The University of Southern California's Top 10 Trojans: Part One, O.J. Simpson

To select the top 10 players in a storied program such as that of the University of Southern California, marked by 11 national championships and seven Heisman Trophy winners, is no easy task.

So many great players have marched through Trojan annals since the school became a major gridiron power in the mid-1920s, but certain names stand out in spiriting the program to some of its major moments. That having been said, let the selection process begin.

The number one choice is O.J. Simpson. The reason why this choice would raise hackles is due to activities in Simpson’s life years after his USC playing days ended. Since this is a process analyzing players during their playing days, the exercise would lose its essential meaning if eliminated based on conduct outside the scope of the evaluation.

Simpson is chosen number one because he was endowed with gifts so rare that only a few athletes in history come to mind as comparisons, those of Willie Mays or Babe Ruth in baseball, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, or Kobe Bryant in basketball, or Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali in boxing.

Simpson’s gifted status was revealed to me in an unusual way one night not long after his professional playing career ended. I was in San Francisco to attend at USC game against California when the friend I was with moved inside a Fairmont Hotel elevator slightly ahead of me.

It turned out that Simpson was also entering the elevator. The door began to close and I stepped forward slightly, then concluded I was too late and prepared to wait for the next one, deciding I would catch up with my friend upstairs.

I had not counted on Simpson to save the moment. Somehow he observed me standing at a rather obscure point in the distance. His lightning reflexes went into action and he pushed the button to reopen the door, allowing me to enter and chat amiably about USC’s upcoming game with the school’s best known Heisman Trophy winner.

Initially I was astonished that Simpson was able to see me and recognize the situation. After thinking it over I realized that he was indeed the one person out of a staggering number who would have observed and reacted, but then again, he was Simpson, an incredible athletic package.

His act in the elevator reminded me of his incredible performance in what turned out to be 1967’s national title decider against crosstown rival UCLA at Memorial Coliseum. The great senior Bruin quarterback Gary Beban would win the Heisman Trophy that season while the junior Simpson, the Trojan superstar that afternoon, garnered the honor the following season.

Simpson’s unique talents were displayed as he scored two of USC’s three touchdowns with different kinds of runs that demonstrated his eye-popping physical talent. The first came in the second quarter with the score tied at 7-7 and the Trojans driving. Simpson demonstrated his power running ability by breaking six tackles in a bruising race to pay dirt from the 13-yard line.

The second memorable run of the afternoon came in the fourth quarter with the Bruins leading 20-14 behind Beban’s precision passing. On 3rd-and-8 from the USC 36, Trojan quarterback Toby Page, having called a pass, alertly noticed that Bruin linebackers were moving their positions slightly in correct anticipation of a pass.

Page had been given the option of checking off if he saw the Bruin defense tipping itself, so he called "23 blast", a power play over left guard by tailback Simpson. That ensuing play was the stuff of which legends are made.

Simpson blasted through a decent-sized hole. With any other back a first down would have been achieved and the drive kept alive, but Simpson was not just any tailback, or even just any talented tailback, but someone with special endowments.

First there was that fantastic vision I saw exhibited years later at the Fairmont Hotel. In order to take advantage of opportunity and move toward daylight, however, he needed to execute a swift rightward movement at breakneck speed, something that just one back could have then executed, O.J. Simpson.

Bruin coach Tommy Prothro mourned afterwards that there was only one player downfield with Simpson, and that was his fellow sprint champ, Trojan All-American receiver Earl McCullouch. The two were part of USC’s world record-setting 440 relay team.

So there you have it. Simpson’s 64-yard canter required brilliant vision, ability to turn on a dime, and world class sprinter’s speed, all of which brought USC a national championship and the game deciding touchdown in a 21-20 that many grid experts called the greatest college football game ever played.

Then there was that 13 yard power thrust that put USC ahead in the second quarter. If the game-deciding run embodied Carl Lewis in a football uniform the second quarter explosion embodied the bruising power of Jim Brown

What made the process so staggering is that Simpson was so talent laden that he combined bruising power that he could use on occasion with his normal world class sprinter’s speed alongside gifted vision and the shifty elusiveness to fully accentuate it.

Simpson was not destined to play on a national championship team in his senior season, but it was all the more remarkable for his stellar play and the coaching of John McKay that a squad that lost All-Americans the caliber of McCullouch, Ron Yary, Tim Rossovich, and Adrian Young came very close to nailing down a second successive title.

Troy went into the 1969 Rose Bowl game undefeated with a tie against Notre Dame its only blemish. Ohio State sent perhaps the best team in Woody Hayes’ long tenure, one that had Lou Holtz as its defensive coordinator and was led by sophomore sensation Rex Kern at quarterback.

The result was a 27-16 Ohio State win. The Trojans sustained five turnovers in the loss but Simpson generated the most memorable play of the game, a brilliant 80-yard second quarter touchdown romp.

McKay’s stellar coaching job, which some experts called his best considering the talent losses from the previous season, maximized the gigantic talent of Simpson to almost pull off a second title in a row.