After the fall, it’s a subdued era at USC

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

The admission form for Southern California football practice is a page long. People wishing to stand on the sidelines while the Trojans work out must fill in their driver’s license number, age, phone number, e-mail address and name of employer.

They also must assent to six declarations, including: “You agree not to arrange, provide or promise to provide any benefits to any current USC student-athlete [or their relatives or friends] from yourself or on behalf of anyone else,” and “You certify that you are not an agent [e.g., sports agent, marketing agent or financial advisor to athletes] or any such agent’s employee, representative or affiliate [including ‘runners’].”

If the applicants pass this test, they can stand where actor Will Ferrell, thousands of casual fans and maybe even a few unscrupulous characters stood for much of the past decade. So far during the Trojans’ first training camp after severe NCAA sanctions, the sidelines have been mostly empty and silent.

“I don’t really notice it,” center Kristofer O’Dowd said. “It’s just one of the things we need to deal with in these sanctions. We’ll handle it, no problem. We’re handling everything they throw at us.”

This is USC football for a new age — more cautious, less boisterous, yet still determined to be the best on the West Coast.

The Trojans can’t do things the way former coach Pete Carroll did, but the men in charge of the rebuilding project still believe there’s something special in the program that has produced seven Heisman Trophy winners — including the Heisman bearing Reggie Bush’s name that was returned last month.

“I do not imagine SC fans ever lowering expectations,” coach Lane Kiffin said. “I would be shocked, and I hope they don’t. We didn’t come here for that.”

Kiffin’s practices at USC’s downtown campus sometimes bear little resemblance to the freewheeling affairs run by Carroll on the way to seven Pac-10 titles and two national championships over the past decade.

The team that gathered for its first workouts of training camp earlier this month was smaller than any team in recent memory, thanks to transfers brought about by the sanctions.

The Trojans already know they won’t finish their season in a bowl game: USC is serving a two-year bowl ban, four years of probation and several additional restrictions. While a few players left the school, the majority of USC’s top talents stayed, determined to realize the dream Carroll sold.

“I do get a sense from the players that they have an us-against-the-world mentality, that everybody is counting them out,” Kiffin said.