USC Trojans

LOS ANGELES -- One of the positions that has been hit hardest this spring by injuries has been the tight end spot. At one point, all four tight ends were sidelined with various injuries, but the last two practices have seen some positive movement.

Xavier Grimble returned to practice on Thursday and was able to take part in the Saturday scrimmage. Junior Pomee -- who has been out with the same foot injury that sidelined him for the 2011 season -- was also able to take part in a portion of the Saturday session before leaving when the foot got a little sore.

“I’m probably about 90 percent right now,” Pomee said after the Saturday scrimmage. “It felt good all week, so that’s why I tried to go today, but it started to ache a little so I told the coaches and they had me shut it down and put ice on it.”

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LOS ANGELES -- USC tailback Buck Allen remained on the Coliseum floor well after the conclusion of the Trojans 'Saturday scrimmage, providing answers to questions posed by the media. But of far more importance to Allen’s USC career was the fact that he was finally able to take the field and answer some questions for the USC coaches.

After arriving partway through fall camp last year, Allen served on the scout team throughout the season. This spring, the depleted tailback numbers were going to give Allen an opportunity to prove that he belonged in the rotation. But a hamstring injury early on forced him to the sideline, and Saturday became the first time Allen saw the field for any significant length of time. And while his first opportunity resulted in a muffed handoff, he bounced back with a 12-yard carry on his first successful attempt, and authored several impressive runs throughout the day.

“It felt good,” Allen said of his first extended work this spring. “I tried to go hard and give it my all, do what coach asked me to do…Today gave me confidence. Now I can go look at myself on film and work off of that.”

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Here was the depth chart that the Trojans used for Saturday's scrimmage at the Coliseum:

Offense
QB Matt Barkley – Cody Kessler – Max Wittek
TB Curtis McNeal – D.J. Morgan – Buck Allen

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Several top West Coast defensive backs earned invites to Nike's The Opening with their performance in last Sunday's Los Angeles Nike Football Training Camp. Friday, it was revealed that they will be joined by a familiar face on the opposite side of the ball, as ESPNU 150 Watch List tight end Marcus Baugh (Riverside, Calif./J.W. North) received an invitation to the event.

Baugh has collected nearly a dozen offers thus far, from schools such as Arizona State, Florida, Ohio State and UCLA. He attended a USC spring practice early this week and had an opportunity to speak with Lane Kiffin, Ed Orgeron and James Cregg afterward. Baugh said the Trojans coaches want him to be patient with the recruiting process, and that they are still interested in recruiting and evaluating him. Baugh added that he will attend USC's summer camp.

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LOS ANGELES -- Three weeks ago Tre Madden was earning rave reviews as a reserve linebacker for the Trojans. Today, the news that he will miss the 2012 season after tearing ligaments in his left knee is a blow to the running back position.

It’s amazing to think how quickly fortunes can turn for a team and a player. There were high expectations for Madden’s role on the defense heading into spring and he looked great during the opening week of practices. The coaches had a need at running back, however, and they saw something in Madden that made them think he would succeed in the switch.

You can’t say with any certainty that Madden would have been a major contributor for the Trojans in the fall -- after all we only saw him for seven practices at running back before he got hurt. But the potential was clearly there.

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LOS ANGELES -- The injury bug has been nipping at the USC Trojans all spring, as wide receivers and tight ends have missed time with nagging injuries. But during Thursday's practice, it took a big bite out of the Trojans running back depth, as tailback Tre Madden tore a ligament in his knee and will be out for the 2012 season.

It happened on a run where Madden was untouched and went to the ground after attempting to make a cut in the open field.

Through only a handful of practices in after making the transition from outside linebacker, Madden impressed with his combination of balance and forward lean, and looked like he would make a case to become the big back the Trojans could rely on this season. With Madden out of the lineup, the Trojans are again down to just three scholarship tailbacks, as redshirt senior Curtis McNeal will be relied on heavily to carry the load this year. Behind McNeal, redshirt sophomore D.J. Morgan and redshirt freshman Buck Allen will likely be asked to step up into bigger roles. Morgan has had a somewhat quiet but effective spring, while Allen has participated in very few practices while nursing a hamstring injury.

Madden will redshirt this season and look to return to the field as a redshirt sophomore in 2013.

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LOS ANGELES -- Maryland offensive line transfer Max Garcia (6-foot-4, 310 pounds) was on USC's campus yesterday and stopped by USC practice.

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Welcome to the inaugural WeAreSC mailbag. Erik McKinney will answer reader questions about USC recruiting in this space every Friday. Questions can be submitted to Erik here.

Aztrojinal (Culver City, Calif.): Curious from the recruits you've talked to, do most of the kids view the scholarship restrictions as a positive (playing time, honor of being chosen) or a negative (making it more difficult to compete for a NC and practice at full speed)?

