Before kickoff, there’s takeoff

The season opener means more than just a football game for USC. Before the Trojans play Virginia on Saturday, they must fly more than 2,500 miles across country on a charter flight.

The airport in Charlottesville, Va., isn’t large enough to accommodate the team’s normal plane, so the USC entourage – coaches, players, administrators and boosters – will leave this afternoon in a pair of Boeing 757s.

Middle linebacker Rey Maualuga: “Going to the game, it’s one quiet airplane. Everyone is focused in on the game plan and their assignments. They’re either studying or sleeping. But when the game’s over, coming back, it’s like a circus in there. The coaches are standing in the back, mingling, talking.”

Safety Taylor Mays: “The linemen get a middle seat in between them because they think they’re big. I don’t think they’re that big. [Mays is 6-foot-3 and weighs 230 pounds.] We’re all jammed in. The defensive backs. Linebackers probably have it the worst. The linemen have their space and they think they’re better than everybody else.”

Defensive line coach David Watson: “We get all the free cheese we can eat. Being from the Midwest, that’s my favorite thing. Babybel cheese. They’ve got the red ones and the yellow one… . It’s all about the cheese.”

Fullback Stanley Havili: “If the coaches weren’t there, we’d have a food fight the whole five hours. People throw stuff. Grapes. People are throwing candy. The coaches get mad but they don’t know who it is because you throw it when they’re not looking and no one will tell on anybody.”

 david.wharton@latimes.com