LOS ANGELES — USC’s receiver room, according to receivers coach Dennis Simmons, abides by the words of Janet Jackson: “What have you done for me lately?”
“I’m sure they’re all familiar with who (Jackson) is now,” Simmons said, smiling. “They all understand. You gotta earn your keep every week. And you’ve got to earn your keep every practice. There’s nothing set in stone.”
The position battle at receiver is one of the most wide-open competitions of the Trojans’ fall training camp, and it could continue into the first games of the season.
Tanook Hines is the only returning starter at the position this season, and the plot thickened even more when head coach Lincoln Riley recently told reporters that Hines was dealing with a minor injury.
The true sophomore is present during practice time, but he’s working out in the new Bloom Football Performance Center as opposed to running drills on the field. Riley expects him to be ready for the season opener against San Jose State on Aug. 29.
Hines is proof that the coaching staff won’t hesitate to start a true freshman, and they’ll have plenty of options with a freshman class that includes spring enrollees like Trent Mosley, Kayden Dixon-Wyatt and Tron Baker and summer enrollee Ethan “Boobie” Feaster.
“The entire group is just doing such a phenomenal job adjusting to the playbook,” Trojans quarterback Jayden Maiava told reporters. “You couldn’t really tell how young they are with how they’re doing so well with the playbook and everything that they’ve been doing. Super special group. I’m excited to see it on Saturdays.”
Transfer Terrell Anderson is also in the mix after a season of being the top receiver at North Carolina State. Redshirt sophomore Zacharyus Williams is also capable of claiming a spot now that he’s recovered from injury.
“It’s for sure heavy competition,” Williams said. “But we all have the same common goal – competing and working toward that national championship.”
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The amount of talent at tight end could give Maiava even more targets, and 6-foot-4, 245-pound Mark Bowman is another freshman who could see the field right away.
“He’s right where you want him,” Trojans tight ends coach Chad Savage said. “But now it’s, hey, we got San Jose State. Can you go out there and play college football at a high level and then do it at a consistent basis in the Big Ten?”
Bringing in new tech
Rows of chairs were parked in front of USC’s new Bloom Football Performance Center on Wednesday morning. A sound crew was testing music and microphones.
There was another, behind-the-scenes project underway on campus beyond the flashy setup for the grand opening of Bloom Center.
The USC Viterbi School of Engineering is coordinating with the football program to build an analytics database that will take play-level data from FBS games into a searchable platform.
Bruce Wilcox, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering practice, is leading the team of Viterbi students and recent alumni. The searchable database they’re creating will allow Trojan football analysts to identify trends in the sport and study individual player performance on a deeper level.
USC Director of Football Analytics Conor McQuiston commissioned the project, and it’s expected to be finished by the end of summer.
“So many different teams have tried so many different things that just having access to all this data lets us run natural experiments,” McQuiston said. “What has and hasn’t worked, and what can we learn from that?”
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