A (Slightly) Too Early Opponent Preview: Southern California Trojans

After double-digit win totals in 2016 and 2017, the honeymoon phase for Clay Helton and the University of Southern California Trojans might be cooling. In 2016 — Helton’s first full year as head coach — he led the Trojans to 10 wins after securing a Rose Bowl win against Penn State. A year later, he bested it, winning 11 games, a conference title, and an appearance in the Cotton Bowl, which ended in a 24-7 drubbing from Ohio State.

To Helton skeptics, however, the 2017 11-game win season could be seen as a fluke. The Trojans got some lucky bounces, going 4-1 in games decided by a score or less and enjoyed a season of relatively pedestrian competition with an SOS ranking of 59th. Last year, the SOS ticked up to 44th and USC struggled to a 5-7 record. Their average luck also regressed to the mean and USC went 2-4 in games decided by a score or less.

And now, despite going 21-6 his first two seasons, last year’s 5-7 season has already started the “hot seat” conversations for Helton. That’s what a few national titles more than a decade ago will do to an administration and fanbase. But then again, it was only the second losing season for USC in the past three decades. Standards are standards. 

The increasing pressure led to quite a few off-season coaching hires. Weeks after making an incredible hire by poaching Kliff Kingsbury from Texas Tech, the Arizona Cardinals did some poaching of their own and scooped Kingsbury from Helton and USC. In a few weeks, Kingsbury went from Texas Tech head coach to USC offensive coordinator to Arizona Cardinals head coach. Incredible. When you lose out on the master, go for the protege. That’s what Helton did by replacing Kingsbury with Graham Harrell. 

There is good news and bad news for the Trojans on the offensive side of the ball. The good is they return 79% of last season’s production. The bad is last season wasn’t very productive. At receiver, the Trojans return Michael Pittman, Jr. who was a leading scorer and big playmaker last season. Some other key returners include Amon-Ra St. Brown, who led the team with 60 catches and Tyler Vaughn, who caught 58 passes for nearly 700 yards. That trio were the top three receivers for USC last season.

Harrell wasn’t as pass-centric as Leach and Kingsbury during his time as offensive coordinator at North Texas. And while the Trojans lose last season’s top rusher Aca’cedri Ware to graduation, they do return their two next best rushers in Vavae Malepeai and Stephen Carr. 

While there is some proven talent at the skill positions — and the expected incoming crop of blue-chip talent USC gets ad nauseam — there are some significant holes at the QB and o-line. Right now the battle for QB1 will come down to sophomore JT Daniels and junior Jack Sears. As a true freshman, Daniels started in all but one game, when he had to sit out because of concussion protocol. Daniels had a roller coaster of a season and in Sears’ lone start, he threw for 235 yards, completing 20 of 28 passes. 

Whoever gets the starting job this season will have to deal with an unproven offensive line. USC lost three of their five starters from last season including their All-Conference tackle in Chuma Edoga. The good news for USC is they have six other linemen with starting experience, even if it’s minimal.

On the defensive side of the ball, USC only returns 48% of its returning production from 2018, which ranks them 118 out of the 130 FBS teams for returning defensive production. The Trojans lose leading tackler Cameron Smith along with basically their entire DB group. Akin to the offense, the Trojans have plenty of young talent, but it's unproven young talent. Senior inside linebackers John Houston Jr. and Jordan Iosefa will be expected to carry a lot of weight for the team, especially early in the season.

Up front, however, the Trojans will be strong — at least with the starters. Christian Rector and Marlon Tuipuloto, who each recorded 4.5 sacks last season are returning. Also returning is Jay Tufele, who recorded three sacks last season. The Trojans will also be looking to true freshman Drake Jackson, who was one of the best weakside defensive end recruits in the country, and No. 1 ranked JUCO strongside defensive end Nick Figueroa to contribute early and often.

Projection: Cal Bears 13, USC Trojans 10

Similar to the game against Wazzu, the Bears aren’t projected to be favorites in this game (in the pre-season projections). But this is an important home game for the Bears and one they should win before a road trip down the Bay to the Furd.

See the other opponent previews:

UC Davis

Washington

North Texas

Ole Miss

Arizona State

Oregon

Oregon State

Utah

Washington State