Is Matt Barkley the New Jay Cutler?

Back in 2003, the year after Heisman Trophy winner Carson Palmer left USC, a quarterback battle between Matt Leinart and Matt Cassel for the starting role took place.

Both players were pretty much dead even in the competition. In fact, they were so evenly matched that it caused a split in the coaching staff.

Head coach Pete Carroll favoured Leinart while his offensive coordinator at the time, Norm Chow, preferred Cassel.

Carroll prevailed and named Leinart his starter near the end of spring practice, which was a huge disappointment for Cassel at the time.  

However, when Norm Chow left USC to join the Tennessee Titans, he promised to give Cassel a shot as a free agent. That wasn’t necessary, as the Patriots took an untested Cassel in the seventh round (230th overall), and the rest is history.

Almost the same scenario has just played out again on the USC campus, however the players this time were redshirt sophomore Aaron Corp and true freshman Matt Barkley, the No. 1 one high school quarterback in the class of 2009.

Norm Chow is now across town at rival UCLA, but his replacement, Wide Receivers coach John Morton, is working closely with the new Quarterbacks coach, 33-year-old Jeremy Bates. Like Barkley, Bates, the former Denver Broncos quarterbacks coach, is in his first year at USC.

Just before the annual spring huddle at the Coliseum, Pete Carroll named Corp his starting quarterback, just like he named Matt Leinart as the starter back in 2003.

But it was clear to everyone that Matt Barkley certainly had the talent to be a great quarterback. It was especially clear to Bates, who relished the big arm on the 18-year-old All Star from Mater Dei in Orange County.

No doubt, Barkley reminded Bates of another quarterback with a cannon of an arm who he once coached, Jay Cutler. Ironically, Cutler was drafted by the Denver Broncos behind Matt Leinart, as the 10th overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft.

But Cutler has succeeded in the NFL, whereas Leinart and Vince Young, the two quarterbacks selected ahead of him, are still struggling. Much of his success, Cutler attributed to the work he did with Bates over three seasons.

Could it be that Bates’ influence over Pete Carroll has eclipsed that of Norm Chow? Has he been able to get coach Pete Carroll to change his mind about the status at quarterback.

We do know this. During Carroll’s previous eight years at the helm of USC Football, he has never started a true freshman at quarterback, and has never replaced the starter that he named during spring practice with a new starter in the fall.

But this year, he has broken both of those precedents, and possibly even a third one.

Carroll has always been a conservative-minded defensive coach. His whole mantra has been “Protect the ball!” The most important statistic to Carroll is Turnover Ratio.

So, why has he decided to name Barkley as his starter, when Barkley has thrown eight interceptions in camp and had a few others dropped?

All during spring practice, and up to the point in fall camp when he was injured, Aaron Corp had thrown only one interception.

The obvious answer is Corp’s injury. But was that truly the reason or just the excuse that Bates was looking for to hand the reins over to Barkley?

After Corp’s injury, Barkley took all the first team snaps in 11-on-11 team periods and scrimmages. His backup, redshirt junior Mitch Mustain, took no snaps with the first unit.

It just seemed apparent, that even when Corp did return to practice, that the reins were firmly in Barkley’s hands and there they would remain despite his interceptions.

Brett Favre, Jay Cutler, and now Matt Barkley all have gunslinger reputations. The question now remains whether or not Jeremy Bates can teach this gunslinger to take better aim and to rely not just on his cannon arm but on the big guns around him to make plays.