Mustain likes what he sees

After touring USC in a cart on Thursday, Mitch Mustain headed to lunch with former teammate-turned unofficial recruiting assistant Damian Williams.

Mustain, a quarterback who started eight games last season as a freshman at Arkansas, is contemplating transferring to USC this summer. Williams, who played with Mustain in high school and at Arkansas, transferred to USC in January.

“Just from an aesthetic standpoint I love being here,” said Mustain, who visited with Coach Pete Carroll and assistant head coach Steve Sarkisian after arriving on Wednesday. “The business part of it is football and they’ve got a proven history with Coach Sarkisian developing quarterbacks -- even their backups are successful.

“I think it says a lot about what they have here and the system they have.”

Mustain, 6 feet 3 and 205 pounds, enrolled at Arkansas with hopes of duplicating the success he and Williams enjoyed in a no-huddle, wide-open passing attack at Springdale (Ark.) High. Arkansas hired Mustain’s high school coach, Gus Malzahn, as offensive coordinator, but the Razorbacks instead used a run-oriented attack built around tailback Darren McFadden, the Heisman Trophy runner-up.

Malzahn is now co-offensive coordinator at Tulsa, another place Mustain is considering.

Mustain, who passed for nearly 900 yards and 10 touchdowns last season, would not be eligible at either school until 2008. He said he would make his choice by May.

gary.klein@latimes.com