Solid to the Core

Two days before they began training camp in early August, USC players and coaches gathered in a parking lot at Huntington State Beach.

The Trojans were there to mourn the loss, and celebrate the life, of a teammate most never got the chance to meet -- Drean Rucker, an incoming freshman linebacker who had drowned.

Afterward, as Rucker’s family and friends began to disperse, cornerback Marcell Allmond spoke quietly about Rucker and about the season ahead.

Yes, Allmond acknowledged, USC lost its core of experience from the 2002 team that won the Orange Bowl, including Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer and All-American safety Troy Polamalu.

But he thought the Trojans could be even better.

“We’re not a year away,” said Allmond, a senior. “We can win a national championship.”

Today, the top-ranked Trojans will play No. 4-ranked Michigan in the Rose Bowl with a chance to win a share of their first national title in 25 years.

These are some impressions from the road that brought them to this point:

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Aug. 30: No. 8 USC 23, No. 6 Auburn 0

USC departed Los Angeles on a Thursday and stayed an hour away from Auburn in Montgomery, Ala., the flash point for some of the most historic civil rights events in the history of the United States.

Resting or sequestered in meetings at their hotel, players never knew they were a two-minute walk from one of the most compelling interactive history lessons in the nation, the Rosa Parks Museum. Most were unaware that right up the street, protesters were keeping a vigil -- under the glare of CNN cameras -- for a Ten Commandments monument.

The Trojans, however, had received their own civil rights lesson shortly upon arrival. At the behest of Coach Pete Carroll, former Trojan fullback Sam Cunningham and linebacker John Papadakis shared their experiences of playing for the 1970 Trojans against Alabama. Cunningham’s dominating performance against the Crimson Tide so impressed Alabama Coach Bear Bryant, it opened the door for black players to attend Southeastern Conference schools.

The next night, as Papadakis and Cunningham dined at one of Montgomery’s finest restaurants, kitchen workers and busboys came to their table to thank Cunningham for his role in bringing change.

Once the game began, Matt Leinart, who had never completed a pass in college, connected with Mike Williams for a five-yard touchdown on his first official attempt of the season. The Trojans, and Leinart, were on their way.

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Sept. 6: No. 4 USC 35, BYU 18

USC offensive coordinator Norm Chow spent 27 years at Brigham Young as an assistant coach. He dreaded questions about facing the school that essentially passed him over when head coach LaVell Edwards announced he was going to retire.

Chow put on the politically correct front and publicly said he had no hard feelings about his departure from BYU after the 1999 season, but the undercurrent of emotion was obvious.

One night after practice, as he stood in the shadows of a nearby track and field complex, Chow confided an incident that occurred when he was at BYU. A school administrator, addressing a roomful of coaches and others about a new facility, used a racial slur to describe Chinese laborers.

Chow, who is of Chinese and Hawaiian descent, was furious.

But he asked me not to write about it.

“It’s over. History,” he said with a wave. “But don’t think that I don’t remember.”

Late in the season, a Denver-based reporter wrote of the incident and the BYU official issued an apology.

The Trojans travel to BYU next season.

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Sept. 13: No. 4 USC 61, Hawaii 32

On the day of the game, The Times published a story in the California section about an outbreak of staph infections that had hit the Trojans and other athletic teams.

Seven USC players had been infected -- and four were hospitalized -- before the season opener. The health department lauded the school for its handling of the situation, which most players seemed to find more comical than threatening.

“It kind of became a joke,” one player said later. “Every time someone got a pimple, someone else was pointing at him and yelling, ‘Staph! Staph!’ ”

The Trojans shut down Hawaii quarterback Timmy Chang and produced their highest point total of the season in a bench-clearing victory.

USC was 3-0. The Pacific 10 Conference opener against inconsistent California was two weeks away.

Everything was under control.

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Sept. 27: California 34, No. 3 USC 31

Pete Carroll is a stickler for routine, so he probably should have sensed his team was in trouble when the Trojans arrived at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley earlier than usual for a road game.

Carroll spent a few moments by himself, sitting in the stands and climbing to the top of the stadium steps to look out toward his boyhood stomping grounds in Marin County.

One player, however, later said that the extra time left the Trojans a bit out of sorts. That may or may not have contributed to their slow start, but the break from routine was an uncharacteristic loss of control, of time anyway, by a coach who relishes it.

After the Trojans lost the game in triple overtime, Carroll and Chow put up a united front, both saying they favored running the ball at the end of regulation instead of attempting a pass into the end zone.

Carroll took the blame for the loss, saying he probably approached the bye week that preceded the game the wrong way -- a statement he no doubt regretted when reporters dogged him with questions about preparation during the Trojans’ next two byes.

A lasting image is that of Carroll’s face as he stood outside the stadium. In the aftermath of similarly tough losses at Kansas State and Washington State the previous season, there was no trace of uncertainty in his expression.

This time, there was.

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Oct. 4: No. 10 USC 37, Arizona State 17

Amid the hoopla and excitement surrounding the games, it is easy to lose sight that football is a violent sport played by young men who are still growing.

The game in Tempe was a reminder.

Television cameras focused on Leinart and his comeback from first-half knee and ankle injuries. Viewers, however, did not see Leinart wince repeatedly as he tried to grab his wallet off the top shelf of his locker.

