Van Raaphorst Keeps Head Amid Controversy

Mike Van Raaphorst is still calm, still cool and still the starting quarterback.

It’s a lot easier to flush him out of the pocket than it is to fluster him with the controversy over who USC’s quarterback will be, even though the competition with gifted freshman Carson Palmer isn’t going away any time soon.

Van Raaphorst might have looked a little dazed as he stood on the sideline watching Palmer drive USC to the game-tying touchdown two weeks ago in a 27-17 victory over Purdue, but he didn’t fling his helmet or turn his back.

“That can be a humbling experience for anybody,” said receiver Billy Miller, who came close to connecting with Van Raaphorst on two big plays that might have changed the assessment of the quarterback’s outing, losing one on a penalty and another on a bad call.

“He was over there staring at the offense. I went and told him, ‘Hey, this is your offense,’ ” Miller said. “He went back in, and it all worked out.”

It’s still Van Raaphorst’s offense, but he’ll have to strengthen his grip to keep it that way.

He’ll take the first snap Saturday night against San Diego State at the Coliseum--though he hopes it won’t be from his own two-yard line the way it was against Purdue. And he’ll do it knowing that at some point, maybe even in the first half, Palmer will jog in from the sideline for his turn.

“I missed some passes the first game. I don’t think it’s time to take me to the guillotine,” Van Raaphorst said, as much with humor as defensiveness. “I’ll do better.

“I wish I had a couple back and a couple of different calls, but you can’t do anything about that. All you’d do is beat yourself up. I’m trying to go get ready for the next game.”

He has done that in part by talking to one of his brothers, Jeff, a former Arizona State quarterback who’s now a radio analyst on Sun Devil games.

“He just talked to me as a brother and a Christian about how to deal with things,” Van Raaphorst said.

With USC off last weekend, Van Raaphorst spent much of Saturday watching other people play.

“It’s fun sitting around watching games, but I get too antsy,” he said, thinking of what he could have done better in the game in which he completed 11 of 22 passes for 89 yards but couldn’t mount a touchdown drive. “Anyone who feels that way can’t wait to get back out there.”

It will be a little bit of old-home week against San Diego State.

Van Raaphorst is from the San Diego area and another brother, Bill, was a center at San Diego State until he gave up football because of injuries in 1996 to start chasing his true passion. He’s now a minor league umpire working the Arizona Fall League. San Diego State Coach Ted Tollner tried to recruit Mike until he saw he was headed to USC, and still runs into Van Raaphorst’s father, Dick, in the Mission Beach area, where Dick enjoys roller-blading.

Besides all that, Mike’s brother Bill’s best friend is Aztec cornerback Eric Lewis, who probably has a pretty good understanding of offenses. His father is Sherman Lewis, the Green Bay Packers’ offensive coordinator.

“He’s been trying to give me a hard time, saying, ‘I’m going to pick you. I’m going to get an interception,’ ” said Van Raaphorst, who believes he has a feel for the mind-set of the San Diego State team.

“They’ll come in here with a little chip on their shoulder,” he said. “A lot of guys at San Diego State are from L.A., and they’d like nothing more than to prove us wrong.

“Like the coaches told us in our film session, you can’t go out and have a game like UNLV last year [a too-close-for-comfort 35-21 USC victory]. You’ll end up losing.”

Van Raaphorst will have a weapon he didn’t have against Purdue--receiver R. Jay Soward, the speed demon who is back after being suspended one game because of academic shortcomings. Now it’s a matter of getting their timing down.

“On a deep route, you just try to get back as quick as you can and throw it as far as you can,” Van Raaphorst said.

Soward is a man who almost can’t be overthrown.

“It’s scary. He’s got a gear when he gets going,” Van Raaphorst said. “He puts it in gear and it’s like the Millennium Falcon, he puts it in super-space. Or hyper-space.

“If you throw the ball with air--I’ve seen him overthrown with a line drive--but if you put air under it, I have yet to see him overthrown.”

It’s some of the shorter passes that Coach Paul Hackett is more concerned about. “I thought he threw deep well,” Hackett said. “There were two long passes to Billy Miller that were taken away.

“But he missed on a slant and threw the ball behind Chad [Morton] on a flare. He probably needs more work on the short stuff. He needs to be a little more crisp. Accuracy has got to be his forte.”

Ballhandling and footwork in the running game as well as simply running the offense effectively are other issues. Hackett is fixated on footwork, as usual.

“There haven’t been any supreme words of wisdom,” Van Raaphorst said. “The same stuff he always says. ‘You have to step at 6 o’clock, and you’re stepping at 5:30.’ ”

Palmer is given the same sort of instruction, and though he is ahead of Van Raaphorst in sheer ability, he is still learning the offense.

The part you might not have expected is that Van Raaphorst is a willing tutor.

“He always helps me out,” Palmer said. “I was surprised, definitely. He surprised me a lot.

“Mike’s very smart. He knows the first read, the second read, the third read. He knows all the outlets. He’s quick to see everything.”

The big question Saturday is how quickly he’ll see Palmer come into the game. Even though Palmer’s final statistics against Purdue showed only three completions in six passes for 79 yards, Palmer took advantage of field position and moved the offense, directing three drives that led to two touchdowns and a field goal. And he made the big play, a 42-yard completion to Larry Parker that set up the tying touchdown.

Hackett told both quarterbacks beforehand that Palmer would go in on the third series of the third quarter of that game. He might try the same type of approach again--and admits it’s possible Palmer might play in the first half.

“Might,” Hackett said. “I haven’t thought about it yet.

“For young quarterbacks, you lift a huge anxiety when you say, ‘At this point in the game, you’re going to go in.’ ”

When will Palmer go in? How much will he play? When will he come out?

Van Raaphorst can’t spend too much energy thinking about that rather than his own game. Leave it to everyone else.

“I think people like to have something going on,” Van Raaphorst said. “It’s not for me to analyze.”