USC QB Mark Sanchez cleared

This via The Irish Trojan: USC quarterback Mark Sanchez cleared on charges of sexual assault.

Two thoughts.

1. As I wrote over there, this is the first piece of good news for Tailback U since going up by twelve with seven minutes remaining.

2. There is no way to minimize the importance of USC's return to gridiron glory to the Trojan faithful. I entered as a freshman in 1983, intent on becoming the next Francis Coppola. Then I drifted over to the English department. I had grown up rooting against USC (my teams were Arizona State and Notre Dame), and USC football was something I could take or leave.

Then, my sophomore year, a USC team of astonishing mediocrity (at least offensively) won the Rose Bowl, and I was hooked. It mattered not that our quarterback was the third best on his own team (Sean Salisbury hurt himself against ASU; Rodney Peete was red-shirted, so we were left with Tim Green); or that our tailback, Four-Yard Freddie Crutcher, inspired a Sports Illustrated writer to term him "more Oh, no than O.J." With a defensive unit led by linebackers Jack Del Rio and Duane Bickett, the '84 Trojans specialized in holding down the score until Crutcher somehow, some way found the end zone. I watched USC defeat Ohio State 20-17 in the Rose Bowl on television and regretted to this day not going (tickets being easier to obtain in those days).

Thereafter, for the next 18 years, I lived and died with every Saturday--mostly died. Except for sporadic Rose Bowl victories ('90, '96) and a few other inspired seasons (I was on hand for the 55-14 defeat of Texas Tech in the '95 Cotton Bowl: simply as beautiful day), what I saw was worse than bad. If the Larry Smith teams were just one step shy of greatness, the post-Keyshawn John Robinson/Paul Hackett teams were worse than bad; they were punk-ass. They were an embarrassment to the school.

Thus, imagine my reaction when Pete Carroll and Norm Chow arrived, when Carson Palmer discovered health and began going bombs-away in 2002. The reward for devotion to a college team is a two-three year span, every few decades, when a recruiting class and coaching staff all mature at exactly the right time. So: starting with the fifth game in 2002 through the heartbreaking loss to Texas in the Rose Bowl: 47-1.

The downside is, after the run is over, the squad goes through a kind of flushing-out that exposes everything we were supposed to know, but didn't Miami absorbed that kind of public drubbing, as did Colorado, Nebraska and Ohio State.

Now, it would appear, it is USC's turn in the barrel. Leinart/Jarrett's living arrangements, Sanchez's problems, and Reggie Bush, Reggie Bush. Let us hope that today is the harbinger of better times to come.