Cyrus Hobbi Not Listed On USC Spring Roster

Apr 13, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; General view of a Nike football with the Southern California Trojans logo on the field during the spring game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

UPDATE: Steve Sarkisian confirmed to Ryan Abraham on the Peristyle Podcast that Hobbi has retired from football due to medical reasons, but he will continue to be around the program as he finishes his degree.

Redshirt junior Cyrus Hobbi is no longer a part of the USC football program, according to Ryan Abraham of USCFootball.com and  the Trojans spring practice guide.

Hobbi is best know for his disastrous performance against Stanford in 2012, when the #2 Trojans were outmatched at the line of scrimmage and Matt Barkley spent most of the evening on his back. An injury to starting center Khaled Holmes thrust the then redshirt freshman into the limelight and the Cardinal defensive line took every opportunity to make his life miserable.

In November of 2013, Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times wrote a feature about Hobbi’s struggles to cope with that night and the pressure it created:

As a theater major at USC, Cyrus Hobbi is accustomed to studying dramas. But the burly Trojans offensive lineman never anticipated that he would be at the center of one on the football field and in social media.

Or that reliving onstage his wrenching experience last season against Stanford would help him move past it.

Last December, in a small theater on campus, Hobbi delivered a 15-minute solo performance before an audience of about 100.

Writing and performing the play for a class was a catharsis for the third-year sophomore from Arizona. “It put things in perspective,” he said. “It just made me realize that I couldn’t let it destroy me so much as a person or a player.”

Hobbi’s departure leaves USC with a maximum of 70 scholarship players for the 2014 season, as the Trojans cannot fill any spots beyond the 19 initial scholarships they used this recruiting period. Scholarships lost which cannot be replaced include early departures to the NFL and Max Wittek’s transfer.