Takeaways from USC Spring Ball Day 2

The USC Trojans were back on Howard Jones/Brian Kennedy field on Thursday for Day 2 of 2024 spring ball. The pads won’t come on until Saturday’s practice, but a number of players have already made their presence felt just in coming out of the John McKay locker room. Here are the top three takeaways from Thursday’s practice.

Food for Thought

Not every player on the USC roster needed to add weight this offseason. There were “gain” guys and “cut” guys. But the “gain” guys have taken center stage early in camp. Lincoln Riley said heading into spring that the defensive line room added 340 pounds in total. Twenty of those are now on the frame of Braylan Shelby, who was an already impressive-looking freshman and now looks NFL-ready with still most of his first college offseason in front of him. He talked about the five-egg scramble, waffles, and parfait breakfast that is part of his routine, plus the five large meals he’s eating during the day.

USC players took food seriously this offseason and a big part of that came from the coaching and strength and conditioning staffs. Shelby said they would have constant weigh-ins and it became important to everybody to avoid coming up short on the scale. Jamil Muhammad said the need to add weight all across the lines of scrimmage was something the team knew needed to happen at the end of last season. He said the buy-in this offseason was different than last, combined with a better understanding of rest, recovery, when to eat and what to eat. Muhammad said he’s put on nine pounds of muscle and took it as a challenge to do exactly that.

It feels like every spring ball and fall camp starts with talk about how great the players look and what a great job the strength staff did during the time away from the field. This one feels like there’s a little more truth and more evidence of the work that was done. The overall physique of this roster is different compared to last year.

Secondary Length

Much of the offseason talk centered around USC needing to get bigger on the defensive line. But there might not be a more striking group at first glance than the cornerbacks. Prophet Brown would not be considered small, but he is towered over by the guys around him. That would be 6-foot-2 Jacobe Covington, 6-foot-2 John Humphrey, 6-foot-3 DeCarlos Nicholson and 6-foot-4 Maliki Crawford. That group is bigger than the safeties and it’s not as if the guys are rail thin, either. It looks like a bunch of defensive ends out roaming around in coverage. They’ll need to prove it on the field, but I can’t remember a cornerback group at USC that looked as impressive as this one.

Head coach Lincoln Riley was asked about that length at corner and whether they specifically targeted those players in the portal.

“I think you’re always wanting that,” Riley said. “I mean, I don’t know that there’s any defense that you don’t want that…The first two years at several positions we’ve been pretty small. And that shows up. And when you’re trying to obviously increase the physicality of your team, I think when you’re going to more of a professional style defensive scheme, all that fits certainly to have bigger DBs. So yeah, obviously the freshmen fit that, the transfers obviously add some pretty immediate length and size. Our quarterbacks have certainly been able to notice that the last few days.”

Transfer Impact

USC is moving toward a place where the transfer portal won’t provide a bulk of the Trojans’ production each season. But that place is not the 2024 season. At least, on defense. USC is going to need a ton of production from Isaiah Raikes, Nate Clifton, Easton Mascarenas-Arnold and all four guys in the secondary. So far, the transfer are making a positive impact. Safety Bryson Shaw said Mascarenas-Arnold and Akili Arnold have brought a ton of energy to the team.

Riley compared this group early on to the 2022 transfer group that made such a positive impact.

“So far it seems like a very mature group,” Riley said. “There’s some really strong leaders out of it…It’s a pretty selfless group. It reminds me a lot of ways of the group our first year coming in. It’s not as many, obviously, but there’s a lot of mature guys, a lot of high-energy guys. You kind of feel their presence on the practice field even here in the beginning, which I think that’s really important.”

There were obviously a few transfer portal additions to the 2023 roster that made positive impacts on the field and in the locker room. But it’s not anything controversial to say that group didn’t produce the feel or the results of the 2022 group. USC needs these transfers to take everything in a positive direction and the path so far seems to be a good one.

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