Max Browne begins his starting career in fitting fashion: amid turmoil

Earlier this week, as Max Browne stood in his final media scrum before USC’s game against Alabama on Saturday, a reporter asked about allegations of sexual assault made against a teammate.

Browne shook his head.

“Yeah, it’s tough,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we’ve had some distractions in the past, and I’ll leave that to Coach [Clay] Helton to address.”

Another reporter asked, rhetorically: just some distractions?

“Just a few,” Browne said sarcastically.

A new era of USC football, with Browne as the quarterback, begins Saturday with the Trojans facing the defending national champion. And it starts amid what Browne and company have found to be a familiar situation: off-the-field tumult.

This time, an otherwise quiet preseason was rocked by two allegations of sexual assault against linebacker Osa Masina, in Los Angeles and Utah, made by the same woman, according to a Los Angeles Police Department search warrant obtained by The Times.

USC announced Monday that Masina was suspended for the Alabama game for a “violation of team rules,” but the school has chosen not to elaborate.

Linebacker Don Hill traveled to Texas with the Trojans but was sent home Friday, also for what a school spokesman said was “a violation of team rules.”

The same woman who made the assault allegations against Masina told police that Hill engaged in sexual intercourse with her without her consent in Los Angeles on the same night as Masina, according to the LAPD search warrant.

This is the third consecutive year USC has dealt with off-the-field issues just before the start of its season. The fallout this time has left teammates trying to answer for Masina and now Hill, who have been allowed to practice and attend classes.

Offensive tackle and team captain Zach Banner, in a video posted on his Twitter account earlier this week, chastised a local television news crew who came to practice and asked “all negative” questions about Masina.

“It’s Alabama week and you ask dumb irrelevant question?” Banner’s account posted along with the video.

For Browne and many of his teammates, the only thing new about this experience is the nature and severity of the allegations. A lot has happened in Browne’s more than three years at USC. The one thing he has yet to experience is being the starting quarterback.

As a junior in high school, Browne sat in the sun outside USC’s campus center, munching on food with quarterback Matt Barkley, having just received a scholarship offer from USC. His future was already mapped in his mind.

He was the nation’s top-rated quarterback in high school. He’d come to USC and win the starting job as a freshman. He and Coach Lane Kiffin would win a lot of games, put up a lot of points, and Browne would eventually depart for the NFL, like his contemporary, Rams quarterback Jared Goff.

Instead, Browne was beaten out for the starting job by Cody Kessler, and for three seasons he was forced to wait.

“I mean, shoot, I’ve almost been here for four calendar years now,” Browne said. “When you’re actually living it, it’s a long time.”

He and his classmates endured a spiral of off-the-field incidents, kicked off when Kiffin was fired in the early morning at Los Angeles International Airport after a loss at Arizona State.

The next season, USC had to clean up the mess wrought by Josh Shaw, a defensive back who claimed, falsely, that he injured himself jumping off a balcony to save a drowning nephew. He had actually jumped from an apartment balcony when police showed up to investigate a disturbance.

And finally, last season, then-coach Steve Sarkisian’s erratic behavior at a preseason event wrenched open questions about the coach’s use of alcohol. Sarkisian was fired after USC’s fifth game, and he sued the school.

So Browne learned to deal with upheaval and, he said, prepared as if he were the starter as he quietly waited his turn.

“It does take time to grow into it,” Helton said of the quarterback position. “That’s why guys that leave here go on to the NFL. You look from Carson Palmer on, every starter here has gone on to an NFL career. And I think a lot of it has to do with the competition and knowledge they gain here.”

Browne’s first start will be daunting. USC faces Alabama, a team that, with Kiffin as offensive coordinator, won the national championship last season and may be better this season — especially on defense.

Alabama hasn’t lost an opening game in 15 years (though USC hasn’t lost one in 18). And its coach, Nick Saban, is the most successful of this era, and one of the most successful of all time.

Browne said he doesn’t know what to expect on Saturday. He thinks there will be jitters. He knows there will be excitement.

“Ready to go,” he said. “Ready to finally play ball.”

zach.helfand@latimes.com

Twitter: @zhelfand