LOS ANGELES — Every so often, during USC’s media availability before Saturday’s game against Arizona, a mix of eager students would poke cameras into scrums with Trojans players and ask a simple question: have any plans for Trojan Family Weekend?
Indeed, Arizona weekend marks the annual celebration for families to visit their students at USC, and most players seemed to have answers locked and loaded. Except for receiver Mario Williams, who reacted to the question on Wednesday as if it was said in a foreign language.
“I don’t even know when that is,” he said, before being told it was in fact this week.
“Oh,” he grinned. “I just show up, play football, man!”
It was Williams in a nutshell, natural charisma dripping from a pearly-white smile that seems plastered to his face no matter his emotions, the USC receiver often reserved in conversations with reporters but saying as much with expressions as he does with words. A “confident human being,” as Coach Lincoln Riley put it last week.
Plenty of reasons to be confident, following Riley from Oklahoma to USC in 2022, a quick-touch ready-made slot receiver who had a wealth of continuity with Riley’s offense and Caleb Williams’ right arm. But after a clean bill his freshman year as a Sooner, Williams dropped six passes last year, noticeable issues with ball control bubbling up again two weekends ago at Arizona State in a game when multiple passes skidded through his hands.
Every player in a deep USC receiver room, outside wide receivers coach Dennis Simmons said Wednesday, has lofty goals. They put a little bit more pressure on themselves, at times, than they need to. And receiver Williams, Simmons felt, was starting off the year “pressing.”
“I think he was trying too hard,” Simmons said.
When asked if he agreed with Simmons’ evaluation, Williams nodded, dropping the smile for a moment as his face turned pensive.
“Most definitely,” Williams said, simply.
Williams’ issues, though, were met largely with a verbal shrug from Riley and Simmons – drops happen. Not going to pull someone because they miss a ball.
An attitude that explains, simply, why the junior hasn’t budged in targets or depth-chart status since the start of the season. Or, too, in favor with his quarterback; after one drop against Arizona State, Caleb Williams went over and slapped Williams’ hand in encouragement.
“I told him just to make the next one easy,” Caleb Williams said, of a conversation with the receiver during the ASU game. “Don’t try and think too much, don’t try and do too much. Just be yourself, be a player, be a ballplayer. Football player. Be Mario Williams.”
And on Saturday, against Colorado, the junior receiver hauled in three passes for 53 yards and his first touchdown of the year.
“He’s started to calm down and relax and play,” Simmons said, “and do the things that got him here.”
KOREY FOREMAN MIGHT REDSHIRT
After two years struggling to crack USC’s defensive line rotation, injury and a seeming lack of consistent effort careening his stock, the cards seemed to hold a breakout for former top recruit Korey Foreman on the Trojans’ defensive line in 2023.
“He is improved, and is such a better player right now, than he was 12 months ago,” Riley said in the spring. “It is not even close.”
The showcase hasn’t materialized, though, as Foreman has had just a handful of late-game snaps this season. And on Tuesday, Riley said the program was “exploring” having the junior redshirt.
“Occasionally, if a guy maybe is not going to have a huge role in a game, you might hold him back right now and then if an opportunity presents itself to have a bigger role, you can obviously revisit that down the line,” Riley said Tuesday. “And I would put Korey in that category.”
ZACHARIAH BRANCH, MAX WILLIAMS BACK PRACTICING
After wide receiver Zachariah Branch and safety Max Williams were both scratched for Saturday’s game against Colorado, both were seen out on the practice field Tuesday.
“Hope to have them back,” Riley said Tuesday. “Don’t think anything’s long-term.”
