Tag: usc athletics

USC bowl opponent loses two key defenders to 2025 NFL draft

USC is enduring roster depletion for its bowl game, but its opponent, Texas A&M, is facing the same problem. It creates a very fluid situation in Las Vegas.

We are less than two weeks away from USC football concluding its 2024 season against Texas A&M in the Las Vegas Bowl.

The Aggies finished the season 8-4, including a 5-3 mark in SEC play. However, they will be without two key defenders in the matchup against the Trojans.

Since the conclusion of the regular season, Texas A&M junior defensive linemen Nic Scourton and Shemar Stewart have both declared for the NFL Draft. The expectation is that neither will play against USC in Las Vegas.

Scourton finished the regular season with 37 tackles, five sacks, two passes defended, and a forced fumble. Steward had 31 tackles, two passes defended, 1.5 sacks, and a forced fumble.

Given the Trojans’ makeshift offensive line, USC will certainly not complain about the news. The Trojans have already lost offensive linemen Mason Murphy, Gino Quinones, and Amos Talalele to the transfer portal. It is also not yet known whether NFL-bound seniors Jonah Monheim and Emmanuel Pregnon will play in the game or not.

Even with a relatively mobile quarterback in Jayden Maiava, USC could be in trouble up front in the Sin City. While their opponent being without two of its top defenders certainly won’t fix everything, it should hopefully at least make Maiava’s life a little easier.

Jayden Maiava needs his bowl game to produce lots of information

Jayden Maiava has to make significant gains in understanding and knowledge in USC’s bowl game versus Texas A&M. It’s less about the numbers, more about the mind.

To say that the transfer portal has significantly affected college football would be a massive understatement. In today’s era, it is nearly impossible to predict who will be on a team’s roster from year to year. Hence, regardless of the circumstances, a team can never assume that a player will be coming back the following season. Hence, it was notable when USC quarterback Jayden Maiava revealed he will be back with the Trojans in 2025.

“This is the place to be,” Maiava told reporters when asked about his future following a bowl practice last week.

After transferring in from UNLV, Maiava started the final three games of the year for the Trojans. He finished the regular season completing 60.8% of his passes for 906 yards, seven touchdowns, and three interceptions, while also adding 49 yards and four scores on the ground.

Maiava’s return marks a breath of consistency for the Trojans. USC has already seen more than a dozen players enter the transfer portal since the conclusion of the regular season.

Maiava and the Trojans will conclude the 2024 season in the Las Vegas Bowl against Texas A&M on December 27. It will be important for Maiava to use this bowl game as a real education. Would it be great if Maiava excelled the way Miller Moss did in the 2023 Holiday Bowl? Sure it would. However, that game — as we saw in 2024 — didn’t guarantee that Moss would be an excellent quarterback. It’s more about learning, less about the stat line, for Maiava against Texas A&M. Maiava needs to grow into the leader USC will need him to be in 2025.

Evan Mobley thrives for Cavaliers, hopes to make a real run at NBA Finals

Evan Mobley is playing like the big dog the Cavaliers need him to be if they want to make a serious run at the Eastern Conference championship in the NBA.

The current USC men’s basketball team might not be doing anything special, but Trojans are continuing to take the NBA by storm. The latest impressive performance came from former USC standout and current Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley. In a recent 116-102 win over the Charlotte Hornets, Mobley scored a career-high 41 points. He also added 10 rebounds, three blocks, two assists, and a steal. Cleveland has gotten off to an excellent start this season, raising hopes in Ohio that the franchise can return to the NBA Finals. It won’t be easy, but the Cavs might have a puncher’s chance. They won’t be favored in a series against the Boston Celtics, but maybe they can at least win a few rounds in the playoffs before meeting the defending champions.

If Mobley keeps playing the way he did against Charlotte, the Cavs will have a higher ceiling. The 41-point game versus the Hornets was exactly the type of performance Cleveland envisioned when it drafted Mobley with the third overall pick out of USC in 2021. Mobley has quietly been one of the league’s better big men over the past 3+ seasons, averaging 15 or more points and eight or more rebounds in each year of his NBA career to date.

One of the highest-rated recruits to ever sign with the Trojans, Mobley lived up to the tremendous expectations in his lone season on campus. In 2020-2021, he averaged 16.4 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, helping lead USC to its only Elite Eight appearance of the past two decades.

Unfortunately, Mobley’s lone season of college basketball came during the COVID year, so USC fans were never able to watch him play at Galen Center in person. However, they can surely take satisfaction in watching him tear it up for a Cavaliers team that currently holds the best record in the NBA.

Drew Peterson makes the most of his NBA opportunity with the Celtics

Drew Peterson is showing signs of being able to create an enduring pro basketball career. Many people didn’t think he would get this far or last this long.

