USC Quarterbacks - When Failure at the Pro Level Benefits the Collector

I am a graduate of USC and a huge supporter of their football program.  I am proud of the fact that my school has produced more 1st round picks that any other college program and I believe they have the most players to play in the Superbowl and have placed a player in all but 5.  There are more Trojans on NFL rosters than any other school as well.  The fan in me loves it when former Trojans excel in the NFL whether it was college stars like Troy Polamalu and Reggie Bush or more under the radar guys like Ryan Kalil and Mike Patterson.

The collector in me has some mixed feelings on Trojans doing well in the pros.  When Reggie Bush was drafted, the price of his cards were out of control, I was limited to getting an auto from Sage and Press Pass releases as the more mainstream products were out of range.  So when a good or great college player doesn't do well, there is a part of me that is excited as I get to pick up great looking football cards like these of my former college favorites:

This is a booklet of former USC QB Matt Barkley from 2013 Panini Playbook.  The left side of the left side is a shadowed picture with a plastic coating, a shadow box.  The other half of the left side has a piece of jersey as does the entire right side.  I really enjoy the picture from the knees up of Barkley dropping back.  The only downside I see to this card is the difficultly of storing it and displaying it, it is a great looking card.

Here is another fabulous card of Mr. Barkley. Certified's Fabric of the Game subset is always one of the best.  I enjoy it way back to the baseball releases in the early 2000s and have quite a few McCovey cards from those sets.  I think the Eagles team name is perfect for a set like this, just the right length.  I really like the font used for the Eagles cut out on this card and the autograph, even though it is a sticker, adds to the cards awesomeness.  Another solid picture of Matt and a nice low serial number to 25 and this is another great pick up for the USC collection.

This last card is one of the more interesting former Trojans from a collector's perspective. Mark Sanchez was hot when he was drafted.  I remember pulling an awesome USC manupatch auto out of Prestige his rookie year and the card was going for well over $100.  I was collecting Trojans more actively at that time and it bothered me how few Sanchez cards I could pick up.  Even today I only have 103 of his 2663 different cards.  The time is ripe for me to bolster my Sanchez card collection when I can pick up awesome patch cards numbered 09/10 like this one for just a few dollars.

I can't ever fathom rooting against former Trojans to do well to enhance my collection but there sure is a fringe benefit.