Trojans Have Always Lifted With Their Backs

John Robinson saw it on a press box television in Alabama.

Anthony Davis watched from a pizza parlor in Orange County.

And Marcus Allen paced the sideline at Sun Devil Stadium as it unfolded only a few yards away.

When USC put the ball in the hands of running backs Reggie Bush and LenDale White in the second half against Arizona State, it was that ‘70s show all over again.

“My God,” Robinson recalled thinking. “They’ve gone back to our era!”

Allen exhorted Trojan players and coaches to pound the ball.

Davis, out of earshot hundreds of miles away, did the same.

“When you know it’s coming and they still can’t stop it, that’s when you know you’re making a statement,” Davis said.

Bush and White, running behind a dominant offensive line, combined for 355 yards and four touchdowns and the Trojans overcame a 21-3 halftime deficit for a 38-28 victory.

The two juniors each rushed for more than 100 yards for the second consecutive game and remained on pace to become the first USC backs to run for more than 1,000 yards in the same season.

Their performances helped keep the unbeaten Trojans atop the national polls.

They also raised a question that has been percolating since last year: Are Bush and White the No. 1 backfield tandem in USC history?

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USC’s tradition of great running backs extends beyond Heisman Trophy winners Mike Garrett, O.J. Simpson, Charles White and Marcus Allen.

Mort Kaer in the 1920s, Frank Gifford in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, Jon Arnett and C.R. Roberts in the mid-1950s, and Willie Brown and Ben Wilson in 1962 are just some of the players who predated the full implementation of coach John McKay’s tailback-oriented attack.

Garrett and Simpson flourished in the system in ‘60s and Clarence Davis also was an All-American, but the ‘70s and the dawn of the ‘80s were the golden years at what became known as Tailback U.

Anthony Davis, Ricky Bell, White and Allen continued a line that tapered for more than two decades before Justin Fargas seemed to revive it in 2002. Bush and White arrived as precocious freshmen a year later.

Today, the Trojans alternate flashy Bush and indomitable White. Each has 57 carries. Bush has rushed for 491 yards, White 437, though they are rarely on the field at the same time in USC’s multidimensional offense.

The philosophy is vastly different from the McKay and Robinson eras, when one back was anointed as the chosen one and carried the ball 30, sometimes 40, or in Bell’s case, 51 times, in a game.

“We were going to wear you down with the run and knock you out,” said Robinson, an assistant under McKay who began the first of two head coaching stints at USC in 1976. “We weren’t going to alternate. We were going to come at you with one guy. That lone guy took over.”

Still, there were several dynamic backfield combinations. Among them:

* Anthony Davis and Sam Cunningham, 1972

Rod McNeill started the season as the Trojans’ tailback but Davis, a sophomore, worked his way up the depth chart because of injuries. He made his first start in the eighth game, at Oregon, and never relinquished the spot, going on to become what a teammate once described as “the greatest player never to win the Heisman.”

The 1972 Trojans, featuring players such as Davis, fullback Cunningham, tight end Charles Young, flanker Lynn Swann and linebacker Richard Wood, are regarded by many as the greatest team in college football history.

Davis rushed for 1,191 yards and scored 17 touchdowns. Cunningham, a senior, was used mostly as a blocker, but rushed for 349 yards and 13 touchdowns, including four in the 1973 Rose Bowl against Ohio State when he repeatedly dived over the pile into the end zone.

The usually soft-spoken Cunningham often told opponents what was coming next after he led the way for Davis.

“They’d get up with a little glaze in their eye and I’d say, ‘We’ll be right back, don’t worry about it,’ ” Cunningham recalled, chuckling. “It was not being boastful. I was just telling the truth.”

* Ricky Bell and Charles White, 1976

Bell, a senior who had been Davis’ fullback in a potent 1974 backfield that also included Allen Carter, was the starter coming off a sensational 1975 season. White was a freshman who ascended to a backup role because of injuries to more experienced players.

Both, however, had dynamic seasons with fullbacks Mosi Tatupu and Dave Farmer clearing the way.

“You are talking about some extremely tough guys,” said John Jackson, who coached running backs at USC from 1976 to 1981.

