You want to believe Reggie Bush when he says he hasn’t decided whether he’ll turn pro after the season.
Just like you want to believe you won’t need to use your snow shovel again this winter.
“I was just talking about how the media has kind of made the decision for me, not given me the option,” the USC tailback said Sunday, three days before the Trojans will face Texas for the national championship in the Rose Bowl. “They’ve sort of told me I’m going pro. It’s fine. Like I said all year, I won’t make my decision until after this season.”
Sounds noble until you consider what Bush, the Heisman Trophy winner with the video-game jukes, said seconds later: “The fact that I could be the No. 1 draft pick will obviously be a dream come true.”
And this: Bush, who grew up near San Diego, said his favorite team growing up just happened to be the San Francisco 49ers, who blew their chance for the top pick by losing to Houston on Sunday.
“That’s when they had Jerry Rice and Steve Young,” Bush said. “I used to love watching them. But that doesn’t mean that’s where I want to play next year.”
Kent Baer wouldn’t mind seeing Bush play for either NFL team next season. That would make Baer’s life a little easier come Nov. 4–the date of the next USC-Washington game.
Baer, the defensive coordinator who went with Tyrone Willingham from Notre Dame to Washington, devised the game plan that held Bush and the Trojans well under their season averages during their Oct. 22 meeting this season.
You wouldn’t know it from the result, a 51-24 USC victory, but the Huskies limited Bush to a season-low 51 yards on eight carries and held the Trojans to 390 total yards, nearly 200 below their customary figure.
“You look at that offense and it can overwhelm you,” Baer said in a telephone interview. “[Quarterback Matt] Leinart’s a great player, Bush is a great player, [tailback LenDale] White is a great player and the fullback and tight ends can catch the football. Where do you go? What do you do?
“You’ve got to decide what you’re going to take away. We decided to load up the box and take away the run.”
That eight-men-near-the-line strategy did enable Leinart to fire four touchdown passes, but his 201 passing yards were two shy of his season low.
Baer’s bottom line? “You don’t want Reggie to touch the football,” he said.
If only Washington punter Sean Douglas had followed that plan. Bush fielded a Douglas punt at the 16-yard line, ran into a crowd, spun out, found the right sideline and used his 4.25 speed (hello, Deion Sanders) to fly into the end zone.
“We said, `We’re not going to kick to him,'” Baer recalled. “We’re dumb, and we did.”
Why did you?
“I don’t know,” Baer replied. “I wanted to ask the punter the same question.”
Texas co-defensive coordinator Gene Chizik was asked repeatedly last week whether the Longhorns would assign a “spy” to try to shadow Bush.
Short answer: No. “We’ve got to have 11 guys spying this guy,” Chizik said. “He’s that good.”
So good that he averaged 8.9 yards per carry this season. So good that the average distance of his 18 touchdowns was 31.4 yards. So good that Texas coach Mack Brown said of him:
“When I worked for coach [Barry] Switzer at Oklahoma and when we were watching film, he would say there’s a three-play guy and a five-play guy. If I watch a guy for five plays and I don’t see whether he’s good enough, turn it off. Reggie is a one-play guy.”
That was all Baer needed to see when he visited Helix High School while recruiting Bush for Notre Dame. After watching Bush’s highlight tape, Baer called Willingham to tell him, “This is maybe the best high school player I’ve ever seen.”
Baer and Willingham eventually got a home visit, but Bush opted to help revive a USC program that had not won a national championship since 1978.
Now the Trojans are on the verge of winning their third straight, and Bush is on the cusp of becoming the most sought-after college football player in years, maybe decades.
Baer considers himself a true competitor, and a true competitor wants to play against the best, he said.
But there’s no mistaking what Baer told Bush when they met at midfield after the Washington-USC game: “I shook his hand, gave him a hug, told him he’s a great player and said, `Man, I hope I don’t have to coach against you anymore.'”
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tgreenstein@tribune.com
