Fargas Positioned Himself Beautifully

Justin Fargas came to the Orange Bowl two years ago. He was a Michigan safety. His heart was not that of a safety. His mind didn’t belong to a safety. Fargas tried, he really tried to become a safety.

He just couldn’t do it.

So Fargas drove home to Encino and did 3,000 miles of thinking. Fargas thought about the broken leg, the one that cost him a season of college football and caused three surgeries, two titanium rods and 12 screws that were pounded into the shattered bone.

And he knew that he was still a running back.

“For 3,000 miles it was all I thought about,” Fargas said. “It was all I concentrated on. It was what I wanted, it was what I needed.”

Fargas had just finished another Orange Bowl. He was a running back. He gained 122 yards, he scored two touchdowns, one of them on a 50-yard run. It was all Fargas, that run. It started with his powerful legs and finished in the end zone where he flopped to the turf, untouched by an Iowa Hawkeye. Fargas’ touchdown made the score 24-10, USC. It was the sign, the proof that the Iowa defense was finished.

“UNTOUCHABLE.”

The letters are tattooed down his spine. On this night, the last of his college career, finally, Fargas was. Untouchable.

That 50-yard touchdown was the defining moment of USC’s 38-17 Orange Bowl win over Iowa on Thursday night at Pro Player Stadium.

And it made something else clear.

Fargas is a tailback, not a safety.

It was a career in one night, an end worth the horrible beginning and disappointing middle for Fargas.

Fargas had not made things easy on himself this week.

At his invitation, O.J. Simpson had come to USC’s practice last Saturday, a visit that had brought angry e-mails, letters, phone calls, even faxes to the team hotel in protest. What was Fargas thinking? What was USC doing?

“That was something that belongs to the team and was just part of the week and I don’t think it was a big deal,” Fargas said. Simpson had not come to the game, Fargas said, but Fargas would also not feel bad about inviting Simpson, even now, knowing that Simpson evoked anger, sadness, angst, bitterness and unhappiness from so many USC faithful.

And certainly Fargas has earned respect from his coaches and teammates.

“When I first saw Justin get on the practice field,” Coach Pete Carroll said, “I was shocked at how much it meant to him to prove how tough he was. The heart, the experience he brought to us was such a great asset.”

“He makes you proud to be one of his teammates,” said Trojan quarterback Carson Palmer, who ran to Fargas at the end of the game and hugged the tailback. “Justin loves to play, he brings it every single play, he never takes a play off. The leader he is, the way he plays football, it just makes you proud to be around him.”

This kind of night, this kind of glory, this kind of fearless, punishing running, it was what Fargas thought he would do for four years at Michigan after leaving Notre Dame High in Sherman Oaks having set school records for rushing yards (6,357), touchdowns (82) and average per carry (9.5).

But after a freshman year where he was named one of the top 10 freshmen in the country by several publications, Fargas shattered his leg. When he came back from a year off, there seemed a lack of faith in Fargas’ running ability at Michigan. Eventually he was turned into a safety.

“I just couldn’t accept that I wouldn’t be running any more,” Fargas said. “I had to come home. I had to give myself another chance, one more. I was so convinced I had it in me.”

Against Iowa’s second-ranked rushing defense, Fargas ran as if he were playing against high schoolers. Against the nation’s No. 3 team, Fargas ran tough and hard and dragged tacklers along with him.

Against the bragging Hawkeyes, who claimed Trojan rushers would be stopped at the line of scrimmage, would find no hole big enough, no corner to turn, Fargas walked onto the field determined to prove that he was strong and that USC’s running game was worthy.

“What did we gain on the ground?” Fargas asked. “As a team I mean?”

The answer was 247 yards, gained in large chunks, in delicate tippy-toe scampers, in brutish, straight-ahead bull rushes. It was gained mainly by Fargas, senior Sultan McCullough (77 yards and a touchdown), sixth-year senior Malaefou MacKenzie (19 yards) and senior fullback Sunny Byrd (18 yards), who had been starting last year and who had been graceful in accepting his place back on the bench.

Byrd scored USC’s final touchdown and brought the Trojan fans up and dancing.

While Palmer was on a podium, accepting the most-valuable-player trophy and Carroll was hugging senior captain Troy Polamalu, Fargas hung back, holding his shoulder pads in one hand.

“I wish this could go on forever,” Fargas said.

“I wish I had been a part of this for my whole career. I’m very glad I came. I’m a Trojan now forever.”

And a running back too.

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