FOOTBALL

If It’s Friday, It’s Time For A USC Notes Column

With a 24-team College Football Playoff, what are the chances a school goes independent like Notre Dame?

USC would certainly consider it because it considers anything that would make more money. It could schedule nine home games and not share its TV money with a conference. It would be even better if Ohio State and Michigan went along to form a mini-alliance, and the three teams played each other.

USC would suddenly want to play Notre Dame every year, especially with Netflix already making offers for the game. The rest of the schedule could be Lincoln Riley-cupcakes to guarantee a playoff bid.

  • The Investiture Ceremony for USC president Beong-Soo Kim is this morning at 9:30 a.m. at Alumni Memorial Park. A celebration of the event for the Trojan Family will be held from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at McCarthy Quad. Among the musical guests performing are USC alumnus Aloe Blacc and Allen Stone.
  • And now for some history:
  • There’s been a lot of talk at USC this season about the freshmen wide receivers.

So let’s remember (because some have forgotten) the exploits of Mike Williams as a freshman. He caught 81 passes for 1,265 yards and 14 TD’s his initial season.

His best game occurred when USC went to play Oregon at Autzen Stadium. Williams caught 13 passes for 226 yards and two touchdowns against the No. 14-ranked Ducks. Those marks for receptions and yards set freshmen records at USC.

This game became famous because Oregon had put a 40-foot mural and billboard of its three wide receivers — Samie Parker, Keenan Howry and Jason Willis — on the side of the Hotel Figueroa in downtown Los Angeles. It was just two miles from USC.

Lane Kiffin, who was USC’s wide receivers coach, put a picture of the billboard in the wide receivers’ playbook.

“We took it really personal,” USC wide receiver Kareem Kelly said. “We took it personal from the day we started camp until the day we played them, which was today.

“Every time we have a home game we have to pass the billboard because it is in downtown our hotel is in downtown, and it is an insult to us.”

“It was a slap in the face. We wanted to prove to the country and the West Coast that we have some real receivers over here.”

After the game, Williams, Kelly and Keary Colbert recreated the Oregon billboard pose.

  • Is John Ferraro the first USC player to make the cover of  Street & Smith’s Football Pictorial Yearbook?

The table of contents lists his full name and appears along with the photographer who made special use of a new film material called Kodachrome.

“If any tackle in this land of ours has ever played better ball, he must be Superman and Hercules rolled into one,” Braven Dyer wrote for Los Angeles Times in 1944.

  • One summer day in 2007, Peyton Manning showed up at USC because he wanted to work out while shooting a commercial at the Coliseum. The workout was arranged by USC basketball coach Tim Floyd, a close friend of the Manning family.

Floyd was a ball boy for the New Orleans Saints when Archie Manning was the quarterback and attended the workout.

So for about an hour, Manning threw passes to USC players. The first thought was how much harder the passes were than anything usually being thrown by then-quarterbacks John David Booty and Mark Sanchez. The second impression was the great hands of incoming freshman tailback Joe McKnight, who never dropped a pass from the NFL superstar.

That only led to even more expectations for the tailback, who arrived with great expectations. It was unfair in retrospect but a lot of comparisons were made to recent running back Reggie Bush.

  • This was quite a sports/entertainment complex in Los Angeles.

Gilmore Stadium (capacity 18,000) was built in 1934 and home to the Los Angeles Bulldogs. Jackie Robinson played for the Bulldogs in 1941. It was the site of a speech by President Truman in 1948 and a Three Stooges movie titled, “Three Little Pigskins.”

The stadium was next to Farmer’s Market, which of course, is still there. The better-known Gilmore Field baseball stadium was built in 1939 about 200 yards to the west. The Hollywood Stars baseball team played there. The Pan-Pacific Auditorium was the site of many events, including USC basketball games.

The Gilmore structures are now the site of CBS Television City and the Grove.

  • Then there was Wrigley Field near USC on 42nd Street and Avalon Blvd. It was designed by Zachary Taylor Davis, the architect of Wrigley Field in Chicago and meant to look like the Cubs’ famous stadium.

One night, a woman was taking a bath in one of the houses across the street. Steve Bilko, the famous slugger for the Los Angeles Angels, hit a home run that broke through a bathroom window and landed in the bathtub. The ball was cut up from the glass. The woman was unharmed.

PICTURES OF THE WEEK

Linda Harrison

Francoise Pascal

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Let’s continue with What’s My Line? for another week. Here’s a very young Wilt Chamberlain in 1961, who was just 24 at the time. He wasn’t even the celebrity guest of the episode. That was Joan Crawford.

41 thoughts on “If It’s Friday, It’s Time For A USC Notes Column”

  1. another Friday mini-Masterpiece, wolfman!! ironically, you just dashed any chance of SC going Independent: i am 99.99% certain the SC principals (Jenn, Riley, Beong-Soo) all read your blog albeit in secret when no one is around. accordingly, because you thought this up, they will never do it, despite it being the most logical course, simply because YOU thought it up!! the Rudys, of course wrote the book on this power move, parlaying a decade of dominance over SC into an Empire, shunning the big conferences and doing things on their term alone! no one can envision SC making such a bold move!!

    #CuttingOffNoseToSpiteFace

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  2. Among the great columns of Fridays, this IMO is one of the best. Scottie must have been inspired by Ed. G’s return this week.

    Williams, Kelly, and Colbert was a heck of a trio of WRs.

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    1. Have to admit today’s Friday was ‘smokin’!’

      And to John Ferraro….last of a breed…a moderate Democrat in many instances a moserate conservative. He was a lot like Anthony Scalia, able to get along with all council members cept’ ‘maybe’ Nate ‘the skate’ Holden.

