FOOTBALL

Are USC’s Receiver Numbers All That?

USC is going great with a 6-1 record and chance to win the Pac-12 title.

Players are still players, however. So as I looked at Arizona’s wide receiver stats, I couldn’t help but wonder if USC’s receivers are happy with their numbers?

Jordan Addison has 39 receptions (after getting 100 at Pitt last season) but the numbers tail off quite a bit after that. Mario Williams has 26; Tahj Washington 17; Brenden Rice 16 and Kyron Hudson 8. That’s nothing to write home about from an individual standpoint.

Winning solves a lot of problems. But quarterbacks, tailbacks and receivers like their numbers too. So you can bet they are talking about it (but not in front of the coaches).

  • There are quite a few USC-Arizona ties this week.

Today, former USC defensive end Hunter Echols talked about why he transferred to Arizona.

“I wanted to go make plays,” Echols said. “I wanted to be somewhere where I could be ‘the guy’. Go somewhere where I could take 60 reps a game.”

54 thoughts on “Are USC’s Receiver Numbers All That?”

  1. Nope, they aren’t all that. USC hasn’t played anyone really good. Utah is the best team they faced and they are about average.

    ‘Ol Mule Shoe and the Ladies of Troy will lose to UCLA and Notre Dame. USC has no size, no strength and certainly no toughness to compete with the Bruins and Irish. Oregon St. pushed USC around all night and Oregon St. has like two 4 star players on their squad, tbe rest are 3 star and below.

    USC is all finesse, they can’t stop a decent offense if their lives depended on it, that was evident vs Utah.

    ‘Ol Mule Shoe is set in his ways, he likes flash, doesn’t give two shits about establishing a tough defense. Just look at who he has recruited, 90% have been skill position players, the trenches are still being neglected. The one thing ‘Ol Mule Shoe has gotten right is that the polynesian pipeline is no longer having the influence it had over the program.

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    1. There are Trojan fanboys here that wanted USC to hire BYU head coach Kalani Sitake, well that clown just got his girls spanked by Liberty 41-14.

      Liberty? Really! How damn embarrassing!

      LMFAO!

      OH MY SIDE HURTS FROM LAUGHING SO MUCH!

      AHA HA HA HA HA HA!

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      1. Inner Tebowobama. I wonder why I had HA ..preceded by AHA. Did I just discover something? And why only five “HAs”. Wouldn’t require a lot more HAs to make one’s side hurt? It seems to be inconsistent with the claim I was laughing so much. Hope no one catches on.

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    2. Inner Tebowobama: But I have to ask myself, what is “good”. I mean as a relativist, is not this a concept in the eye of beholder. Maybe in that one special moment at the one special time, the planets and stars all lined up to make Oregon St. the best team in the country–and USC beat them. Wow! Impressive. But I cannot take back what I said, I would look like a fool.

      As for Ol Mule Shoe, as my great grandad was sometimes known, (although most called him Old Lukey), this brings back a flood of memories. As a young kid, said I threw like a girl and used to call me Missy. Now that I think about it, I think that lead to gender confusion on my part. My preferred pronouns are now it/thing/jumble of atoms

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    3. Teebeau,

      You are correct on how Riley recruited offense this year. next year will be a determining factor if he is serious or not. He nneds to recruit heavliy for defense. He needs to stop the run and put pressure on the qb. If he does that, then the defense will be better.

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  4. I do believe that they will show it’s about the team success not individual if your team has a good record, that will enhance your draft status. Scouts already know who the prospects are. Preseason projections are out the window it’s about playing the best football from here on. Every receiver must make a positive play when they have their opportunities such as any receiver not named Addison and William’s we knew from the get go they were the main targets. Really it’s on the offensive schemes certain receivers are like decoys for the main receivers in my opinion. We should have more play action deep passes in our offense, without that we depend on them making people miss and I only see 3 receivers doing that, Addison Washington Williams . So the others need to run better routes are simply just catch the ball when it’s thrown to you.

