of 18 passes, but five others were dropped. He threw two interceptions--but one was off Billy Miller’s chest.

Van Raaphorst lasted a half, but he was on his way.

“He’s had his feet wet,” USC Coach Paul Hackett said. “And the first time he got his feet wet, it was a real storm.”

Van Raaphorst--who will start for USC against Purdue on Sunday in the Pigskin Classic at the Coliseum--started one more game before a sprained ankle knocked him out late in a victory over Stanford. In that game, he completed 12 of 21 passes for 128 yards and a touchdown, but his season had ended.

“I don’t think of him as a returning starter,” Hackett said. “He’s just beginning his football career, in my mind.”

Carson Palmer’s moment is coming too. His talent and preparation are obvious, and he’ll begin his freshman season as Van Raaphorst’s backup.

“He kind of reminds me of Daylon McCutcheon when he came out of high school,” receiver Miller said. “He was ready to play. I think maybe Carson might be ready to play as a freshman just like Daylon. He has the arm and body, and he seems mentally ready to play.”

Maybe it will be against Purdue, maybe against San Diego State, maybe Oregon State, but Palmer is going to get into a game, and soon.

“I can’t wait. I live for big crowds,” said Palmer, who played in front of maybe 9,000 or 10,000 for Santa Margarita’s two Southern Section Division V championship games, both victories. “I can’t wait to play in front of 95,000 people.”

He’d just as soon his debut doesn’t come in Tallahassee on Sept. 26, however.

“That would be a different situation, against Florida State. A crowd that crazy,” Palmer said. “If it was my fourth or fifth game, I’d love it. I don’t know if I’d want it to be my first go-round.”

USC is green at quarterback--for the second season in a row.

When John Fox beat out Quincy Woods for the starting job last year, he had attempted only two passes in his career. Fox fought through an ankle injury but eventually lost the job--only to regain it when Van Raaphorst was hurt.

Van Raaphorst, Hackett’s pick to start as a sophomore, is a little more prepared than Fox was then--and much more ready than he was that day in Seattle.

“Eons,” Van Raaphorst said. “Eons more prepared. Especially with Coach Hackett and the rest of the staff, the way we practice and pay attention to details. By the time you get to the game, it should just be reaction.”

Only an afterthought in the starting competition a year ago, Van Raaphorst came from the back of the pack to overtake Fox.

Van Raaphorst won the job again in the spring after Hackett, a former quarterback coach and offensive coordinator who made his reputation working with Joe Montana in the NFL, took his first look at the team.

And by the end of training camp this month, the performances of Van Raaphorst and Palmer sent most of the rest of the quarterback corps scurrying.

Fox, out of the race for No. 1 and being pressed for No. 2, moved to tight end of his own volition. Woods left the team for four days to think it over, then became a receiver. Jason Thomas, the other prized freshman who is still struggling with the effects of ankle surgery, anguished about whether he should transfer, but is sticking it out for the time being.

Where once there was a muddle, it’s all very clear now with Van Raaphorst and Palmer.

“We’re at the absolute beginning as far as our quarterbacks,” Hackett said. “You’re seeing Phase I of the quarterback position at USC. We can look in a few years and see where we are. I have great expectations for them.”

Both are quarterback prototypes, tall, strong-armed and with the background and training to do the heavy lifting Hackett’s playbook requires.

Van Raaphorst, 6 feet 5 and 220 pounds, can draw on his brother’s experiences and also has the best grade-point average on the team, 3.68.

Palmer, 6-4 and 205, has worked with private quarterback coach Bob Johnson--the father of former USC quarterback Rob Johnson, now starting for the Buffalo Bills--since he was in seventh grade.

Hackett doesn’t think either one is going to wilt when the pressure-cooker heats up.

“Carson’s calm, and Mike’s the same way,” Hackett said. “These guys have great temperaments for what we’re going to do.”

Palmer definitely doesn’t shy from competition. USC already had three young quarterbacks ahead of him--none of them seniors--and another high-profile recruit in Thomas, when Palmer signed up.

Hackett promised Palmer and Thomas a chance to compete for the starting job, which sounded like a token offer until Palmer claimed No. 2.

“I was just happy to get a chance, because I knew if I got a chance to be second string, I’d get to play,” said Palmer, who picked USC partly because of Rob Johnson, who started a couple of games late in his freshman season and went on to become USC’s career passing leader.

“I always looked up to Rob, and I’d go to SC to watch him play. He’d come throw with us on the weekends some too,” Palmer said.

Bob Johnson coached Palmer much the same way he worked with his sons, Bret and Rob, but he won’t compare them or any other quarterbacks he has coached.

“I do think he’s way ahead of most people,” Johnson said. “He has a great career ahead of him. When that career will get started, I have no way of knowing.

“He’s got the whole package, the arm, the mentality, the family background, and he’s kept everything in perspective.

“Now that he’s No. 2, it can just play itself out.”

What kind of twisting path it might be, no one can guess--least of all after the upheaval at quarterback for USC in the past year.

“When I came in, at the beginning, I thought I’d eventually work my way into the starting job,” Van Raaphorst said. “I didn’t know it would come like this, with John and Quincy going off to different positions.

“Last year, I never got a shot early. I don’t think it was strictly the media that counted me out. I was put in a situation where I was running with the [second string.] It’s funny, I look back, you learn a lot when you’re down and discouraged. Things turn around.”

Now Palmer waits for his shot--and hopes it comes before Van Raaphorst graduates.

“I had to remind the freshmen,” Hackett said, “Joe Montana didn’t play [much] his first two years in the NFL and didn’t play his first three years at Notre Dame.”

Palmer gave kind of a half-smile at that.

“He did say that,” Palmer said. “I hope that’s not the case.”