      Like to see a ‘super association’ of top tier programs with an elevator as British ‘football’ (soccer) has for their multiple levels re-arranged based on outcomes.

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      1. Ferraro was the enforcer, Alv. He wasn’t so nice when you were on the wrong side of one of his rail or housing developments [in fact, he’d give the exact same stare you see on his face on that Street and Smith cover].

        And, man, this was a terrific Scott column. Everything you want from a Friday piece —news, glamor, gossip! We’d all really miss this guy if he ever decided to hang it up!

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      3. Yes. First he failed to back my Dad when he became Executive Director of Urban Renewal and tried to get some control of their wasteful budget. Then he came to City Council to give me stink eye when I told Gloria Molina and Alatorre that they weren’t doing their job monitoring Urban Renewal loans [which were total bullsh*t since they were almost never paid back —meaning certain developers were getting City money for nothing]…

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  3. Wow, the new WH press secretary is OUT after one day!! she was of course, set up to fail, i suspect by Natalie Harp who convinced the Big Peeedo to send her out with zero prep. of course he blamed the press for her lack of preparation, despite the fact she was asked a grand total of 3 questions!! once again the Peeedo formula of picking his staff based primarily on looks backfires yet again!

    #SydneySweeney4SectyOfState

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      2. I don’t know how intelligent she is….but when you watch her talk you know you’re listening to a wholly evil person….

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  4. The Wolfster did leave out one important thing about Mike Williams …

    He was great, don’t get me wrong, and absolute monster (I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a copy of the 2004 Rose Bowl where during the broadcast a certain QB who was a Michigan alum was on the sideline – on break from marching towards the 2nd of 7 Super Bowl titles – was interviewed on the sideline and said in effect “I’d take that number 1 – he looks like he’s 30 years old!”).

    It was a travesty what the $ people controlling the NFL and its AAA minor league (NCAA FBS) puppet, in concert with a blatantly unconstitutional court ruling (consistent with several previous just as blatant) did in forcing him to sit out a year …

    But – Williams dropped passes were the primary culprit in both of USC’s losses early in 2002 (at ManCattan and Wazzouville) … after that, which according to reports I believe Williams took those losses very hard, he was unstoppable, and the team turned into a juggernaut (by the end of the year the best team in the country, even if undefeated Miami and Ohio State met for the national title). Carson Palmer obviously had an outlandish senior season, but it sure did help having Brady’s “30 year old” to throw to!

    But …

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      1. I was still on active duty in the Army then … remember watching both games late, late night in the DC area … Wazzou was a 1 point loss and KState was a 7 pointer … two of the nine that got away from Pete …

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  5. Hi Scott, great column. Money as always nowadays will dictate the future of college football, but I don’t think that USC would go independent because of our history with Olympic sports and baseball which really need a conference alignment for scheduling. The Big Ten schedule will always be tough, but the easier road to the playoffs should make the USC vs. ND annual rivalry possible long term with two easy opponents on the pre conference schedule. I do remember going to games at Gilmore Field to watch the Hollywood Stars play and Bobby Bragan was their manager. They even wore Bermuda shorts one year. Saw the Ice Follies at Pan Pacific and saw my favorite team the Los Angeles Angels at little Wrigley Field. In the late 1940’s, the Angels and parent Cubs had their spring training on Catalina Island which was also owned by the Wrigley Family. Loyola University which had some good teams in the 30’s and 40’s played their home games in Gilmore Stadium. Thanks for the memories. Fight on, Dan, Class of 1962

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  6. I remember that Peyton day. I also remember McKnights first practice (when it was easy to attend in the Pete era).

    They were doing running drills on the side short field.

    McKnight does and outside run and the Defense launched him into the wall. Went flying into that wall. It was a lot of guys from the legendary 2008 D too – Cushing, Rey and Clay. Welcome to SC.

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    1. KAM: I remember Joe showing up to practice with a tricked out SUV while SC was aleady the microscope for Reggiegate violations .

      DON: I knew we were doomed.

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      2. KAM: The Pac -9 and the NCAA destroyed the Don James dynasty at Washington over a $75,000 promissory note given to Billy Joe Hobart by a non-alum.

        DON: Those were the days.

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  9. Those 2 losses in 2002 were at the hands of 2 outstanding QBs – Gesser at WSU (still the best they’ve had IMO) and Ell Roberson from KSU. The turning point for Carson was the bootleg OT winner against the Beavs – but nothing matched the raw joy in the Coliseum that night when ND handed Carson the Heisman

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    1. I recall he/team started slow that night … think it was late in the 2nd quarter that everything started clicking and they ran it up in the 2nd half (actually happened quite a bit during Pete’s tenure, as perhaps the most characteristic trait of his teams/coaching staffs was the ability to make great adjustments) … did same thing in Orange Bowl to cap the season (but that night it was McCullough and Vargas running wild wasn’t it?) against Iowa. Roberson was a very difficult QB to defend (and a preview of difficulties to come against Vince Young, Dennis Dixon, and the like). That Wazzou team was a good team (played OU in the Rose Bowl).

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      1. I don’t remember anymore [I don’t have James’s or Romping’s memory] which year it was…but….Pete told Vargas at halftime to keep running straight at Notre Dame “until they didn’t want it anymore.” And, yes, that’s just what happened…Vargas broke through and scored on a long & beautiful sprint straight into the end zone.

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      2. Vargas and McCullough (and MacKenzie) were a fabulous pair – if they had run behind the lines that USC assembled after that, they would have been right on par with LenDale and Reggie … and offered that similar dynamic of a bigger more powerful back with a blazing speedster.

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  12. Hoover injured, lots of good tape on how to defend OSU, UCLA starting LT doubtful – this could end up being a serendipitously productive bye week for our Trojans

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