It’s a Holding Pattern for Palmer

Maybe he would have, and maybe he wouldn’t have.

But the player those with even an ounce of Troy in their veins would like to have seen on the field for USC in the second half Saturday at Notre Dame was home with his parents in Orange County, watching the game on TV.

“At halftime, I felt great. We looked great,” injured quarterback Carson Palmer said. “Everything was going our way. Everything was working. You know how it all changed, so . . .

“‘It’s hard to watch no matter what, especially when things started going their way. When we started losing and weren’t doing anything with the ball, it’s the toughest thing in the world to watch.”

USC Coach Paul Hackett seems to be grasping at straws after the 25-24 loss, questioning his team’s veterans, closing several practices to the media and running players through boot camp even though he doesn’t think they’re out of shape.

If he dwelt on Palmer’s broken collarbone, Hackett would be called a whiner, and it wouldn’t help USC beat Stanford, anyway.

But never mind that Mike Van Raaphorst has played some of the best football of his career filling in for Palmer.

And never mind that USC has plenty of other shortcomings.

If Palmer hadn’t lowered his shoulder against Oregon, who imagines the Trojans would be 3-3?

Hackett questions the team’s senior leadership, but what if it turns out the leader was a sophomore?

“I don’t know if the team sees anybody as the leader,” senior receiver Windrell Hayes said. “I know before, the team was always looking at Carson. I guess when we lost him, everything just went up in the air.”

In the fourth quarter Saturday, the Trojans were a team waiting to see how they would lose. Not if, how.

With Palmer, the second half was showtime. Not always, but often enough for USC never to quit believing.

As R. Jay Soward said last season after one of Palmer’s second-half performances: “He’s just Carson. I don’t know how to explain it. He makes something happen.”

Anybody who thinks Hackett has been second-guessed on a few decisions so far this season might as well get ready for the big one.

Should Palmer redshirt and come back next season as a sophomore, as has been Hackett’s plan?

Or if doctors give their OK--as seems increasingly likely--should Palmer come back for the last two or three games of the season and be a junior next season?

When Palmer said the day after his injury that he’d be back for the Nov. 20 UCLA game, people more or less dismissed it: Nice thought, Carson, but you’ll adjust.

Instead, his resolve has only strengthened--along with his collarbone.

“I’m still coming back,” Palmer said this week after watching yet another practice (he hasn’t missed any yet). “I’m going to be ready by UCLA. I’ve just got to get my body ready, got to get in shape again.”

No doubts at all?

“Nope, I’m playing,” Palmer said.

Doctors get the first say, but so far, they’re encouraged.

After an X-ray last week, a little more than two weeks after the injury, Palmer was given the OK to begin lower-body workouts such as riding an exercise bike.

Next week, doctors might approve upper-body work. And at the six-week mark in three weeks, he might begin throwing, with two weeks to get ready for UCLA.

“I’m really confident, yes,” Palmer said. “Before, the doctors were saying, ‘You’re not going to play, you’re going to redshirt.’

“And I was still telling myself, ‘I’m going to play, they don’t know what they’re talking about.’ You know how it is.

“But then I got evaluated last week and everything looked pretty good, so they were very positive, very excited. The X-rays looked pretty good. They could just tell. They could even feel it: The bone’s set, it’s not moving around anymore. There’s marrow starting to form.”

Hackett confirmed the doctors’ positive report but is still reserving judgment, as he has from the beginning, until the time comes--though his initial feeling was Palmer would redshirt.

It remains to be seen how Palmer’s progress and USC’s struggles will affect Hackett’s thinking.

“I will make the decision,” Hackett said. “Carson wants to play and will do everything humanly possible, but I will make the decision, with medical advice.”

Palmer believes if the doctors say OK, so will Hackett--but Hackett hasn’t said that, and has talked excitedly about Palmer having three more years with the freshman receivers.

Palmer still hopes Hackett will decide to let him play.

“I mean, it’s what the doctors say. If they’re going to let me play, then he’s going to let me play. But he said we don’t want to rush it. If it’s not ready, it’s not ready. But it’ll be ready.

“To me, it feels like it’s really healed. It feels great. But everybody said that’s how it’s going to be. Don’t speed anything up. Don’t change what you’re doing. Just let it heal. It’s got to take its time.”

So say USC regroups and wins its next four and is 7-3, maybe even in the Rose Bowl race, going into the UCLA game. If Palmer is OK, should he play? Even if Van Raaphorst has done the job?

Worst-case scenario: What if USC is 3-7, its hopes for a bowl game gone, and Hackett’s future no longer certain? Should Palmer play?

More likely, what if USC is, say, 6-4, one victory from qualifying for a bowl game with two games left. If the UCLA outcome will determine whether the season is seen as a success, should Palmer play?

And how close to 100% would he be anyway?

And should USC’s record matter at all?

“I don’t know. I think there are a whole lot of factors,” Hackett said. “There’s this year, the future, his health. [When the doctors decide], we’ll see.”

The subtext of the whole scenario, of course, is whether Palmer intends to use a fifth year of eligibility if he can have one.

It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to see he’d trade being a senior in 2002 for two or three games this year.

“No, I’m not thinking about the NFL at all. I’m thinking about playing college football,” he said. “This is what I love. I’ve only done it for a year, you know?

“I want to play this year, and I’m still going to have two whole more years after this. I mean, I’m going to lose a lot this year, miss a lot of games, but hopefully I’ll be able to play maybe even before UCLA.”

In the meantime, he watches every practice, his collarbone held in place by a brace, and he is at every quarterback meeting.

“I learn the stuff with Mike during the week--the game plan, what we’re going to do,” Palmer said. “Just so I can keep my head in it, so I know what’s going on, and don’t forget anything.

“I watch for stuff in the games, tell him what coverages they’re in, what the defense is doing if it’s different from what we’ve been taught all week and what we’ve been watching.”

Watching, though, is the hard part.

“I mean, I want to play,” Palmer said.

Once he’s ready, it isn’t going to be easy to tell him no.