Tailbacks galore for Trojans
April 8, 2007
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LOS ANGELES - USC sometimes is known as "Tailback U."
"University of Tailbacks" might be more fitting.
Come August, USC will have 10 scholarship tailbacks on campus.
Yes, 10.
Enough to fill a classroom. Enough for a 5-on-5 pickup game. Almost enough to form a tailbacks-only huddle.
The Trojans have gone beyond "embarrassment of riches" at the tailback position. They're edging toward "cornering the market." Toward "tailback world hegemony."
They have 10 guys considered prep blue-chippers. Ten guys who want to be the next Reggie Bush or LenDale White. And could be, if they didn't have nine other guys fighting them for playing time.
"It's a predicament," conceded Allen Bradford, Colton High School alumnus and one of the Tailback Ten. "Ask any of the 10 guys who is the best, and they'll say they are."
USC's tailbacks are fast, faster and "I-heard-it-but-
I-didn't-see-it" fast.
They are big, bigger and "did-you-get-the-license-
plate-of-that-truck?" big.
They are shifty, shiftier and "let-me-go-fetch-the-jock-I-
was-just-faked-out-of" shifty.
USC played its annual spring football scrimmage in the Los Angeles Coliseum on Saturday, and 94 plays later the tailback logjam was only more acute. As if that were possible.
None of the Four Freshmen (sophomores this fall) played. Too nicked up.
But the three seniors did. And they were so impressive they only further confused the situation.
Chauncey Washington, USC's leading rusher in 2006 and starter in four games, ran for 45 yards on only six carries.
Desmond Reed ran for 33 on 11, with a 78-yard punt return for touchdown.
And Hershel Dennis, USC's starter all of 2003 (ahead of Bush and White), all but forgotten as he sat out two seasons with knee injuries, ran for 39 yards and a touchdown on eight carries and caught two passes for 49 yards and a TD.
Said coach Pete Carroll: "All of a sudden you could feel all the older guys showing their stuff."
The other faces in the crowd?
The sophomores-to-be: C.J. Gable, who started five games as a freshman last year; Emmanuel Moody, who started four and seemed to have the greatest breakaway potential; Bradford, the biggest bruiser of the crew; and Stafon Johnson, who saw just enough action as a freshman to burn a year of eligibility.
And waiting in the wings, incoming freshmen Broderick Green, Joe McKnight and Marc Tyler.
So, let's see ... one football, maybe 35 carries a game, 10 guys.
How does that work, exactly?
By specializing.
Ever since the Bush-White lightning-thunder tailback tandem led the Trojans to a national title during the 2004 season (and to the brink of another, in 2005), USC coaches have thought in terms of a hydra-headed tailback.
A tailback for every occasion. First-and-10. Third-and-short. Second-and-long. A tailback to throw to, a tailback to block. And maybe the guy who just seems to be feeling it. Three, four, maybe five guys contributing every Saturday.
"Right now, we're using our guys at the things they do best," Carroll said. "We'll rotate them as much as we need to."
It may drive traditionalists (and the Tailback Ten) crazy, but Carroll & Co. may be creating a new paradigm: Tailbacks as situational substitutes.
Seems wacky. Seems wrong. But who are we to argue with a guy who's 65-12 in six years at Troy?
USC? Call it "Tailbacks U." Plural.
