University Southern California Trojans
It's Football Time!
April 08, 2000 | Football
April 8, 2000
LOS ANGELES -- USC junior tailback Malaefou MacKenzie had a 71-yard scoring run and sophomore quarterback Carson Palmer threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to soph wide receiver Marcell Allmond to lead the Cardinal team to a 14-10 victory over the White team in a 102-play intrasquad football scrimmage on Saturday (April 8) before 4,000 fans at the Coliseum.
The Cardinals held a 14-0 lead before the Whites rallied behind a 4-yard TD pass from senior quarterback Mike Van Raaphorst to sophomore wide receiver Steve Stevenson and a 37-yard field goal by junior placekicker David Newbury.
Palmer, who broke his collarbone in USC's third game last year and was sidelined for the rest of the 1999 season, completed 14-of-21 passes for 155 yards. Van Raaphorst, a 5-game starter last fall, was 11-of-22 for 95 yards with an interception.
MacKenzie had 87 rushing yards on 10 carries, while soph tailback Sultan McCullough--who is battling MacKenzie for the starting job--ran for 26 yards on 8 carries. Soph tailback Miguel Fletcher added 33 yards on 11 tries and walkon junior tailback Mark Gomez had 41 yards on 12 attempts.
Stevenson caught 5 passes for 48 yards, while Allmond had 4 grabs for 93 yards and walkon senior wide receiver Matt Nickels had 3 receptions for 24 yards.
Defensively, senior safety Ifeanyi Ohalete had 13 tackles and soph defensive tackle Bernard Riley had 7 stops, while senior linebacker Zeke Moreno, junior cornerback Chris Cash, junior defensive end Lonnie Ford and senior defensive end Sultan Abdul-Malik had 6 tackles each (3 of Ford's stops were sacks). Sophomore cornerback Darrell Rideaux had an interception.
Newbury missed 3 field goals (a pair of 42-yarders and a 37-yarder which was blocked by Rideaux), while senior David Bell missed a 31-yarder. There were 8 penalties, but only 1 in the second half.
"I'm pleased," said third-year USC head coach Paul Hackett. "We're started back on the right track. Our defense looked fast and there was some good coverage in the secondary. The offense was sloppy early on, but then got a rhythm going and put together some nice drives. But I was disappointed in our kicking, we have a long way to go there."
USC concludes spring practice on April 15 before opening its 2000 season on Aug. 27 against Penn State in the Kickoff Classic in East Rutherford, N.J.
"Everybody wants to play Penn State tomorrow," said Palmer. "But we need some work. It felt good to be out there today. But it will take a while before I get back to the form of last year. I need to get my timing back. I missed some easy passes today."
SCORING
CARDINAL--MacKenzie 71 run (Bell kick)
CARDINAL--Allmond 17 pass from Palmer (Bell kick)
WHITE--Stevenson 4 pass from Van Raaphorst (Newbury kick)
WHITE--Newbury 37 field goal