Fans cheered as freshman running back LenDale White rushed for 140 yards in 21 carries, a USC yardage record for a true freshman. But they did not see the huge bruises and the welts rising from White’s shoulders and back as he pulled off his shoulder pads.

Safety Mike Ross, who will miss the Rose Bowl because of repeated concussions, delivered a bone-jarring tackle on a kickoff just before halftime, a hit that left him slightly dazed as he ran off the field.

When they departed for the airport and their flight home, the Trojans left behind a locker room strewn with adhesive tape and tubes from IV bags.

The game has a cost. USC gladly paid it and moved on.

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Oct. 11: No. 9 USC 44, Stanford 21

Leinart was on his way to a dream season. Freshman John David Booty was on his way to burning a redshirt year. And Matt Cassel was on his way to changing positions.

Cassel, a redshirt junior, patiently waited more than three years for the chance to play quarterback. He got nearly one quarter of action against Arizona State when Leinart was injured, but when the Trojans began preparations for Stanford, he was unceremoniously demoted from No. 2 to No. 4 on the depth chart.

Coaches waited another week to ask Cassel to move to tight end, but it was painful to watch a young athlete come to grips with the end of a dream.

Meanwhile, buoyed by his new status, Booty raised his level of play and wowed Carroll with one of his best practices.

“I can do this,” Booty said. “I can play at this level.”

Booty entered the game against Stanford with 14 minutes 52 seconds remaining, ending any thoughts of redshirting a player who skipped his senior season in high school to play for the Trojans.

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Oct. 18: No. 5 USC 45, Notre Dame 14

Defensive tackle Shaun Cody and defensive end Kenechi Udeze kicked field goals.

Skill-position players sprinted back and forth across the field hollering with delight as they played touch football.

Carroll joined the linemen for a slo-mo game of touch football that forbids running.

That’s how USC players acclimated themselves to hallowed Notre Dame Stadium the day before they handed the Fighting Irish one of their worst home losses in history.

As the Trojans concluded their lighthearted “walkthrough” and headed up the famous tunnel toward their buses, Notre Dame players emerged from their locker room and made their way toward the field.

Several of the Fighting Irish looked perturbed.

“What’s going on out here?” one player asked.

Notre Dame fans were asking the same question the next day.

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Oct. 25: No. 5 USC 43, Washington 23

It was Mike Williams’ worst game, statistically, of the season.

Hobbled by an ankle injury, the 6-foot 5, 230-pound sophomore caught six passes for only 43 yards with no touchdowns at Seattle.

Still, it was the game that Williams showed a flash of his sheer physical dominance that would characterize the final quarter of the regular season.

Williams did it with one play. He ran a route to the end zone and made a one-handed touchdown reception look so routine that it was quickly forgotten by most when the play was negated because of a penalty.

The play, however, portended the leaping touchdown catch Williams made against UCLA, when he slammed cornerback Matt Clark to the ground. It also set the stage for Williams’ acrobatic one-handed grab against Oregon State, when he shed defensive back Mitch Meeuwsen with a twist of his hip.

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Nov. 1: No. 3 USC 43, No. 6 Wash. St. 16

This game was supposed to be USC’s toughest of the season, but Washington State turned it into a comedy of errors and sent the Trojans on their way to the Pac-10 title.

Udeze was the player laughing the loudest after jump-starting his drive for All-America honors by recording three sacks.

Washington State defensive lineman Isaac Brown had woofed throughout the week about the relative strengths of each team’s defensive line.

Ed Orgeron, USC’s defensive line coach, ordered his charges not respond until game time.

“Wild Bunch II” came through with seven tackles for losses, including five sacks, and had two deflections, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery.

“It was personal,” Udeze said.

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Nov. 15: No. 2 USC 45, Arizona 0

USC, on its way to setting a home attendance record and now accustomed to playing in front of sellout crowds on the road, tried to stay interested while playing in half-empty Arizona Stadium.

Collin Ashton was one USC player who did not seem to mind.

Ashton, a walk-on redshirt sophomore, started in place of the injured Melvin Simmons at weak-side linebacker.

Ashton responded with eight tackles, including one for a loss, and forced a fumble.

The look on Ashton’s face as he greeted his thrilled family afterward rivaled the smile Palmer flashed when he won the Heisman Trophy.

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Nov. 22: No. 2 USC 47, UCLA 22

Rivalry week was anything but that for USC players.

The current divide that separates the local programs appeared to grow larger with each passing week of the season. Their words to the contrary, when the game against the Bruins finally arrived it seemed to draw a collective yawn from the Trojans.

Said one defensive lineman: “This isn’t even going to be close.” He was right.

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Dec. 6: No. 2 USC 52, Oregon State 28

The Trojans’ victory, along with Kansas State’s victory over Oklahoma in the Big 12 Conference championship game and Louisiana State’s win over Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship game, set the stage for a climactic announcement of the final bowl championship series standings the following day.

Carroll called his team together a few minutes before the television announcement and broke the news: The Trojans were No. 1 in both polls, but they were not in the Sugar Bowl.

Carroll accepted a bouquet of roses from a Rose Bowl official and handed them off to a player.

The night before, Allmond had worn a T-shirt emblazoned with “Got Sugar?” across the chest.

The Trojans came up short, but they still got their chance to play for a national championship.

“It’s there for us,” Allmond said this week. “We just have to go out and finish this thing.”