It has certainly been a wild ride for former USC guard Drew Peterson since his career in Cardinal and Gold came to an end. After playing his final game as a Trojan in March of 2023, Peterson was not selected in that year’s NBA draft. He briefly signed with the Miami Heat, but was quickly waived and assigned to their G-League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. Peterson impressed during his time in Sioux Falls, enough so that the Boston Celtics signed him to a two-way contract last December.

Peterson spent the majority of last year with the Maine Celtics, Boston’s G-League affiliate. However, he did appear in three games for Boston during their run to the title and received a championship ring in October for his contributions.

With the Celtics dealing with injuries early on this season, Peterson has had the opportunity to get some legitimate minutes for the big league club. Against the Cleveland Cavaliers (in Cleveland) in a recent matchup of the Eastern Conference’s top two teams, Peterson played 25 minutes, by far the most of his NBA career to date. He impressed during his opportunity, scoring eight points while also recording four rebounds.

Two days later against the Miami Heat, Peterson once again saw significant action, logging 26 minutes. Again, he made the most of it, racking up seven points, seven rebounds, and an assist.

When the Celtics get healthy again, Peterson will likely find his way back to the bench, if not Maine. But his performances in recent weeks were an encouraging sign, and showed that he could have a legitimate future in the league.

USC gets good news regarding bowl game depth

USC’s roster is undergoing a lot of changes for the bowl game against Texas A&M, but one roster change will be delayed, giving USC some stability.

Ahead of USC’s Las Vegas Bowl matchup against Texas A&M, the Trojans’ roster has been ravaged by the transfer portal. The Trojans have already lost more than a dozen players into the portal, with more likely to come in the coming days.

Hence, USC’s roster for the bowl game will likely be a shell of what it looked like during the regular season. However, the Trojans did receive one piece of good news on Thursday when head coach Lincoln Riley revealed that third string quarterback Jake Jensen, who is in the transfer portal, will remain with the team through the Las Vegas Bowl.

While Jensen himself has never actually attempted a pass at USC, the news is big for the Trojans because it provides them with crucial QB depth. With Miller Moss also in the transfer portal, Jayden Maiava was set to be the Trojans’ only scholarship QB available for the game—meaning that USC was one injury away from being forced to play a walk-on at the most important position. With Jensen sticking around, the Trojans will at least have insurance in the event something were to happen to Maiava.

Jensen found himself in a similar role in last year’s Holiday Bowl. With Caleb Williams opting out of the game and Malachi Nelson entering the transfer portal, Jensen was the backup quarterback behind Moss for the game. He was inserted into the game on a fourth and one and picked up the first down on the ground—one of two snaps that he has taken in Cardinal and Gold.

If all goes according to plan for USC, Maiava will remain healthy and Jensen will not need to see the field during the game. That said, sticking around provides the Trojans an important insurance policy in the event something were to go wrong.

USC lands four-star cornerback commit

There’s one. USC gets a high-end 2026 cornerback as Doug Belk continues to do a lot of good work on the trail.

On Friday, USC football landed a commitment from four-star cornerback RJ Sermons.

A native of Rancho Cucamonga, California, On3 Consensus ranks Sermons as the No. 32 overall player in the class of 2026. He is also the No. 2 cornerback in his class, and the No. 32 player in the state of California.

Sermons chose the Trojans over Oregon, Washington, and Notre Dame.

Landing Sermons is a big early victory for defensive backs coach Doug Belk in the 2026 cycle. The Trojans now have seven players committed in the 2026 cycle, giving them the No. 2 class in the country.

Given how quickly things change in today’s world of college football, however, holding onto that class for the next 12 months will bring along its own set of challenges. Whether or not USC is able to do so could ultimately determine the direction of Lincoln Riley’s tenure.

The Trojans have to build roster depth for the future. This is not a 2025 pickup, but it does point the way to a better long-term outlook for the program.

USC lands first transfer of December cycle, takes advantage of UCF’s changes

USC bolstered its 2025 secondary. The Trojans have a lot more work to do to fill out their 2025 roster, especially on defense, but this is a start.

USC football might still have one game left to play in 2024, but the Trojans have already begun getting ready for 2025. On Thursday, USC landed its first transfer portal commitment of the offseason, former UCF cornerback Chasen Johnson.

As a true freshman at UCF in 2024, Johnson was able to find his way into the starting lineup by the end of the season. However, when head coach Gus Malzahn bolted from the program to take the offensive coordinator job at Florida State, Johnson wanted to change locations himself. On the year, he recorded 18 tackles and two passes defended for the Knights.

