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Paolo UggettiESPN
USC quarterback Caleb Williams spent more time on the Los Angeles Coliseum field for his halftime Heisman Trophy ceremony than he did wearing a helmet and taking snaps during USC’s spring game Saturday.
In his sole drive of the day, Williams picked up right where he left off last season. He began the game under center for USC and only needed three plays to take the Trojans’ offense downfield for a score.
The first play was a 45-yard pass to wide receiver Brendan Rice to kick off the game. After handing the ball off to running back Austin Jones for the second play of the game, Williams found wideout Mario Williams in the corner of the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown pass that capped off the three-play, 75-yard drive that took only 1 minute, 10 seconds.
As he came off the field after the scoring drive, Williams remained on the sideline for the remainder of the game while backup Miller Moss and true freshman five-star Malachi Nelson took the remaining snaps.
“Those snaps are way more valuable to those guys,” head coach Lincoln Riley said of giving the two backups most of the playing time Saturday. When asked what Williams specifically can improve upon after a Heisman-winning season, Riley said “situation mastery.”
“There’s learning the position, there’s learning the offense, there’s learning the routes, there’s learning how to execute,” Riley said. “And then you take it and the game situation can change a lot of that and you have to be able to process that so quickly. We’ve really worked hard on that. It was good last year, it needs to be great this year.”
There wasn’t too much else to take away from USC’s spring game beyond the similar strokes that defined last season: Under Williams, the USC offense is nearly unstoppable, and they made the USC defense look more or less helpless. Enter anyone else under center and the story changes. While Moss and Nelson had a few bright spots, they also allowed the USC defense to continue its strategy of bailing itself out with turnovers. The Trojans’ defense had three interceptions and a forced fumble.
Defense has been the name of the game for USC this spring after ending last year’s debut campaign for Riley with a devastating loss to Utah in the Pac-12 title game and a loss to Tulane in the Cotton Bowl. The additions of transfers, such as defensive lineman Jonathan Lucas from Texas A&M and Kyon Barrs from Arizona, should give USC some more strength up front.
“The difference in the front seven is noticeable,” Riley said. “We all knew we had holes last year. We have a number of returners who are playing better ball this spring then they did at any point last year.”
Riley, for his part, was encouraged by the competitive aspect of the game, which came down the last drive — Jacobe Covington picked off Nelson to seal the 42-34 win in favor of the defense, which began the game up 24-0 and received points for stops and turnovers in the modified format. Even if Williams remains the constant that will drive USC’s success this season, there is much in Riley’s second season that is already different.
“There is less install, less teaching from day one,” Riley said. “We’ve done so much situational work, it’ll show up in the big games and big moments coming up.”