Some Good in Loss to Notre Dame

The bad and the ugly have been examined.

But there was some good in the Notre Dame game--the Trojan running game was excellent in the first half.

USC ran for 92 of its 113 yards in the first two quarters, and Chad Morton seemed to have a little something extra.

“Juice,” offensive coordinator Hue Jackson said. “I think he was really ready to play.”

There was something else, too: Notre Dame didn’t stack the line against the run in the first half as so many teams have.

“It was the way they lined up,” Jackson said. “It’s very easy to run when they have seven guys in the box and you outnumber them.”

Notre Dame adjusted in the second half.

“When we started to get out of it in the second half, they were bringing the safety down late,” Morton said.

“When we went against the seven-man, we really ran the ball. It’s just fun being able to run the ball. It was the first time in a while we’ve been able to have fun.”

Morton and Jackson like the effect of mixing in other runners a little more. Now they just want to have some more success.

“We proved we can do it. Now we’ve got to do it consistently,” Jackson said.

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Linebacker Markus Steele isn’t practicing this week because of a sore shoulder, but is expected to play against Stanford on Saturday.

“Knowing him, he’ll be ready,” Coach Paul Hackett said.

However, because of USC’s no-practice, no-start rule, Henry Wallace is likely to start in Steele’s place.