Football: Trojan Horses

Any college coach whose team has to play Texas, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Washington and U.C.L.A. in one season had better have a sense of humor. Southern California’s John McKay, 44, is quick with a quip. Ask McKay whether he thinks emotion is important in football, and he says: “My wife is emotional, but she’s a very poor football player.” Compliment John on the fact that his Trojans are the No. 1-ranked team in the U.S., and he shrugs:

“We always have a good team. We should have. We have excellent coaching.” Ask him the reason for six straight victories—over Washington State (49-0), Texas (17-13), Michigan State (21-17), Stanford (30-0), Notre Dame (24-7) and Washington (23-6)—and he drawls: “Well, when I looked over our 1967 schedule last year, I told my scouts to find me a man who stood six-feet-one, weighed 205 lbs. and could run the 100-yd. dash in 9.4 sec.”

The Most. That description fits a San Francisco dockworker’s son named O. (for Orenthal) J. (for James) Simpson, 20, whose rookie year on the Southern Cal varsity may turn out to be the most spectacular season any major-college running back ever had. In his first six games, Halfback Simpson has carried the ball 180 times for 987 yds., is well within reach of the alltime season records for most carries (296) and most yards gained (1,570). O.J. also catches passes—eight so far, for 114 yards—and even throws them occasionally: in five attempts he has three completions, all for touchdowns. Touchdowns? He has scored up nine. Against Washington last week, he ran 86 yds. for one TD, 10 yds. for another, and passed 17 yds. for a third.

Not that Simpson is the only horse in the Trojan camp. He may be the fastest—last June, O.J. ran the third leg on Southern Cal’s sprint relay team that set a world record of 38.6 sec. for 440 yds. But Flanker Jim Lawrence runs the 100 in 9.6 sec. End Earl McCullouch is a co-holder of the world rec ord (13.2 sec.) for the 110-meter-high hurdles. And Fullback Mike Hull, at 230 Ibs. the heavyweight of the U.S.C. backfield, has been clocked at 5.6 sec. for 50 yds. in full football gear.

The Bulwark. All that speed leads Notre Dame’s Coach Ara Parseghian to call U.S.C. “undoubtedly the fastest college team I have ever seen.” And certainly one of the most complete. There is All-America Tackle Ron Yary, the 6-ft. 6-in., 245-lb. bruiser who bulwarks the offensive line, and Linebacker Adrian Young, who intercepted four Notre Dame passes. And there is Quarterback Steve Sogge, a top pro baseball prospect (he batted 400 for the U.S. team that won at last summer’s Pan American Games), who could also fling a football 60 yds.—if he got the chance.

One day he may. For now, Coach McKay favors a more conservative approach—like giving the ball to O.J. Simpson 30-odd times a game. At 5.4 yds. a crack, why not? Besides, says McKay, “O.J. doesn’t belong to any union. He can carry the ball as many times as we want him to.”