Freshmen make use of playing time
The Trojans not only have the great fortune of opening up their season against two teams from the Sun Belt Conference, but also the pleasure of playing both of those games at home. Props to Steve Sarkisian for pulling this one off, especially because the remainder of the team’s schedule should prove to be rather grueling.
These first couple of games actually remind me a lot of my feelings toward certain colored Starburst candies. No disrespect to the Sunbelt Conference, but home matchups against Arkansas State and Idaho are analogous to the pink and red Starbursts — the ones that you wish you could have more of, but run out quickly so you have to settle for the most undesirable colors like the orange and yellow ones.
After Saturday’s game, the team’s season will be filled with these orange and yellow Starbursts that signify road games at Arizona State, Oregon and Notre Dame.
The reason I use this candy analogy in order to demonstrate the Trojans’ rigorous schedule is because of the large bundle of young and raw talent that this year’s USC team possesses.
Twenty three players made their debuts in a USC uniform last Saturday and 13 of those players were true freshmen. Many of them didn’t only play, but made impact plays at their respective positions.
Freshman tailback Ronald Jones, backing up Tre Madden in place of Justin Davis, rushed for 86 yards and took one 44 yards for the first touchdown of his USC career. Fellow freshman running back Aca’Cedric Ware also found the end zone.
Even young defenders got theirs as freshman linebacker Osa Masina recovered a fumble off a backwards pass and took it back 46 yards for a score.
It was also great to see Cameron Smith become the first true freshman to start an opener for USC since Riki Gray in 1978, in addition to Iman Marshall seeing a significant amount of time at defensive back in his freshman debut after Adoree’ Jackson went down.
These freshmen have made the most of their playing time in these first two “gimme” games because they’re going to need all of the confidence and experience they can get heading into the rest of the season.
Just about the same time last year, USC marched undefeated into Boston College, fresh off a big win in Palo Alto against Stanford.
Victimized by a lack of depth, the Trojans broke down in Beantown and were upset by the Eagles, which appropriately set the theme for the team’s season — not being able to finish games.
I specifically remember watching cornerback Jonathan Lockett, then a true freshman, being thrown into the game, given the absence of Josh Shaw, and having a great deal of trouble covering Eagles receivers in the second half.
Now that Sarkisian has his depth, he needs to make sure that his “fabulous freshmen” are ready to be thrown into these type of hostile environments later in the season.
Recall another group of fabulous freshmen in the early 1990s when the University of Michigan’s “Fab Five” took the nation by storm when they reached the 1992 and 1993 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship.
As a unit, USC’s freshmen won’t have to bear the same responsibility that the “Fab Five” did, but it’s important for them to realize that with all of the hype they’ve received ever since their class signed with USC, also comes an expectation to perform.
It seems like this group of freshmen has passed the test so far through just one game, but it has a whole season still to show why they were one of the best recruiting classes in the nation.
The Trojans Pac-12 title hopes could very well fall on these freshmen, and it’s important that they are ready for the spotlight.
Darian Nourian is a senior majoring in print and digital journalism. He is also the sports editor of the Daily Trojan. His column, “Persian Persuasion,” runs Fridays.