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  5. Nothing special about USC’s group of receivers, they’ve had much better the last few years. But if you ask the Trojans ass lick fanboys, theses receivers are the best in the history of USC 😂

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  6. Echols, at times, was a complainer but he was a good player. We could use him right about now. If he were here we would be using him. Too bad he left.

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    1. parcelman007,

      I disagree about Echols. Orlando did not play him in a correct position. He was too light to play de. He has added muscle this year. I just spoke to his mom and she said he has grown in the neck and shoulder area. he is a good kid. He is right though, he was not played last year and Riley said good by. I wish him the best.

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  7. I personally think that USC’s receivers are only good, not great. But I’m thinking it has more to do with the scheme/routes and Caleb not getting the ball out. Brandon Rice has been a disappointment, last game he failed to come back to a ball that was thrown to him on 3rd down and Caleb was motioning to him in exasperation. He has dropped balls, cant seem to high point the ball and not able to make tough catches on the sidelines. Taj is getting better after some early dropped balls. SuperMario is really good, but drops the ball once in a while.

    Caleb has not been accurate on going over the top of defenses, and that takes alot of yards away from the receivers.

    Riley’s offenses have really good schematics and an attack that is difficult to stop due to passing and receiving. But the pass game could be better. Time to crank out 55+ point games for the next three weeks.

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    1. You stole the thunder, gamer.
      USC lining up to play 3 (or 4) really bad defenses over the next month.
      Then, a tough game against a good defense in ND.

      If the WR’s don’t run up gaudy numbers over the next 3-4 weeks, then indeed they are a disappointment. Still, putting all this together since Spring Ball in Mar/Apr is pretty good, IMHO.

      I’m more a team player kinda guy. Six wins (and a narrow loss) is about as good as I could have imagined since the 10-2 (no bowl game) season with Barkley and the Kiff.

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    2. …upon his departure for the NFL after his Jr year, Amon-Ra St Brown left the WR room with the request “to maintain the excellence at
      WIDE RECEIVER U.” Looking back to the Pete Carroll years, USC HAS produced a large number of successful NFL WR’s. Drake London kept the faith.

      I think this crew is good and will get better. USC is definitely positioning itself to be (one of the best) WRU. Riles will get the best talent and offer them plenty of targets and develop their skills.
      I like where we are going.

      I really like Gary Bryant, JR. He has worked hard since a devastating injury early on. He’s had some great–game changing–kick returns along the way. If his talents are better demonstrated elsewhere, I wish him well.

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    3. gametv,

      The run game would help the passing game by having the lbers play closer to the line and then running play action, a bubble screen, slants in and out, then run the ball again. You got to constrict and expand the defense for optimum effect.

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      1. Hunter Echols is another sad case from the days of Helton. He had offers from ‘Bama, Georgia, Michigan, Oklahoma, LSU, you name it back in 2017. Now he is at Arizona with the 125th ranked defense in the game.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Nice to have the “privilege” of posting on Wolf’s site,
    other Blog-owners would have gotten rid of me years ago
    for my good-natured but teasing ribbings of our favorite ‘Wolfie.’
    (P.S. Amazing you Mr. Wolf do not personally enter into the discussions
    from time-to-time with a well-timed personal response and then get out for
    another a month-or-so, what would it hurt?’ — It may even become called
    ‘Wolf’s Yearly Wisdom-riddled Sports-Proclamations’–

    Also heard around ‘L.A.-Town’ is that SC has announced that to give Arizona a chance of beating the Trojans Saturday night SC is withholding their 2 best players from the game; Las Vegas “Point-makers” were livid over how SC was cheating

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    1. I especially liked the following observation: “Aisle seats give tall players more legroom during flights…but more legroom doesn’t shorten the distance of the flight.”
      I’ve reread this line over a 100 times.
      #ThereIsSoMuchTruthInIt….

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      1. I have a 12 hour flight coming up. All I can do is take pain pills and sleeping pills, along with an aisle seat. Two bottles of wine helps a lot though.

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      4. Hi 67,
        Ed is resting with the missus. Yesterday he sent me an email —basically saying he’s sick of carrying me and needed to recharge…..

