For Starters, USC Unsettled at Quarterback and Tailback

It’s worse than a who’s-on-first skit. It’s Game 9 of the football season and USC doesn’t really know who its quarterback or its tailback will be Saturday against Stanford at the Coliseum.

Who’s at tailback? With injuries rampant, defensive back Chad Morton switched to tailback Tuesday, more than a year after last season’s emergency duty, when he played offense for three games and had a 143-yard performance against Oregon State.

“I don’t think he’ll start. He will play,” Coach John Robinson said of Morton, the tiny but speedy sophomore who filled in when Delon Washington and Shawn Walters were suspended early last season. Morton accumulated 171 yards in 26 carries with two touchdowns--including a zig-zagging 73-yard scoring run against Oregon State.

Then there’s the quarterback indecision: USC played three quarterbacks in its 27-0 loss to Washington, although Mike Van Raaphorst appears to be ahead of John Fox as they compete for the start again this week.

No established quarterback. No established tailback.

“Is it tough? That’s a good word for it,” Coach John Robinson said, allowing himself a small laugh three days after the Trojans were shut out for the first time in seven years. “Those are two critical positions. It just doesn’t add up to a successful offensive team when your two main positions don’t have continuity.”

Indecision has been an issue at tailback, but now the problem is a list of injuries that goes five players deep.

Freshman Malaefou MacKenzie, the Trojans’ most promising runner, isn’t expected to play Saturday because of a shoulder injury that has been bothering him for several weeks.

“Right now, I’m just planning to arbitrarily hold him out,” Robinson said. “It’s not getting any better, and the look on his face when he gets hit. . . . He’s a good player and he deserves a chance to be a good player.”

Washington figures to start Saturday, but he has an arthritic knee.

“Delon Washington’s knee continues to be kind of iffy,” Robinson said. “Petros Papadakis has some shoulder problems, so we need some help there. [Fullback] Ted Iacenda is probably out for the year; they’re doing some more tests but there might be an impending [arthroscopy] to his shoulder.

“Other than that, I think we’re OK.”

Not quite. Don’t forget LaVale Woods, who seemed to be the answer after a 100-yard game against California, then severely sprained his left ankle more than a month ago against Nevada Las Vegas.

Woods wore pads and shorts in practice for the first time since the injury, but didn’t take part in the full practice.

“If a miracle happens, he might play a little bit Saturday,” Robinson said. “He’s still a couple of weeks away.

The problems hardly stop at the two key positions. The receivers had an awful performance against Washington, dropping pass after pass, and the line wasn’t able to stop the pass rush led by the Huskies’ Jason Chorak, who had no trouble with tackles Phalen Pounds and Ken Bowen.

“The tackles, for whatever reason, had a poor game,” Robinson said. “They were a little quicker than we were on the outside.”

The quarterback battle has long-range implications since Fox, the starter the first seven games, is a sophomore and Van Raaphorst, the starter in Game 8, is a redshirt freshman.

One problem for Fox all along has been a nagging ankle injury suffered early in the season that has affected his throwing mechanics, resulting in lost accuracy--one reason Robinson went to Van Raaphorst last week.

“Both are young guys working every day to get better,” Robinson said. “John has had some bright moments and some moments with nagging inaccuracies. He’s working hard.

“Mike Van Raaphorst came from quite a ways back in training camp to where he has really improved and is really in a groove throwing the ball. Mike understands the game. It wasn’t Mike that was rattled on Saturday. The interception he threw down the sideline, he shouldn’t have thrown it, but it was an obvious interference call.

“I feel positive about both of them. They make errors, but just about every quarterback has struggled in his first year. Unfortunately, they’re suffering the residue of other problems offensively.”

Unfortunately for the Trojans, the problems are widespread enough that they don’t look as if they’ll be easily resolved. Against Washington, USC went three downs and out on seven of 13 possessions.

“Gradually, as the game went on, we lost our poise,” Robinson said. “Our offense has been guilty of going into the tank and all of a sudden unable to execute much of anything.”

If Morton starts at tailback, he’ll be the fourth starter at that position this season--behind Washington, Woods and MacKenzie.

The brother of former USC receiver Johnnie Morton, now with the Detroit Lions, Morton has tremendous athletic ability but it comes in a 5-foot-8, 175-pound package.

Robinson says concern about injuries is one reason he has hesitated to move Morton to tailback, and Morton says his body is more in shape for the free safety position he was starting at before the emergence of rover David Gibson shuffled the secondary and left Morton on the bench.

“Right now, I’m not in shape for running back. My body is more for defensive back. I’d have been lifting weights and working on my legs more if I were playing running back,” he said.

As for returning to tailback, “It’s cool,” he said. “As long as I get a chance to play a little bit. Anything’s better than sitting on the bench.”