Sacramento Bee: Champion Trojans of 1972 might stand above 2005 team

By Joe Davidson -- Bee Staff Writer

Every week, Wayne Fontes eases onto the recliner in his Tampa Bay, Fla.,-area home and becomes a football coach again. He plots, he schemes, he studies top-ranked USC, winner of 42 of its past 43 and 31 consecutive games.

Fontes is the one-time USC defensive coordinator and Detroit Lions coach who talks of peering outside his ocean-view windows to spot a dolphin and "perfection" - and then watching a pretty good version of it on his flat screen when the Trojans play. Yet Fontes wonders freely if the current Trojans edition is even the greatest lineup in school history, much less all of college football, as some might suggest. Fontes was a coach on the 1972 Trojans national championship team that devoured all comers with a balanced offense and a defense that battered and bruised foes. That 12-0 group is still regarded by some, including longtime broadcaster Keith Jackson, as the best college team ever. And USC '72 comes up all roses (BCS roses, that is) by computer wizards who crunch data from different decades, feed it into the hard drive and come up with an all-time champion.

Not that Fontes feels a bit for every coordinator stuck with the task of slowing down the 2005 USC team, which perhaps might be the greatest offensive powerhouse of them all.  "I watch those guys now, and it's, My God!" Fontes said this week. "How do you stop that? What do you do with Reggie Bush? Who do you double-team? Can you get to Matt Leinart? It's like playing chess against all those pieces. To beat them, you need more queens on the board." Or, Fontes suggests, the '72 Trojans, with the help of some sort of cosmic time warp. Yes, he concedes linebackers today are as big as the linemen of previous eras. But skill players of USC '72 would fit in any era, he said. And his defenders would stand up to any task, any era, any team. "It's hard to compare, but our defense in '72 would handle anyone," Fontes said. "We'd match USC now. That's the difference between the teams, our defense was better. But it's hard not to love this USC team."

One argument against USC now for all-time status is how it surrenders yards and points when other great outfits refused to. USC has yielded 20 or more points five times and 30 once this season. Notre Dame managed 28 first downs, unheard of numbers for USC '72. But USC defeated Notre Dame with a furious, classic final drive to polish that legacy. So the argument sways. "I've always considered that 1972 USC team the best team I've ever seen," Jackson said in a recent teleconference. "I've said that for a long time, and I've seen them all." But, Jackson added, USC today has "the best offense I've ever seen. Can't stop 'em." Here's why. They have a veteran quarterback, Leinart, who won the Heisman Trophy last season and spurned NFL riches to come back and try for a piece of history as the leader of the first team to claim three successive national championships. And he's not even the best player in the backfield. That designation belongs to tailback Bush, a do-all talent who electrifies on every rush, reception and kick return. Leinart and Bush could go 1-2 in the NFL draft, pick your order. And there's a fleet of receivers and an offensive line that looks NFL-ready across the board.

The Trojans are averaging nearly 600 yards of offense. Houston is the all-time NCAA leader in that category with 624.9 in 1989, but against a much easier schedule. USC is scoring nearly 50 points an outing and is well on its way to finishing with more than 7,800 yards of offense, which would obliterate Texas Tech's mark of 7,576 in 2003. If their 7.8 yards per play continues, the Trojans will threaten Army's NCAA mark of 7.9 in 1945. USC likely will become the first team to have a 3,000-yard passer, two 1,000-yard backs (Bush and LenDale White) and two 1,000-yard receivers (Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith). The USC punters are the most bored guys in crimson this fall. And to think USC's biggest concern entering fall camp was how much it would miss offensive coordinator Norm Chow, now losing most of his games in the NFL as a coordinator with the Tennessee Titans. "I hesitate to ever put a label on best ever," Washington coach Tyrone Willingham said. "In this generation, in this time span, and for the type of football (USC is) playing, there's no question that right now, they are dominating the landscape. ... They're on their way to real greatness." Said Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, whose ranked team allowed 45 points to USC: "They're obviously one of the best. They're right up there, so dangerous at every position." So was USC in '72. That team was loaded on offense with runners Sam Cunningham and Anthony Davis, quarterbacks Mike Rae and Pat Haden. It had tight end Charles Young and a defense headed by linebacker Richard Wood and All-America safety Artimus "T" Parker, the Sacramento High School product. But it's USC's time now, today, with Cal looming Saturday in Berkeley, site of the last USC loss (in 2003). Fontes has met USC coach Pete Carroll and said he is a "perfect fit" for that program. "He'd be crazy to leave there now, and he's ideal for USC and the NCAA," Fontes said. "He's the king. Why should the king ever step down?"

Best of all time

USC this season is considered one of the greatest single-season teams of all time. Here's a look at five others:

1. USC 1972 (12-0): Old Trojans and old-timers such as Keith Jackson of ABC rate this group as the all-time No. 1 team, with Sam "Bam" Cunningham, Anthony Davis, Lynn Swann, Artimus Parker and a 42-17 rout of No. 3 Ohio State in the Rose Bowl to become the first team to finish unanimously No. 1 in both the AP and UPI polls.

2. Nebraska 1995 (12-0): Mighty Big Red could score and defend, with the smallest margin of victory against top-ranked foes 23 points. Tommie Frazier, Ahman Green and Lawrence Phillips made for a devastating offensive trio, and a 62-24 Fiesta Bowl crushing of No. 2 Florida to claim the national title made a lot of believers.

3. Notre Dame 1947 (9-0): ESPN's Beano Cook calls this squad the greatest of them all, one that produced 41 pro football players and ran teams into mush with three of the top 100 players ever, according to College Football News: linemen Leon Hart and George Connor and quarterback Johnny Lujack, the Heisman Trophy winner.

4. Nebraska 1971 (13-0): With tailback great Johnny Rodgers leading the charge, the Cornhuskers scored nearly 40 a game and allowed 8.2, and they downed No. 2 Oklahoma 35-31 in the "Game of the Century."

5. Oklahoma 1956 (10-0): Bud Wilkinson's team, in the midst of a 47-game winning streak, averaged 47 points and had six shutouts. Running back Tommy McDonald was third in the Heisman voting, and lineman Jerry Tubbs was fourth.