Hackett Kicks Sloppy Team Off Field

Little more than an hour into the final practice in pads of camp, the Trojans were kicked off the field by Coach Paul Hackett.

“We weren’t in the mood to practice, and we’re not going to have a bad practice,” Hackett said. “I set standards of how we’re going to do things, and we’re not going to practice until we do things the right way.”

Hackett was fed up with a lack of emotion and abundance of mistakes, namely dropped balls and blown assignments. After calling the team together to express his displeasure, the next play resulted in a fumbled handoff, and the team was sent off.

But shortly after, the Trojans returned to the field, apologized to Hackett and practice began anew, including stretching again.

“Their response was to try it again, and I said OK,” Hackett said. “I thought the second time we did it, it was excellent.”

Safety David Gibson said the experience wasn’t an entirely bad one.

“There’s always positives and negatives,” Gibson said. “It was kind of a team-building thing, I think. We knew we grew as a team. It was kind of a test by Hackett. If we were just a mediocre team, he wouldn’t have done it.”

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After Thursday morning’s workout, Hackett released his two-deep depth chart, which answered most questions, but left a couple of spots still in the air. With a depth problem at linebacker because of an injury to Jason Steen and a one-game suspension of Darryl Knight, and because of an impressive showing in less than a week of practicing in pads, junior college All-American Markus Steele will start at weak-side linebacker.

Steele didn’t get to camp until last week because of problems with his transfer paperwork, and he didn’t begin practicing in pads until Monday.

And after losing his starting left guard spot to senior Donta Kendrick in spring practice, senior Jason Grain beat out freshman Zach Wilson at the right guard position.

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The team captains, voted on by the players, are tailback Chad Morton, Gibson and fellow safety Ifeanyi Ohalete. Morton, who was a captain last year, is the first two-time captain for the Trojans since Dan Caley in 1902-03 and only the fourth in USC history.