LOS ANGELES — Tight end Blake Ayles catches the pass, is immediately skewered and ends up on the ground, three defenders rolling atop him.

Tailback Marc Tyler receives the handoff but, before completing his first stride, is nearly impaled by defensive end Jurrell Casey.
Tight end Anthony McCoy waits, waits and waits for the lofted pass to arrive, grabs the ball, turns and is all but separated from his skin by safety Josh Pinkard, the hit coming straight out of mid-October.
Now, imagine how hard the USC Trojans are going to be on one another on Wednesday, when they finally dress in full pads for the first time.
They aren’t real big on training wheels around here. When you’ve won at least 11 games in seven consecutive seasons, you apparently don’t ease back into the physical side of football.
At USC, you instead greet the fall head-on and head lowered, even if it’s still summer, even if San Jose State is almost a month away and even if everyone’s wearing shorts.
“This is real football,” offensive lineman Jeff Byers says. “It’s either hit or get hit. There’s hitting going on whether we’re in all pads, no pads, whatever. That’s all we do. That’s what makes this place special.”
The NCAA mandates that teams conduct four “acclimation” practices before going with the complete body armor. The Trojans spent two days in helmets and two more in helmets and shoulder pads.
The USC coaches, however, urge the players to “re-acclimate” themselves to hitting from the first hamstring stretch of fall camp.
This is done at other places, too, but it just seems to be done at a greater volume and with greater volume around here.
“You watched it; it looked like we were playing football,” Coach Pete Carroll says after one of the helmets/shoulder pads workouts. “We practice full speed when we’re not in pads, too. We try to create a game-like environment in everything we do.”
That explains the officiating crew, each member in full referee uniform, and the scoreboard operating at one end of the USC practice facility.
That also explains why quarterback Aaron Corp just limped off the field, the Trojans’ projected starter absorbing the kind of lower-body hit college quarterbacks face every Saturday.
Then there’s the post-practice media session with Carroll, during which a genuine quarterback controversy simmers. Witnesses note to the coach how well celebrated freshman Matt Barkley performs while Corp is out.
It is all very game-like and very October-like and also very Trojan-like. Around here this August, even the quarterback spot is a knot of competition, just the way Carroll likes it.
“We go, man,” defensive tackle Averell Spicer says. “When we go on the field, we go all out. That’s the only thing I’ve known to be true at USC.”
These gatherings are, well, rather spirited. It is not unusual for Trojan practices to end the way this one does, with half the team — in this case, the offense — bobbing up and down and chanting at the defensive players who were just bested in a drill.
And the full-tilt, no-kilts approach demanded by Carroll is spreading. One of his former assistants, Lane Kiffin, is now the head coach at Tennessee, where they spent much of their first day in full pads Saturday scrimmaging.
Kiffin went even farther. He took his team through its game-day routine — meetings in the morning, followed by a walkthrough and a rest period before dressing in the locker room and taking the field at Neyland Stadium.
It hasn’t always been this way and it still isn’t this way at some places. Under John McKay, USC often didn’t suit up in pads, even during the season. This includes teams that won national championships.
BYU has been known to go without armor, the Cougars even simulating blocking contact by rolling barrels into each other. If this sounds silly, the practice was standard during the 2008 season, when
BYU won 10 games, including a 59-0 victory over UCLA.
Those Bruins refused to comment for this story. OK, we didn’t actually attempt to talk to any of them, not wanting to suggest they were embarrassed by a team that trained the same way rodeo clowns do.
A similar approach won’t be coming soon to USC, where wide receiver Jordan Cameron leaps to catch a touchdown pass from Barkley and returns to Earth in time to get drilled.
“It’s been four months since spring ball,” offensive lineman Kristofer O’Dowd says. “We’re all just anxious. This is what we love to do. We love to come out here and put a lick on somebody.”
And the licks start from Day One, the Trojans fully committed to playing football even when they’re only half-dressed for the game.