Updates from July 27th, 2007

The Oakland Raiders on Wednesday cut their 2006 4th round draft pick safety Darnell Bing because there was an excess of safties on the roster after Oakland signed three free agents. Yesterday, the San Francisco 49ers claimed Bing off waivers, and the hard hitting Trojan alum will compete for the Niners 4th safety spot when San Francisco’s camp […]

Highly-touted freshman Trojan tailback Joe McKnight is profiled in a USCFootball.com practice report today. The running back told that site’s Zack Lehatto that working out with conditioning coach Chris Carlisle has put him in the best shape of his life, and he has set his 2007 season goals accordingly:
“I’m expecting to reach my goals,” he […]

In its exhaustive 50 teams in 50 days survey of the best teams in college football, Rivals.com (a Yahoo property) selected USC as the nation’s #1 team. Most interestingly, Olin Buchanan of Rivals singles out players as best, underrated, and overrated on their respective units. (Offense: Best: Booty, Overrated: Byers, Underrated: Havili / Defense: Best: […]

The Carolina Panthers today signed their second-round pick, Trojan WR Dwayne Jarrett, to a 4-year deal worth a total of $3.825 million, $1.935 million of which is guaranteed. The Panther rook, who will be in training camp for the start of practices Saturday, is also eligible for a $225,000 workout bonus.
Center Ryan Kalil, another second-round pick of the Panthers from the Trojans, also reportedly […]

Jeff Miller of the Orange County register reports that at least one Pac-10 player, Cal’s elite junior WR DeSean Jackson, heard enough best-team-in-the-country talk in reference to USC at the Pac-10 media day:
I don’t know about all the talk… I mean, they lost all their receivers. They’re a great team, a great program. But separating them […]

ESPN has put together a committee of 15 writers to rank all 119 Division I football programs over the last 10 seasons, and USC has come out on top. With a record of 90-35, .720 winning percentage, 2 national titles, 5 conference titles, and a 4-3 bowl record, USC beat out #2 Ohio State, # […]

Scott Wolf of the LA Daily News is reporting that sophomore Allen Bradford, who jumped around from tailback, safety, and fullback in 2006 to fill team needs wants to stick to his preferred position of tailback in 2007:
One thing I regret from last year was the way I kept moving around…I want to stay at tailback…I want to […]

The Los Angeles Times’ Chris Dufresne cites respected college football analyst Phil Steele who recently put forth that the eight toughest 2007 schedules are those of Pac-10 teams, and the 6 toughest 2006 schedules were those of Pac-10 squads Stanford, USC, Washington, Arizona, UCLA and Oregon (with the SEC checking in with Tennessee 7th and LSU at 50th).  But according […]

A one-way dialogue that seemed to be confined to west coast media sources has gone national. Pete Thamel reports in the New York Times that new Stanford Coach Jim Harbaugh continues to offer his opinion of Pete Carroll and this year’s USC team: “They may be the best team in the history of college football.” Thamel references […]