USC is the preseason favorite to win the conference, but the Trojans and their coach are staying calm and avoiding any blustery forecasts.
Since 2009, Pete Carroll’s last season at USC, the Trojans have carried on a passionate and regular affair with preseason expectations.
The fling always starts in the summer, hot and heavy. Pollsters cast amorous glances at USC’s talent and declare that USC is back.
USC rides high on the love. Then … the season starts.
Two times in the past five years, USC has been picked to win the Pac-12 Conference football championship. Yet the Trojans have yet to win one since Carroll’s departure.
And so it begins again this season. Media members picked the Trojans as heavy favorites in the South Division at Pac-12 media days in Hollywood on Wednesday and Thursday. They were voted slight favorites to win the conference.
The players have heard this one before.
“I don’t think any of that really matters to us right now,” linebacker Cameron Smith said.
Is this the year that post Carroll USC, which opens training camp Saturday, finally lives up to the hype?
An attitude shift evident Thursday in a ballroom at the Hollywood & Highland Center offered hope, or at least another tease.
The tumultuous Trojans were … calm. Almost boring. Coach Clay Helton sedately handled questions ranging from the status of USC’s inexperienced offensive line to the release of O.J. Simpson. (The former USC star, recently granted parole from a robbery sentence, won’t be welcome at a practice, Helton said.)
Helton’s steadiness, players say, has shielded them from dreaming prematurely of championships.
In an opposite corner of the room, Smith and quarterback Sam Darnold furrowed brows and spoke earnestly.
“Right now we’re just focused on training camp and Western Michigan,” Darnold said of the opening opponent. “But at the same time I think expectations that anyone from the outside has of us, I think our expectations are always going to be higher.”
Darnold sidestepped a question about former UCLA defensive lineman Takkarist McKinley, who tweeted earlier this month: “Can someone on the @UCLAFootball d-line please knock him out 11-1817,” with a photo of Darnold making a television appearance. Did he have a response? “Umm,” Darnold said, smiling. “No.”
Darnold maneuvered through questions about the NFL, where pundits have speculated about teams tanking to win his services in the draft.
“I try to just put it aside as best I can,” Darnold said. “It’s cool to be able to have that — I embrace that topic of conversation, but ultimately that’s not in my control. My job is to go out there and do what I do every single day, which is to lead a group of men and play football to the best of my ability. That’s really all I can do.”
After the season, he said, he would weigh leaving early for the NFL draft against staying for at least one more season.
“I’m never one to make an impulse decision,” he said.
USC’s seriousness is a departure from years past, when the Trojans regularly furnished this event with outsize personalities or explosive drama. Years were consumed by the foibles of coach Lane Kiffin and the substance-abuse problems of coach Steve Sarkisian.
Last season, USC brought lineman Zach Banner and cornerback Adoree’ Jackson, two charismatic extroverts.
Darnold and Smith dutifully chatted for hours but both said they preferred quiet — much like their head coach.
“We have more driven personalities,” Smith said. “We’re not huge talkers.”
Smith acknowledged past teams may have bought into expectations and coasted. USC’s recent history is littered with such teams:
2015 — Preseason rank: No. 8, Final: Unranked. Record: 8-6.
2012 — Preseason: No. 1. Final: Unranked. Record: 7-6.
2009 — Preseason: No. 4. Final: No. 22. Record: 9-4.
Helton was on the staff during the particularly tumultuous 2012 season. From that experience, he said, he learned that “you better treat every game in today’s time like a playoff game, like it’s a championship game. Because one game can make or break a year.” Helton held out his wrist. “I wear this bracelet to remind myself every day,” he said. “It says ‘11 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS AND 25 ROSE BOWLS.’”
USC is only successful when it adds to those totals, he said, adding that it was the only expectation that mattered.