MarShawn Lloyd has been, quite simply, a stud for USC this season. He does a little bit of everything on the field, but when he gets the ball, he has been outstanding. He gets good-to-great yardage on a lot of plays. He has power. He has speed. He can make defenders miss. He has been great for the Trojans this year.
One obvious concept which doesn’t need a lot of explaining is that Caleb Williams needs the ball in his hands. Of course! If a team has a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and a generational talent, it certainly should entrust him with the ball. To this extent, Lincoln Riley is not wrong to give Caleb a lot of chances to attack defenses in the passing game. It generally works. Scoring 48 points? That works. Of course Caleb should indeed be trusted to score big and win games.
However, there’s another player Riley should trust more: MarShawn Lloyd.
The concept for USC should be simple: Trust Caleb Williams to create a 14-point first-half lead by throwing for scores and downfield strikes. Trust MarShawn Lloyd to protect that multi-score lead in the second half by running the ball down an opponent’s throat. Riley has to be willing to take the ball out of Caleb’s hands and put it in Lloyd’s hands, so that USC can grind clock and limit exposure to Alex Grinch’s defense.
This doesn’t need to be any more complicated than it has to be.
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