LOS ANGELES — USC head football coach Lincoln Riley isn’t going easy on the kickers this fall training camp.
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Caden Chittenden and Ryon Sayeri are locked in a special teams battle that has the coaching staff testing them at a high volume. It’s not for lack of faith in them.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a situation as a coach where you have two guys that you believe in as much as I believe in them,” Riley told reporters on Friday afternoon.
Not only are their tasks frequent, but they’re also aggressive and challenging. Opposing special teams players are live-rushing them, and the kicks are from significant distances.
Chittenden and Sayeri have taken on these challenges at practices and at the Coliseum, where the Trojans held a closed scrimmage on Wednesday morning, and they’ve both had plenty of in-game experience.
Sayeri took over kickoff, field goal and PAT duties last season when Chittenden suffered a season-ending injury in fall camp. He broke the USC field goal record by making 21 of 25 attempts and also was a perfect 48 of 48 on PATs. He finished the season with 89 kickoffs for 5,715 yards (64.2 average) with 63 touchbacks.
“Last year’s entire situation was unique,” Riley said, “where I think there was probably a little bit of an assumption on the outside that it was going to be Chit. And then he gets hurt, Ryon came in and did a great job.
“I think 99.9% of players probably would have transferred out given how that played out. (Chittenden) wanted to stay here at USC and wanted to compete, and so I think that says a lot about him.”
Chittenden, a redshirt sophomore, set a new Mountain West record when he hit 26 field goals as a freshman at UNLV. His season-long was a 52-yard field goal during a rainstorm at San Jose State.
Riley said that Sayeri will handle kickoffs this season, but it’s still a toss-up as to who will handle field goals and PATs. It wouldn’t be surprising if both contributed in some way this season.
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“They know it’s a battle, it’s a competition,” Riley said. “It’s unique, but I think they both respect each other.”
Scrimmage takeaways
USC had the opportunity to experiment with new offensive line combinations during Wednesday’s scrimmage in an attempt to find a new starting center. Previous starter Kilian O’Connor will not play due to a season-ending injury.
Riley said earlier in the week that Tobias Raymond, Kaylon Miller, Willi Wascher and Kannon Smith are all options. The scrimmage didn’t focus on schematics, meaning players could show what they learned against base offenses and defenses.
“We did some really good things at the line of scrimmage,” Riley said. “We had a couple blocks where we missed, and, obviously, we got some pretty good defensive linemen that make life tough on you there.”
He added that he felt the run game behind the experimental o-lines was “hit-or-miss,” and that he felt the running backs ran hard but were impatient in goal-line situations.
Former Trojans make NFL debuts
USC football alumnus and Houston Texans rookie safety Kamari Ramsey had an interceptions when he picked off Chargers quarterback Trey Lance in Thursday night’s preseason game.
He returned the pick 38 yards to the Chargers’ 48-yard line just before halftime in the Texans’ 27-7 loss.
“The return — I mean I was just kind of tired,” Ramsey told reporters after the game. “It was kind of like two-minute. I just got what I could get. And then I saw the quarterback. They were telling me I should’ve ran the quarterback over, but I saw the big lineman right behind him, so I was like, I got the pick, I got some yards.”
Safety Bishop Fitzgerald had two tackles in his rookie debut with the Tennessee Titans on Thursday in the Titans’ 19-13 win over San Francisco. Defensive end Anthony Lucas had one tackle in the Detroit Lions’ 16-14 loss to Cincinnati.
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