Fighton247 Board

My post about Carson was meant to correct a statement that he was the #1 rated HS prep QB his senior year. In fact, Carson was not even close to being #1. From my recollection, after his junior year and the pre-season rankings going into his senior year, Carson was ranked about 16th to 18th? I remember reading that Carson was hardly known outside of California. His little known notoriety quickly disappeared. Carson had a great senior year and climbed to about the 9th rated QB?

As far as Jason Thomas, he was not over rated. Throughout HS, all 4 years, he dominated with crazy stats. Thomas was a great athlete, one of the best to come out of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Thomas was not schooled as a pro style QB coming out HS. Jason was more of a dual threat type QB. I think if he went to a team that utilized his talents, he would have done well. A big problem with Thomas, he was lazy and did not put in the necessary work at USC. Another big problem, he did not have the QB IQ to run a very sophisticated, pro style offense Coach Hackett ran. You have to admit even Carson had a difficult time with Hackett’s play book and offense. If Hackett had continued as the coach, Carson would have been only an average collegiate QB. Coach Chow’s offense and coaching, plus Coach Carroll style made Carson into an All American and Heisman QB.

I know Carson had a great senior year, your impressive graphics/info proved that. That’s why Palmer jumped and climbed in the rankings after having a great senior year. My post was to correct your statement that Carson was the #1 rated HS prep QB. I think Carson was ranked somewhere around 9th in the final rankings? Jason Thomas, the 2nd QB USC landed that year had a much higher ranking than Carson; I believe Thomas was the 5th rated QB. I was not attacking you Scott, for the readers sake wanted to clarify Carson’s HS rankings. Keep up with the great work.

I'm sorry, however, he was overrated. And I was a huge Thomas fan. I know all about his presence on the court and on the field when he was at Dominguez. His ranking was based more on his physical abilities than anything else. When he transferred to UNLV they tried to utilize his "skill set" with minimal improvement.

Carson's problem with Hackett was 2-fold:
1) Hackett's phonebook/playbook (Carson is not what anyone would consider a Mensa member)
2) Hackett was drunk during his time at USC.

When Carson entered the game as a Frosh, you could see the potential. Had he not cracked his collarbone in Eugene, he may very well have continued his natural progression. It also helped that SC finally developed a ground game in Carson's Sr. season...something that had been lacking for quite some time.