Years later, Mitch Mustain is on verge of first start for USC

After more than three seasons of sitting and watching other quarterbacks start for USC, senior Mitch Mustain is expected to be under center from the beginning Saturday night when the Trojans play Notre Dame at the Coliseum.

Mustain started eight games at Arkansas in 2006 before transferring to USC. He redshirted while John David Booty started in 2007, sat behind Mark Sanchez in 2008 and backed up Matt Barkley in 2009 and this season.

Mustain, 22, acknowledged that he was frustrated at times.

“I don’t know what you’d be doing if you weren’t,” he said. “I came here to play, came here to get that shot, but that’s part of it.”

Barring a remarkable recovery by Barkley from a high ankle sprain, Mustain will finally get his chance.

The process taught him even more than he wanted to know about patience.

“I really didn’t have a choice,” he said. “It was that or move on to something else.”

Agent defends actions

Teague Egan, the USC student and sports agent who gave Dillon Baxter a ride on a golf cart that led to the tailback’s being ruled ineligible for one game, said in an interview Friday that school officials warned him not to provide athletes with extra benefits but could not recall them specifically mentioning rides on his cart.

Baxter was reinstated this week after paying $5 to charity.

Egan said he gave Baxter a ride a week after he had been summoned to meet with athletic department administrators Mark Jackson, J.K. McKay and David Roberts, USC’s vice president for athletic compliance.

“They were like, ‘We just want to make sure you’re following the rules and not jeopardizing our players’ eligibility,’” he said.

Egan said the NFL Players Assn. has requested a written report from him about the incident. He also said that he had neither paid players nor given them anything of “monetary value.”

“I don’t see that I did anything wrong,” he said.

Egan added that he planned to auction off the golf cart on EBay and donate part of the proceeds to USC’s football program.

gary.klein@latimes.com

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