        Liked by 1 person

    2. One thing I learned was to either adjust to the time zone change ahead of time, or just stay on your time zone schedule. Going east isn’t so bad for a two hour zone change, but coming west makes for one long day. These kids will adapt, business people have been doing it for decades.

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    1. Man, back in the go go 80’s (and early 90’s) the OC vibe was so incredible!
      I really miss it!
      Upon my first return in 2006, I just didn’t quite feel it anymore.
      A bit over-developed.

      Here’s to hoping a really cool place in So Cal doesn’t get ruined.

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      1. It is built up now, but you will find that same vibe if you go enough south to Laguna, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Dana Point. Still nicely stuck back in time.

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      3. I only worked in the USC hospitals back in the 80’s, though we all thought very highly of the Oncology program at Hoag Memorial in Newport Beach. I’ve been gone since 1988, so I don’t know what’s up with So Cal Medicine. Back in my day, the Kenneth Norris Cancer Hospital on the Med School campus was top 10 in America. UCSF is top 5 for Oncology in America and Best in the West!*

        *I’m from a cancer family and will be diagnosed with the Crab some day… I’m switching my medical affiliation to UCSF. Closer to my little cottage in Monterey. Hoag still has a great reputation. Saved my mom’s life.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. I had wondered if you had any contact with my fraternity brother at Cal…who did his residency at Keck(we got out in ’75 and he went to Washington in St. Louis) and after med school was at UC Irvine. Tommy Ahlering. Did the robotic prostate procedure. I believe he may have been co- chair of the dept at UCI. Very special person.

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      5. On a long enough timeline we’re all gonna get diagnosed with something, my friend —best thing in the meantime is to “enjoy the blue sky and the green grass’ [“Tuesdays with Morrie”] and think good thoughts…..which you obviously do.
        I’m a subscriber to what that old Maui diver told me on my first day here on the island: “I don’t have the answers ….but I think it’s all gonna turn out alright in the end.”

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      6. I loved what Morrie said when he was asked if he wished he were younger:

        “It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.” Yes, I said, but if aging were so valuable, why do people always say, “Oh, if I were young again.” You never hear people say, “I wish I were sixty-five.” He smiled. “You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven’t found meaning. Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five. “Listen. You should know something. All younger people should know something. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.”

        Liked by 1 person

      7. Very Nice! A sustainable philosophy of life in the material world!
        #AndIReserveTheRightToBelieveThere’sEvenMoreToExistence!

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      8. Tom Ahlering, MD–one of the most respected Urologic Surgeons in America. Great guy. I am about 10 years younger than he.

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      1. I think all the undecideds in all the states putting on debates last night are gonna vote repub. So Cal is right –Fetterman showed us how cynical the dems are. There is no way a man who looks like walking amnesia should be forced to stand on a stage and get beat up all night.
        And So Cal’s comparison of Fetterman to Biden is on target. Did anyone see the video of Biden mumbling and laughing while trying to CROSS THE STREET to get back to the White House? He doesn’t even know where he lives.
        How did a once great political party come to this?
        [Now it’s up to the repubs to stop being cynical themselves. Enough Jim Jordan investigations going nowhere —-start helping this suffering country get back on its feet economically and militarily….before its too late]……

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  15. I feel like the Arizona game will be a little closer than we expect. I could be wrong, but if they have a strong passing offense, our secondary is just not that good at stopping a passing attack. I think we will win, but not so sure it is a blow-out, unless our defense has been able to make some real improvements in the bye week.

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    1. Arizona has (1) an athletic QB who makes plenty of mistakes (2) a terrible running game (3) the worst offensive line in the Pac 12… and (4) really solid receivers.
      This isn’t a recipe for success. We should be able to shut down their passing game, get to their QB and beat this team up….home crowd or not.

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  16. I am not sure SC will run away with the game with 50+ points but I do think they will beat the spread. AZ will get some big plays, just not that many. I hope Addison sits out so we can see what this receiver group looks like without him and who the big dogs really are. It is time for Raleek to break some long runs, and I would love to see Foreman come in and play football like a man.

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