Bell ran for 1,433 yards and 14 touchdowns. He finished second to Pittsburgh’s Tony Dorsett in Heisman voting despite nagging injuries that created numerous opportunities for White, who finished with 858 yards and 10 touchdowns.

With Bell nursing a hip injury, White rushed for 136 yards against Stanford. Bell also was injured on the first series of the Rose Bowl against Michigan and White ran for 114 yards in 32 carries.

Tatupu and Farmer combined for 705 yards.

* White and Lynn Cain, 1978

Robinson switched him from tailback to fullback and Cain nearly reached 1,000 yards rushing despite playing with White, who carried 374 times for more than 1,800 yards.

“Charles was like a fullback playing tailback,” recalled Paul McDonald, the starting quarterback in 1978 and ’79. “He was a horse you could ride across the Sahara desert without water for five days and he’d keep going. He was most effective in the fourth quarter on his 35th carry.”

Cain finished with 977 yards and four touchdowns for a team that won a share of the national championship.

“We came up with two or three different plays for him, and he was a successful receiver too,” Robinson said. “He was a very good player that just kind of got lost because of the guy playing tailback.”

* White and Marcus Allen, 1979

Allen was a defensive back and quarterback in high school before he moved to tailback as a freshman at USC in 1978. With Cain gone, Robinson switched Allen to fullback.

On one of the first days of training camp, a linebacker broke Allen’s nose while the sophomore led a sweep for White. In Allen’s autobiography, “Marcus,” former safety and roommate Ronnie Lott recalled that Allen often could not hold on to a fork because his hands were so swollen from blocking.

Allen’s determination impressed White.

“I was shocked when they said they were going to move him to fullback,” White said. “But he was the man. Oh my goodness. The bigger the games, the bigger he would play. I was like, ‘This guy has some stuff.’ ”

White finished the season with 2,050 yards, 19 touchdowns and the Heisman.

He remains USC’s career rushing leader with 6,245 yards. Allen ran for 649 yards and caught 22 passes for 314 yards. The next year, he ascended to the prized tailback role and won a Heisman of his own as a senior in 1981.

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So who’s No. 1?

Bush and LenDale White said they would wait until their careers are complete before considering their place among the best backfield combinations in USC history.

“To even mention us close to them is kind of crazy,” White said.

Robinson steadfastly refuses to compare players.

Different era. Different philosophies.

But Robinson, who works as an analyst on national radio broadcasts, allows that, “as a 1-2 punch,” Bush and LenDale White are special in Trojan history.

Davis, who will be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in December, is more resolute.

“That’s the best 1-2 punch I’ve ever seen,” Davis said.

Charles White agrees.

“Those guys are by far No. 1,” he said.

Terry Donahue played and coached against USC for more than 20 years at UCLA. Donahue said Bush and LenDale White are great, “but I’m still voting for Marcus Allen and Charles White.... That’s awful tough to beat.”

McDonald and other former USC quarterbacks Pat Haden and Mike Rae said Bush and LenDale White are as good or better than any of their predecessors.

Former USC linemen Allan Graf, who blocked for Davis and Cunningham, and Pat Howell, who blocked for Bell, Charles White, Cain and Allen, said the same.

And then there is veteran broadcaster Keith Jackson, who said Bush and LenDale White are more than the best backfield tandem in USC history.

“I’ve seen a lot of good combinations, but never one to surpass these two in college football,” Jackson said. “I’ve been wandering around the landscape 53 seasons and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything quite like this.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Tailback U

A look at how USC running backs in 1972, 1976, 1978 and 1979 fared statistically and the numbers for LenDale White and Reggie Bush through the first four games of this season (includes bowl games):

*--* YEAR ATT YDS TD 1972 Anthony Davis 202 1,191 17 Sam Cunningham 102 349 13 Rod McNeill 131 567 7 1976 Ricky Bell 280 1,433 14 Mosi Tatupu 66 391 4 Charles White 156 858 10 Dave Farmer 37 314 1978 Charles White 374 1,859 13 Lynn Cain 187 977 4 1979 Charles White 332 2,050 19 Marcus Allen 114 649 8 2005 Reggie Bush 57 491 6 LenDale White 57 437 6

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