The Point After: USC might want to try an unusual addition


Sunday’s announcement that starting kicker Chase McGrath would not suit up again for the Trojans in 2018 after tearing his ACL was only the latest tragedy in a truly disastrous weekend for USC football. Frankly, it was also just the latest bad news to come to a special teams unit that put up one of the worst performances by a major college football team in recent memory.

The Trojans, as they have done since the start of the season, trotted out two punters who both failed to find success in pinning the Longhorns back. Redshirt senior Chris Tilbey had a 13-yard punt that set up Texas around midfield before they kicked an ultimately decisive go-ahead field goal to end the first half. Tilbey would again go on to hit a 22-yard punt that led to the game’s final score, a Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger 4-yard touchdown run.

Redshirt senior Reid Budrovich was more successful, but his 29-yard punt early in the third quarter again set up the Longhorns near midfield and nearly turned into more points had it not been for redshirt junior defensive lineman Christian Rector recovering a fumble inside the Trojan red zone.

The lowest point of the night, and the play that truly signaled the end for the Trojans came when the Longhorns blocked and returned a 50-yard field goal attempt for a touchdown, injuring McGrath in the process.

Heading into a make-or-break Week 4 matchup against undefeated Washington State on Friday night, the entire team has a lot of questions to answer. For as much as head coach Clay Helton and offensive coordinator Tee Martin will come under fire from fans and media alike, it’s possible that no one will have more to lose this weekend than special teams coordinator John Baxter.

Baxter, the former University of Michigan special teams coordinator who presided over the team’s infamous botched punt against Michigan State in 2015, is no stranger to controversy in the kicking game. Between his time in Ann Arbor, seeing Rose Bowl winning kicker Matt Boermeester dismissed from the team before the 2017 season and presumptive starter Michael Brown tearing his ACL around the same time last year, Baxter has experience dealing with such adversity. The question now is: What will his plan of action be?

While it’s often an advantage of the college game, rather than the pros, to carry a roster of 90-plus players, the drawback is that teams can’t dip into a free agency pool when they sustain injuries. This becomes especially difficult when considering injuries to special teams players as there is usually much less depth and are much tougher to replace.

On the roster currently, USC carries another three kickers who could potentially replace McGrath for the rest of the season. Brown, now recovered from his ACL tear, true freshman Alex Staudhaus and converted quarterback Thomas Fitts.

A fourth option may exist in an otherwise unlikely place: the women’s soccer team.

While allowing a women’s player to try out for the Trojans would be a first in the program’s history, it wouldn’t be the first time it has happened in Division I football. Better yet, USC wouldn’t even be the first Pac-12 team to allow a woman to walk on.

Although not yet a member of the Pac-12 conference, Colorado added Katie Hnida as a walk-on to the team for the 1999 season. A placekicker for her high school team, Hnida did not see action with the Buffaloes but would go on to be both the first woman to score points in an FBS game as well as the first to play in a bowl game as a member of the New Mexico Lobos.

With no varsity men’s soccer team and the extremely strong track record of the two-time national champion women’s team, the Women of Troy are possibly the best options that USC has for walk-ons.

If there were ever a unit in college football that wasn’t scared of trying new things, it would be USC special teams. Over the past two years, redshirt junior long snapper Jake Olson has been an active participant in every practice and has appeared in three games despite having lost his sight at age 12.

With the season taking a turn for the worse that it seemingly has and fans calling for the heads of seemingly every coach on the staff, the Trojans could do worse than to seek out a new rallying point in the form of a walk-on kicker.

Will the Trojans again seek to make history and serve as a progressive frontier for college football as they did in the ’50s and ’60s with integration of black football players? Most likely not, but they could do a whole lot worse than letting some of the many talented women on campus try out to kick for the Trojans on Saturdays.

Jimmy Goodman is a junior majoring in communication. His column, “The Point After,” runs every other Tuesday.