USC Adds Assistant, 12th Game

USC filled a couple of openings on Friday, hiring Pat Ruel as offensive line coach and adding a game to next fall’s schedule.

Ruel was an offensive line assistant with the New York Giants last season but has spent most of his 31-year career in college football, including stints as offensive coordinator at Washington State, Texas A&M; and Kansas.

Coach Pete Carroll worked with him on Lou Holtz’s staff at Arkansas in 1977. Ruel, 54, replaces Tim Davis, who coached the Trojan offensive line for three seasons before taking a similar position with the Miami Dolphins this week.

With this hiring, Carroll finished reshaping a staff that lost five assistants and a director of football operations since USC’s Jan. 4 victory over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.

The team also announced it had completed arrangements to play a 12th regular-season game in 2005, against Fresno State on Nov. 19 at the Coliseum. That fills an open slot between the Nov. 12 game at California and the Dec. 3 finale against UCLA.

Fresno State heads into next season with as many as 17 starters returning from a team that was 9-3 and finished 22nd in the 2004 polls.

The schools have played only once before, Fresno State upsetting the Trojans in the 1992 Freedom Bowl, 24-7.

David Wharton

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*--* The Season 2005 USC football schedule: Date Opponent Time, TV Sept. 3 at Hawaii TBA Sept. 17 Arkansas TBA Sept. 24 at Oregon TBA Oct. 1 at Arizona State TBA Oct. 8 Arizona TBA Oct. 15 at Notre Dame TBA Oct. 22 at Washington TBA Oct. 29 Washington State TBA Nov. 5 Stanford TBA Nov. 12 at California TBA Nov. 19 Fresno State TBA Dec. 3 UCLA TBA

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