Lua is an unexpected Trojan force

By J.A. Adande

Nov. 30, 2006 12 AM PT

You’re not supposed to find an underdog story at USC in this year’s Bruins-Trojans football rivalry.

You’re not supposed to find a team captain on the sidelines when the first unit takes the field.

You don’t find too many guys from Indio on top Division I football rosters.

The thing about Oscar Lua, the Trojans’ middle linebacker, is he keeps showing up where you don’t expect him.

He’s been through injuries, he’s had one future NFL All-Pro and another player with even more talent than that take over his position, and yet Lua always finds a way to the action, including some of the biggest plays of the season.

Don’t be surprised that USC maintained its prominent place in college football despite losing Heisman-holding offensive players. Not as long as the Trojans kept heart-and-soul defenders such as Lua, a fifth-year senior. If you want to win, you need players like him.

“He’s a real program guy, real grateful to be part of the Trojan family and all of that,” USC Coach Pete Carroll said. “He’s been through all of the hardships with the injuries and stuff and never lost his faith in his ability to play and come back and contribute.”

As a freshman, Lua missed out on the team’s Orange Bowl victory over Iowa because he sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament in practice before the game. He missed all but a few minutes of the next season when he re-injured the knee. When he came back, he had to spend the next two years behind Lofa Tatupu, who went on to become a Pro Bowl linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks last season.

With Tatupu gone, Lua finally got a chance to start last season. He led the team with 66 tackles, none more memorable than his fourth-down stop at Arizona State in the Trojans’ comeback victory.

How many times does a team-leading tackler come back for his senior season with his starting job up in the air? It happened to Lua.

Sophomore Rey Maualuga was ready. At 6 feet 3, 250 pounds, he’s two inches taller than Lua, five pounds heavier, and runs the 40-yard dash 0.2 of a second faster -- the difference between getting to a running back or watching him turn the corner. And Maualuga had a year’s worth of tips from Lua.

As Maualuga recalls it, their relationship started during summer workouts before his freshman season, when Lua yelled at him because he didn’t finish off a drill.

“As the days went by, during camp, Oscar was there for me,” Maualuga said. “He’d tell me as I was lining up, ‘Watch out for this, watch out for that.’

“He’d always be there to help me out. Watching film, he’d break things down for me. Even though we were going for the same position, he didn’t care. He was helping me out.”

Each lesson meant less playing time for Lua down the road. It’s like Bill Gates sharing ideas with Steve Jobs. Why would Lua put so much effort into teaching Maualuga?

“Because I want to win,” Lua said. “It’s that simple. If somebody can make a play that I can’t, I’m not going to fool myself and say, ‘I should be out there.’ ”

Although the coaches were reluctant to make Lua a starter this season, his teammates didn’t hesitate to make him a captain.

“It let me know how much my teammates respect me and how they think about me,” Lua said. “For them to vote me a captain, it kind of threw a curveball to the coaches.”

So Lua got the start in the season opener at Arkansas but suffered a pulled hamstring, had limited effectiveness and opened the door for Maualuga to take over.

Maualuga started eight of the next nine games, sitting out the first half at Oregon State after arriving late to a meeting.

Lua got the start last Saturday against Notre Dame, his last game at the Coliseum. The depth chart for the UCLA game lists both as potential starters. Maualuga has felt a little sick this week, to the point that he requested we move out of the shade and into the sunlight while we talked.

It’s a testament to Lua that the Trojans don’t fall off too dramatically when Maualuga, their most valuable defender, is off the field. Lua has two of the most important short-yardage tackles this season, against Oregon and California. He brings a different set of attributes to the Trojans’ defense than Maualuga.

“He’s really aggressive; I read the defense,” Lua said. “I’m a sure tackler. Rey’s been iffy on his tackling. That’s because he’s young, really aggressive, overruns a lot of plays.”

Said Carroll: “Everything counts. That’s why Oscar has played a lot and competed behind a guy who has all the tools that anybody could ever ask for, and he’s still held his own.”

Lua makes the most of the chances he gets. He got a scholarship offer from USC because as a senior at Indio High he caught the eye of longtime Trojans assistant coach Marv Goux, who had retired to the Palm Springs area. Goux told Carroll and former assistant Ed Orgeron about him.

After Lua got to campus, Orgeron, who left to become Mississippi’s head coach in 2005, made sure to tell him all about the legendary Goux.

“I just feel very thankful that a man of that caliber would think of me as being worthy of being a Trojan,” Lua said. “I was his last recruit before he passed on.”

Now Lua has arrived at his last regular-season game at USC. At this point, its hard to imagine him not being around.

J.A. Adande can be reached at [email protected]. To read more by Adande go to latimes.com/adandeblog.