Troy Story II

Paul McDonald saw it coming like a Michigan blitz in the 1979 Rose Bowl.

The signs for USC were just too obvious: a talented roster, an enthusiastic third-year coach, an untested left-handed quarterback, an early-season game in Alabama.

McDonald, the quarterback for USC’s last national championship team, pointed out the similarities between the 1978 Trojans and this year’s squad during a preseason speech before several thousand USC fans. He brought much of the crowd to its feet by all but predicting that USC would win its first national title in 25 years.

More than four months later, the Trojans are on the verge of doing just that.

“They still have to win one more game, but it’s almost eerie how this season and the 1978 season played out,” McDonald said recently. “I mean Michigan? In the Rose Bowl? For a share of the national title?”

Like this year’s team, which lost in triple overtime at California, Coach John Robinson’s 1978 Trojans suffered a stunning upset in an early Pacific 10 Conference game at Arizona State. The 1978 Trojans won the rest of their regular-season games and went to the Rose Bowl game against Michigan with an 11-1 record.

“That’s what’s so exciting about this,” Robinson said Tuesday as he stood along the sideline at USC’s final practice before Thursday’s game. “There are so many things that are similar to the setting we had in ’78.”

USC won a share of its eighth national championship when coaches who voted in the United Press International poll moved the third-ranked Trojans ahead of second-ranked Alabama after USC had defeated Michigan, 17-10, in the 1979 Rose Bowl. Alabama, which had lost to the Trojans in September, defeated top-ranked Penn State in the Sugar Bowl and was voted No. 1 in the Associated Press poll.

If top-ranked USC defeats Michigan on Thursday, the Trojans presumably will remain No. 1 in the AP poll and claim their ninth national title. The winner of the Sugar Bowl, designated as this year’s bowl championship series title game, is by contract supposed to finish atop the USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll.

Pat Howell, an All-American offensive lineman in 1978, said USC should be playing Oklahoma or Louisiana State in the Sugar Bowl. But a return to the Rose Bowl suits him and other former players just fine, especially because of the way the team is coached.

“John Robinson was a great motivator, just at Pete Carroll is today,” said Howell, who works as a financial planner and lives in Fresno. “Pete’s having fun, and the players are having fun. That’s the same thing we had. The tradition is definitely back.”

Several players from the 1978 team said this year’s multifaceted offense was superior to the offense of 25 years ago.

That might be true, but the 1978 team included some of the most accomplished players in USC history, including two future Heisman Trophy winners in junior tailback Charles White, who rushed for 1,859 yards during an All-American season, and freshman Marcus Allen. Fullback Lynn Cain rushed for nearly 1,000 yards, and wide receiver Kevin Williams converted 10 of his 17 receptions into touchdowns.

Howell led an offensive line that also included tackle Anthony Munoz and guard Brad Budde, the 1979 Lombardi Award winner. Future all-pros Keith Van Horne and Roy Foster were reserves.

Ronnie Lott and Dennis Smith patrolled the secondary as safeties while linebackers such as Dennis Johnson, Larry McGrew, Chip Banks and Riki Gray -- later known as Riki Ellison -- backed a defensive line that included Rich Dimler, Myron Lapka and Dennis Edwards.

“The chemistry inside that team was real special,” said Ellison, who lives in Washington D.C., but has attended every USC road game this season. “This year’s team has that same confidence and aura. You can see it and you can sense it, even from afar.”

USC began the 1978 season ranked ninth, but the Trojans got off to an inauspicious start in their opener against Texas Tech at the Coliseum.

“We got booed off the field at halftime,” recalled McDonald, who was starting for the first time. “Talk about a wake-up call.”

The Trojans came back to win, 17-9, then beat Oregon on the road, 37-10.

“I think I threw eight passes in that game,” said McDonald, whose son, Michael, is a walk-on quarterback for the Trojans. “That is the difference between 1978 and 2002. We had Student Body Right, Student Body Left, a couple of other running plays, and that was the offense.”

The seventh-ranked Trojans then traveled to Birmingham, Ala., to play top-ranked Alabama. White rushed for 199 yards in 29 carries as the Trojans beat the Crimson Tide, 24-14.

“The Alabama game was really the point where we had our sights set on a national championship,” Howell said.

USC rose to No. 3 after the victory over Alabama and moved up to No. 2 after dispatching Michigan State at the Coliseum, 30-9.

Then came the 20-7 beating by Arizona State, which was playing in the Pac-10 for the first time. The Sun Devils wasted no time making an impression against a Trojan team that fumbled several times.

“Our starting center was injured and so was our backup,” McDonald recalled. “I was on the sidelines, basically taking names of anyone who had ever snapped the football.”

The Trojans, who dropped to seventh in the AP poll, rebounded from the defeat by finishing Pac-10 play with victories over Oregon State, Cal, Stanford, Washington and UCLA.

Frank Jordan’s 37-yard field goal with two seconds left gave the third-ranked Trojans a 27-25 victory over defending national champion Notre Dame, and USC finished the regular season with a victory over Hawaii at Honolulu.

That set the stage for the Rose Bowl against a Michigan team led by quarterback Rick Leach.

“Alabama had played Penn State [in the Sugar Bowl] before we played our game, so we were aware of what was at stake,” said Budde, now a physical therapist in San Clemente. “That gave us our opportunity.”

Before the game, McDonald said, he noticed Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler and an assistant standing with their arms crossed, watching him warm up.

Once the game began, he found out why.

“They came with an unbelievable blitz package,” McDonald said. “I was spitting blood in the third quarter. It’s the only time I ever uttered the words, ‘Let’s just run the ball.’ ”

White did most of the work, rushing for 99 yards and scoring what proved to be the decisive touchdown on a controversial three-yard dive. White dropped the ball while he was in the air, but officials ruled that he had crossed the goal line.

“I got off the field real fast, because I thought the official was going to change his mind,” McDonald said.

USC won a narrow vote in the UPI poll to claim a share of the national title, its fourth in 12 years.

Twenty-five years later ...

“All they need to do is win one more game,” McDonald said.