Former Purdue and Taft HS QB Brandon Hance has been offered a scholarship to USC by Coach Pete Carroll and he told the LA Times he will accept, "USC is pretty much the school I had in mind all along and I'm excited. All I ask for is a fair opportunity. I have confidence in my ability and the rest comes down to competition."
Hance is a former All City performer at Taft who earned the starting job for the majority of his redshirt freshman season this past fall as a replacement to Drew Brees for Purdue. He completed 136 of 258 passes for 1,529 yard with 8 touchdowns and 10 picks but a combination of factors, led by homesickness, led to Hance requesting and receiving his transfer and taking a look at many west coast schools before selecting the Trojans.
It is unclear if Hance will enroll for the spring semester or wait until the fall with the opportunity to compete in Spring 2003 for the QB job which will be vacated by the graduating Carson Palmer. The decision to offer Hance puts another accurate short range passer in the mix with Matt Cassel, Matt Leinart and Billy Hart with overtures being made to Cassel recently to play part time at H back and it will also be interesting to see how the presence of another QB on the Trojan roster affects the mindset of top QB recruit Gavin Dickey from Lincoln HS in Tallahassee.