Former PARADE High School Player of the Year winner Mitch Mustain was arrested on Tuesday for selling prescription drugs. Kind of ironic that this news broke on National Signing Day.

From Arkansas Sports 360:

Sportscaster Roger Lodge of KLAA-AM 830 in Los Angeles is reporting today that former University of Southern California quarterback Mitch Mustain was arrested by Los Angeles police Tuesday evening on charges of selling prescription drugs online.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department website confirms that a white male named Mitchell Mustain fitting the quarterback’s physical description and having the same birthday was booked at 10:44 p.m. PST on Tuesday. Charges for the arrest are not listed on the site. Bail was set at $30,000. It is not known at this time if Mustain is still being held.

What a shame. Mustain was the starting quarterback for the West team in the 2006 U.S. Army All-American Bowl and was named the 2005-06 Gatorade National Player of the Year and the USA Today National Player of the Year, which was awarded to the first player ever from the state of Arkansas. He went 8-0 as a true freshman at the University of Arkansas in 2006, but he later transferred to USC because Casey Dick eventually replaced him as a starter.

But his situation didn’t improve at USC. Due to NCAA transfer rules, he had to sit out the 2007 season and then watched Mark Sanchez play in ’08. He competed with Aaron Corp and Matt Barkley for the starting job in ’09, but he lost out to Barkley. He even tried out at punter in order to contribute to the team in some way.

Now, with his football career likely over, he becomes the second former USC player to be arrested in the last two days. The good news is that he wasn’t tased like former Trojan and current Viking Everson Griffen was on Monday. Yiiiiikes.

To use a tried, true and albeit, tired phrase, there are three things we can count on in life: Death, taxes and Pete Carroll’s USC Trojans will be knocked off by an inferior opponent at some point during the season.

In 2006, the Oregon State Beavers were the unranked team to knock off USC. In 2007, it was Jim Harbaugh’s Stanford Tree Logos. Last year, it was Oregon State again who provided the upset and on Saturday, it was Steve Sarkisian’s Washington Huskies (a team that didn’t win a game last year, mind you) that shocked the college football world by beating USC 16-13 in Seattle.

For the second year in a row, USC beat Ohio State and then lost to its very next opponent. The Trojans jumped out to a 10-0 lead against the Huskies, but Washington answered with 10 of their own before halftime before eventually pulling the upset off thanks to Erik Folk’s game-winning 22-yard field goal with only three seconds remaining.

The Trojans were playing without starting freshman quarterback Matt Barkley, who sat out the entire week of practice with an injured shoulder. Redshirt sophomore Aaron Corp made his first career start and while he wasn’t bad (he completed 13 of 22 passes for 110 yards and a pick), he couldn’t come up with the big play throughout the game. Joe McKnight rushed for 100 yards on 11 carries as USC racked up 250 rushing yards, but the Trojans lost two fumbles and when you combine those with Corp’s second half interception, turnovers killed Carroll’s team today.

But let’s give credit where credit is due. Sarkisian has completely turned around the mindset of the Washington program and now has the Huskies believing that they can win on any given Saturday. Junior quarterback Jake Locker is a fine player and can make things happen with both his arm and his legs.

Sarkisian has made Washington relevant again, while Carroll is left scratching his head for the fourth year in a row. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not Carroll sticks with Corp or goes with former Arkansas transfer Mitch Mustain assuming Barkley can’t go next week against Washington State.

USC has never been more primed for the taking in the Pac-10. The big matchup in the conference will be October 3 when the Trojans travel to Berkley to face Cal.

Check out our other 2009 college football previews.

Preseason Ranking: No. 4 in AP Top 25; No. 4 in USA Today Poll.

Key Returning Players: Aaron Corp (QB); Mitch Mustain (QB); Stafon Johnson (RB); Joe McKnight (RB); C.J. Gable (RB); Damian Williams (WR); Charles Brown; Anthony McCoy (TE); (OT); Butch Lewis (OT); Jeff Byers (G); Alex Parsons (G); Kristofer O’Dowd (C); Taylor Mays (S); Everson Griffen (DE); Drew McAllister (S); Kevin Thomas (CB).

Key Losses: Rey Maualuga (LB); Brian Cushing (LB); Fili Moala (DT); Mark Sanchez (QB); Kevin Ellison (S); Cary Harris (CB); Kaluka Maiava (LB); Clay Matthews (DE); Kyle Moore (DE); Patrick Turner (WR); David Buehler (K); Greg Woidneck (P).

Player to Watch: Matt Barkley, QB.
Barkley is the much-ballyhooed freshman who rather surprisingly beat out sophomore Aaron Corp and Mitch Mustain (a redshirt junior transfer from Arkansas) for the Trojans’ starting quarterback job this summer. Barkley will be the first freshman starting quarterback at USC during head coach Pete Carroll’s era, so the pressure is on. He’s a gunslinger in every sense of the word, which can be both good and bad. He has the arm strength to make every throw, but the knock on him is that he’ll try to force the ball into tight coverage and therefore has the penchant for throwing interceptions. The notion is that Corp (who is battling a leg injury) isn’t healthy enough to start the opener and therefore Carroll named Barkley the starter to instill confidence in the young signal caller. It’s unclear at this point if Carroll will stick with Barkley if he struggles early in the season, or if Corp will eventually take over.

Read the rest of this entry »