USC Ends Week 3 of Spring Practice

With the temperature hovering in the mid-90s and the sun beating down on Howard Jones Field, the Trojans concluded their third week of spring practice.

The heat did little to stifle the hard hitting as the Trojan defense for the third week in a row asserted itself. But the offense shows signs of finally coming around.

The O-Line, which today consisted of Alex Parsons at RT, Thomas Herriing at RG, Chris O'Dowd at C, Jeff Byers at LG and Charles Brown at LT, afforded a little better pass protection compared to last week when the defense amassed eight sacks.

Today they only gave up three and opened some nice holes for the corps of Trojan running backs. Allan Bradford, Stafon Johnson, Broderick Green and C.J. Gable all had nice runs during the two-hour scrimmage. On defense, reserve linebacker Michael Morgan had two of three sacks.

Once again it was A Tale of Two Mustains. It seemed like two different players were wearing the Number 16 jersey today. On his first drive, the Arkansas transfer went 4-for-6.

Two of his completions were to his former high school and Arkansas teammate, Damian Williams. Mustain drove the offense down to the ten, where a fumbled snap botched the attempted field goal.

On his second drive of the first half, Mustain was 5-for-8. Two of his incompletes were dropped passes by Bradford and Goodman. After three straight defensive penalties in the red zone, Mustain found Ronald Johnson in the end zone for a score.

But in his only set of the second half, Mustain went 0-for-3. On a rollout right, he missed a wide open Patrick Turner throwing into the dirt. Then on a rollout to the other side, he threw the ball into the ground once more. Again, his receiver was wide open.

On his last attempt, Mustain threw an interception, ending a drive that included nice runs by Allan Bradford and Stafon Johnson.

Also in the first half, Mark Sanchez threw into double coverage from his own 5-yard-line. Shareece Wright went high in the air to pick that one off. It was a ball Sanchez should have thrown away.

However, in the second half, Sanchez came back to lead the team on an 80-yard touchdown drive. Rhett Ellison caught a short pass from Sanchez, and, like Fred Davis used to do last year, picked up thirty yards after the catch. C. J. Gable carried the final five yards for the score.

In the two-minute drill to end the scrimmage, Sanchez drove the team down to the twelve to set up an easy field goal for Buehler.

The Trojans will end their month-long spring practice next Saturday in the Coliseum with the Huddle, their annual intra-squad game.