From a recruiting standpoint, the only part of the sanctions that played any part in making it difficult was the bowl ban. (It is still somewhat baffling that this staff was able to keep the 2010 recruiting class together in the face of virtually a complete staff turnover as well as the bowl ban announcement.) Had USC finished last season with seven or eight losses, the scholarship reductions would have been a big hurdle for the USC coaches to overcome and a negative recruiting point for conference coaches. As it is, with a top-five finish and a shot at a national championship this season, the scholarship restrictions don’t come up much, except if a recruit is being told to be patient in waiting for an offer because the staff is forced to be a bit more selective these next two years.

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The USC Trojans received a big commitment Wednesday night from ESPNU 150 Watch List quarterback Max Browne (Sammamish, Calif./Skyline), and Lane Kiffin and staff weren't about to let that momentum stall. Thursday afternoon, the Trojans hosted ESPNU 150 Watch List tailback Justin Davis (Stockton, Calif./Lincoln).

The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Davis visited USC with his mother, father and brother. The same group visited USC in early February for the Trojans junior day, but Davis said this time around he had many more opportunities to tour the campus and meet with coaches and players.

"They did everything right on this trip," Davis said of USC. "Everything was just about perfect. They made me feel at home."

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Largely because of injuries to all four scholarship tight ends, USC's first Saturday spring ball scrimmage was called off and its second was fairly uninspiring from an offensive perspective. On Thursday the Trojans welcomed tight end Xavier Grimble back to the field. He was returning from a turf toe injury suffered during the first week of spring ball.

Grimble said he was not medically cleared to return to the field but was allowed to test his injury on the field to see how far he could push it.

"It still hurts, but I got tired of being away from my team," he said. "They go out and work hard every day. I'm hurting, but I made up my mind that once I could go out there, where I could at least run around and be with my guys, that's what I was going to do."

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When Sammamish (Wash.) Skyline quarterback Max Browne gave his verbal commitment to USC on Wednesday night he instantly became a trending topic on Twitter. Here’s a sampling of some of the tweets that were sent regarding Browne and his announcement:

@Drideaux22

@wearescstaff "What can (Max) Browne do for You!" Once again Kiffin proves why the Pac12 will have to run thru Troy.

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When the USC Trojans signed 12 players in February for the class of 2012 it meant that they would be able to bring in three players next spring as early enrollees to count against the 2012 class.

Those three scholarship spots are critical for a staff that will be able to offer only 15 scholarships for each of the next two classes as well, so it is important to make sure that every spot is utilized.

This week has proved to be a huge step in a positive direction in filling those spots as USC has received verbal commitments from QB Max Browne (Sammamish, Wash./Skyline) and CB Chris Hawkins (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Rancho Cucamonga). Not only are both of those players considered to be among the elite in the country at their positions, they both are working toward graduating high school early and enrolling at USC next spring.

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What do you think of the position switch of Tony Burnett?

Garry Paskwietz: It makes a lot of sense because the Trojans need a backup to Dion Bailey now that Tre Madden has moved to RB. Marquis Simmons has yet to show he can stay healthy. Burnett has really shown flashes this spring, after his return to safety, of being the player we saw with 10 tackles against Notre Dame in 2010. The move to corner didn’t work last season because he wasn’t good in coverage against top receivers, but he still has speed and he can still hit. As Bailey showed last season, if you have those two skills you can do well at SLB. Burnett was stuck behind a lot of other good safeties, so why not take a look at this? It just might work.

Erik McKinney: Moving Burnett to strongside linebacker seems to make a ton of sense. The whole reason he saw the field in the first place was because of his ability to make sure tackles. He won't be asked to cover as much of the field at outside linebacker, but when he is asked to cover it will be something he is used to doing. The size question is brought up whenever a player is moved from safety to linebacker, but how many times does it have to work before that becomes a non-issue? As Lane Kiffin has pointed out several times, not many teams are going to line up in power and try to take advantage of a size mismatch in the first two levels. It's far more important to be able to run sideline to sideline and make solid tackles when needed. Burnett can excel there.

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Wednesday night, quarterback Max Browne (Sammamish, Wash./Skyline) announced his commitment to the USC Trojans in a small ceremony at his high school. Browne said he didn't want to make too big a deal out of the ceremony, only inviting friends and family, but he also realized it was an important step in his life.

"I know that I'm going to play college football now," Browne said. "I can't wait to join the Trojan family."

It was an interesting recruiting process for Browne. It began just after his freshman year, but USC didn't enter the picture until Feb. 1, which meant the Trojans earned a commitment from the star quarterback with just more than two months of work.

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USC continued its recruiting roll Wednesday evening as ESPNU 150 Watch List quarterback Max Browne (Sammamish, Wash./Skyline) made a verbal commitment to coach Lane Kiffin and the Trojans.

After missing out on signing a quarterback in the class of 2012, the Trojans turned their full attention to Browne in this year’s class, as they offered a scholarship during his unofficial visit to campus in early February for USC’s junior day. Browne said the offer caught him off guard initially, as he was expecting the Trojans to wait until the spring evaluation period to determine whether or not they would offer.

Over the two months that followed, there were several big draws for Browne to USC, and many of them began with quarterback Matt Barkley.

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