It is a much needed addition for a USC secondary that will lose the vast majority of its production from this season. Top cornerbacks Greedy Vance Jr., Jaylin Smith, Jacobe Covington, DeCarlos Nicholson, and John Humphrey are all out of eligibility, as is starting safety Akili Arnold.

Johnson is USC’s first transfer pickup of the 2025 cycle. With more than a dozen Trojans having already entered the portal, he figures to be the first of many additions as Lincoln Riley and his staff look to rebuild the roster.

Lincoln Riley discusses the state of college football amid portal madness

Lincoln Riley is trying to come to grips with the new reality of the transfer portal at USC.

It’s safe to say that the state of college football looks completely different than it did even a few years ago. Lincoln Riley and USC are painfully aware of how the portal has changed the game in college football.

Thanks to the combination of NIL and the transfer portal, every player essentially becomes a free agent each offseason. In addition to having to recruit high school players and transfers, coaches are essentially forced to re-recruit their entire roster each offseason.

USC is being affected by this just as much as any school. Less than 100 hours into the transfer portal opening, the Trojans have already had more than a dozen players enter, including several that were projected to play key roles next season.

On USC’s “Trojans Live” show earlier this week, head coach Lincoln Riley discussed the current state of college football.

“We’re a college football model that’s becoming a professional model,” Riley said. “I know some people don’t want to say that, but it’s here. It is what it is.

“The reality is there’s just some guys who you either can’t or are not going to pay what they want. You have guys have done the NFL thing, you’ve seen it, if your value doesn’t match the money then it’s not going to go well much longer.

“There’s a cutthroat part of that that’s just part of being a professional organization. Again, that’s what we’re becoming. We’re having to make some tough decisions.”

For better or worse, Riley is right: This is what college football has become. It is up to USC to adapt in order for the Trojans to be successful in this new landscape.

Former USC QB Malachi Nelson enters transfer portal again

Malachi Nelson watched his Boise State teammates make the College Football Playoff. Nelson wants playing time, so he’s back in the portal. The math is clear.

Less than a year after leaving USC football, Malachi Nelson is back in the transfer portal once again. After signing with the Trojans as a five-star recruit in the 2023 signing class, Nelson was seen as USC’s quarterback of the future. In his first season on campus, Nelson served as the Trojans’ third string quarterback behind Caleb Williams and Miller Moss. He appeared in one game and attempted just three passes, preserving his redshirt.

The expectation was that Nelson would compete with Moss for the starting job in 2024 following Williams’ departure. Instead, however, Nelson elected to enter the transfer portal. According to reports, Nelson did not want to have to compete for the job, and USC’s coaching staff was less than thrilled with his work ethic.

Nelson committed to Boise State. However, he lost the QB competition to Maddux Masden, who has since gone on to lead the Broncos to the College Football Playoff. As Boise State’s backup this season, Nelson completed 12 of his 17 pass attempts for 128 yards and one interception.

Now, while the Broncos are getting set for their playoff quarterfinal at the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve, Nelson is back in the portal yet again.

Ironically, Nelson’s path to the playing field would have been more clear had he stayed at USC. Moss started the first nine games of the season for the Trojans, but was replaced by UNLV trasnfer Jayden Maiava for the final three. Had Nelson stuck around, USC likely never would have pursued Maiava, and the former five-star may have gotten a shot to prove himself.

Instead, he will now be looking for his third school in three years.

USC Vikings Sam Darnold and Jordan Addison continue to shine

Sam Darnold and Jordan Addison continue to strengthen their USC Vikings connection. Minnesota needs Detroit to lose if it wants to win the NFC North.

Another week, another big win for the Minnesota Vikings. Once again, the Vikings were led by two Trojans, both of whom enjoyed career days. This past Sunday, the Vikings defeated the Atlanta Falcons 42-21. In a game that was supposed to be about Falcons’ quarterback Kirk Cousins returning to Minnesota, it was current Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold who stole the show. Darnold completed 22 of 28 passes for 347 yards and five touchdowns in by far the best performance of his professional career. Three of those touchdown passes came to second-year wide receiver Jordan Addison, who also had a career day.

Addison’s three scores were a career high, as were his eight receptions. The 133 receiving yards were the second most he has ever put up, behind only a 166-yard effort against the Bears earlier this season.

Speaking of the Bears, the Vikings will now gear up for a Monday Night Football matchup with Caleb Williams and Chicago. At 11-2, Minnesota sits just one game back of the Detroit Lions for first place in the NFC North. The two teams will meet in the Motor City on the final weekend of the regular season, potentially with the division title on the line.

The Vikings hope the Buffalo Bills will beat the Lions in the biggest NFL game of the weekend, arguably the season, this Sunday afternoon in Detroit.