So Far, Trojans Have the Perfect Blend

Mike Williams is a freshman, big and tall and confident in his talents as a receiver and in the possibilities of the USC offense.

Carson Palmer is a senior, hardened by failures and injuries and second-guessing and changes in coaches and strategies, realistic in his talents as a quarterback and in the possibilities of the USC offense.

Hershel Dennis is a freshman, chiseled in muscle, quick as can be, from a high school program that hardly ever lost, confident in his talents as a tailback and in the possibilities of the USC offense.

Sultan McCullough is a senior, never quite sure if all his body parts are pain-free and sound, battered and bruised by four years of punishment, hopeful that his talents will take him through a whole season and hopeful about the possibilities of the USC offense.

They’ve known failure, Palmer and McCullough, so they stood in different corners of the visitor’s locker room at Colorado with serious faces. They spoke of the mistakes--dropped passes, missed blocks, flamboyant goofs in the special teams play--and cautioned that the miscues need to be fixed.

“We’ve got a lot of things to clean up,” Palmer said. If you hadn’t watched the Trojans, 2 1/2-point underdogs, dismantle Colorado, 40-3; if you hadn’t seen Palmer execute a perfect opening drive, five for five for 80 yards and a 32-yard touchdown pass to Malaefou MacKenzie; if you hadn’t seen the Trojans have an extra point, a field goal and a punt blocked in succession and move blithely on with almost no damage; if you hadn’t seen the wondrous hands and body control of Williams, 6-5, 210 pounds of strapping strength, you might have thought Palmer was in mourning.

“I hope this is not our best game,” Palmer said.

“I see lots of room for improvement,” McCullough said.

McCullough gained 110 yards and scored on a 62-yard dash that featured a wonderful cut up the field, and what he saw was where he could get better and not how great he had been.

It’s a good deal these freshmen have.

They are playing--Williams (seven catches for 90 yards); Dennis (five carries for 32 yards plus one catch for four yards); Winston Justice, starting right tackle on an offensive line that moves in sweet unison; strong safety Jason Leach (an interception)--and they know nothing but winning and they have the seniors to tell them it won’t always be like this.

“We stopped ourselves a couple of times,” Palmer says.

“It’s exciting to beat a real good team on the road. I can’t wait to watch the films,” Williams says.

Of course Palmer is cautious. This is his fifth year at USC. He is, in some minds, a failure because he isn’t already in the pros. Excuse Palmer if he did not erupt into predictions of a Rose Bowl and high national rankings, if he did not give out confident predictions of an undefeated season or a Pac-10 title.

“We’ve got some things to work on before we go to Kansas State,” Palmer says.

“We’re gonna get better and when we do we’ll be unstoppable,” Dennis says.

Dennis comes from Long Beach Poly, where every season the improvement always came and being unbeatable was the rule and not the exception.

Williams, who has the same body and same confidence and same athletic promise as Keyshawn Johnson, says that learning this offense “is not that difficult if you’ve got a good memory.”

It’s good to be young and wearing a towel around your waist and showing a body unscarred, with a spirit unbroken and with nothing but great expectations. “This offense is only going to get better. This team is only going to get better,” Williams says.

“I hope we can play a lot better,” Palmer says. “I hope I can play a lot better.”

The freshmen expect to play better. The seniors hope they play better. It is the perfect mix.

Williams says the best advice he has received “is to have a short memory.”

Dennis says he has taken to heart the message that “you can’t let the mistakes stick with you.”

McCullough will tell Dennis that just because the Trojans beat a ranked team on the road one Saturday does not mean traveling to Kansas State next week will be equally satisfying.

Palmer can explain to Williams that the fun of being a hotshot freshman can end in an instant, that the glorious praise and happy pats on the back can turn so quickly into doubts and injuries and puzzlement.

“Hershel and Mike are great threats,” Palmer says. “For freshmen they are really contributing a lot quickly and they show nothing but promise. But they still have a lot to learn and a lot to go through, believe me.”

Palmer doesn’t smile as he performs his postgame chore of describing what happened. He used to smile once, when he was a freshman and what was to come was only going to be good. So Palmer knows how Williams and Dennis and all the freshmen feel. He will leave them to their happiness for today. All the seniors will. But there are more lessons to come.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.