Players Get a Taste of Big-Time Bowl

USC cornerback Darrell Rideaux glanced at the hotel ballroom and the private reception for the Trojans upon their arrival here Thursday night and called it a revelation.

“Now I see what the BCS is all about,” Rideaux said.

That was the prevailing sentiment of the Trojans’ traveling party as players, coaches, staff and administrators attended their first event leading up to the Jan. 2 Orange Bowl game against Iowa.

Players and coaches said the chartered flight from Los Angeles touched down in Fort Lauderdale with a less than smooth landing, but that was the only glitch of their travel day.

“This is all great,” kicker Ryan Killeen said, “but we know the reason we came down here is to win the game.”

USC Coach Pete Carroll took steps to make sure his players felt rewarded for their 10-2 regular season. Seniors have their own hotel rooms. Curfew on Thursday was 2 a.m., the latest it will be all week.

“You feel like a VIP,” senior running back Justin Fargas said. “When you think about a major bowl and everything that goes with it. This is what it’s about.”

The Trojans practice for an hour this afternoon before resuming a more typical practice routine on Saturday.

Carroll, who along with quarterback Carson Palmer and safety Troy Polamalu will visit patients at a hospital this morning, said he was pleased with the beginning of the bowl week.

“It really has a first-class feel to the start of it,” he said.

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Offensive coordinator Norm Chow, who turned down an offer to become coach at Kentucky on Tuesday, said he was happy to turn his full attention to preparing for Iowa. “It’s nice to just think about winning a football game,” Chow said.... Carroll said the Trojans lost no players for the bowl game because of grade problems.