USC Football Recruiting: New Offers, Players Off the Board and Other News

As the USC Trojans prepare to enter the chamber of horrors known as Reser Stadium, the recruiting brain trust has been busy formulating plans for the future.

In this case, in terms of scholarship offers, the future for the most part is 2012, which represented two-thirds of the offers made recently.

While USC still has a large number of offers out for this year's class and only a very few scholarships to give, this is not the case for 2012 where there have only three commitments to date.

Taking a page from the Texas Longhorns, who historically start each recruiting year with a bevy of commits, the Trojans have extended a large number of offers to the 2012 class and even one to the 2013 graduation class.

Before we look at these possible Trojans of the future, there is one player many thought would don the cardinal and gold but this is not to be.

Corey Waller, the undersized but athletic defensive end from Long Beach Poly high school has spurned a recent offer from USC and instead will ply his trade for Steve Sarkisian at Washington.

Waller, who had appeared in several seven-on-seven camps with Trojan commits, was only recently offered by USC and it appears his loyalty to Washington, who showed interest early, won the day for the Huskies.

Look for Waller to move to linebacker at the next level.

Now, on to the prospective Trojans:

While the majority of recent offers have been made to prep players from the 2012 class, there has been one offer for this year's class and it belongs to a position of need for the Trojans.

Rated a three-star prospect by Scout.com, Ryan Nowicki, a 6'5", 280 lb. offensive tackle from Cactus High School in Arizona, has been showing steady improvement throughout the year.

In Scout's evaluation of him, Nowicki's strengths are listed as his toughness, explosion and a "nasty streak."

All good attributes for a tackle to have, eh?

Nowicki holds more than a dozen offers and he lists them all as "medium" in terms of his interest.

Looking to 2012, here are the latest Trojan offers:

Travelling all the way out to Pennsylvania, USC has targeted a very talented defensive end to come out west.

Noah Spence, rated a five-star prospect by Scout.com, is simply a beast on the edge.

At 6'4", 240 lbs. and as athletic as any junior defensive lineman in the country, Spence had eight sacks as a sophomore following a freshman season where he registered 9.5 sacks.

The Trojans join Penn State and Tennessee among others for Spence's services and he lists them all as medium interest-wise.

Finally, joining Spence as a 2012 prospective Trojan is Brian Kimbrow, a 5'8", 160 lb. corner back/running back from Tennessee.

Kimbrow, rated a three-star prospect by Scout.com, rushed for over 1,650 yards and scored 16 touchdowns this year.

The Trojans join Auburn and LSU among others for Kimbrow's services and he lists them all as medium on his dance card.

As both the college and high school football seasons draw to a close, look for the Trojans to finalize their final targets for the upcoming February signing day.

As they do, the question of available scholarships will loom large due to the reductions handed down by the NCAA as punishment for the Reggie Bush scandal.

In prior years, USC was one the few major colleges not to over-extend scholarship offers. Now it looks like they will have no choice as the uncertainty over the NCAA appeal to return scholarships probably won't be heard until after signing day.

Doesn't seem fair does it?

Let's hope that there won't be too many disappointed prep players who thought they were going to be Trojans.

Or Trojan coaches who thought they had found players who are now destined never to don the cardinal and gold.