Spring practice is officially half-way through. Let’s see how the Trojans are doing at the midway point.

Tuesday

The offensive line’s game of musical chairs continues.

Eventually this Chinese fire drill of position switching will have to stop; but for now, there are no negatives to getting our young and inexperienced players reps on the line.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with experimentation. Especially since in the past couple of years, players have had to switch positions to fill in gaps left by losing players to injuries during the season.

The interior of the defense may leave a little to be desired at the moment, but the outside pass rush will be the real deal with Nwosu acclimating to his partner in crime, Porter Gustin. May have a little Bash Brothers tandem this upcoming fall.

Not every day you get one of the top college football analysts stopping by your school to check out a practice, but if Bruce Feldman needed an excuse to visit Los Angeles in Spring, the Trojans gave him one.

Of note, he was very impressed with the wide receiver corps, which is an extremely good sign for the team as it was one of the areas left with roles to fill with the departure of Darreus Rogers and JuJu Smith-Schuster.

He was especially impressed with Velus Jones, relating him to Adoree’ Jackson. This is very high praise, especially when it is coming from a New York Times Best-selling author and not a part-time blogger like myself.

Last week, I thought I was insane to equate Jamel Cook’s defensive skills and talent to Jackson, but I guess my praise doesn’t seem so ridiculous now. Okay, it’s still ridiculous to compare a nickelback to last year’s Thorpe Award-winner, but I’m still riding high off that Rose Bowl victory.

Comparisons to Adoree’ Jackson AND Marquise Lee? The Velusiraptor could be a MONSTER!

Anything you can do, I can do better!

I can do anything better than you!

Love the sibling rivalry from the Imatorbhebhe brothers. Hope to continue to see it on the field this fall. Boy are announcers going to be in trouble when they are going to have to announce their last name twice as much as before.

When you have 50–60 ex-players visiting your practices every week, you can get a Heisman winning quarterback (or two) to show up and give you some advice on how to play with lofty expectations for yourself and the team, and let you know which ballroom dancing class you should take your fall semester.

Look forward to the grandson of Dick Hammer getting cocky.

Wait! We were holding him back last year?

Pray for the Pac-12.

First we had Darnold to Burnett, now we have Darnold to Velus. From D to B to D to V…

…might have to brainstorm nicknames for these quarterback-receiver tandems.

Cold blooded move by Darnold to pull on the promising defensive lineman but, I guess it’s better rookie hazing than getting taped to a goal post or having to carry your teammates shoulder pads for the whole season.

“Blue collar mentality?”

Guess the new coach hasn’t had much free time to meet some of the students on campus. Walk towards 28th street and that blue collar mentality turns into a white one really quickly. Unless it’s sunny, then it’s just a frat tank.

Not quite a coaching philosophy, but who knows, he may be a man of few words.

Poor guy hasn’t seen a palm tree or a beach in his life. Hopefully, after all those years in the Midwest, the nice weather isn’t too much of a shock to his system. Maybe he can go across the town and ask Steve Alford how he adjusted after all those years in Bloomington.

Thursday

Another week, another win for the defense. It’s fine. Last year, our offense didn’t really wake up until our fourth week against Arizona State. Can’t mess with a formula that got you to the Rose Bowl.

Then again, I think every fan is thinking National Championship, so the Trojan offense needs to get this slow start out of their system now, especially before playing a season with no bye weeks. Great scheduling, Larry Scott!

Chris is a Ball-Hawk….ins.

Hawkins will be the anchor of the Trojan’s secondary as he has the most experience, providing big hits and blanketing the defense against deep balls from various gunslingers along the West Coast. Unless Josh Rosen wants to sit out this season to preserve his draft stock.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who watched him pick apart Penn State’s defense inside the 20-yard-line. He can be a surgeon in close coverage situations. With his ability to scramble, all he has to do is sit and wait for someone to be open and then thread the ball where no one else but the receiver can catch it.

A huge return for our interior line as Kenny Bigelow returns from his torn ACL he suffered before the start of the 2016 season. Bigelow’s absence on the defensive line was obvious in early games against run-dominant teams like Alabama, Stanford, and Utah. Hopefully he can return to contact drills soon and nothing prevents him from strengthening the rush defense this year for the Trojans.

Just wait until the Velusiraptor learns how to open doors. Then opposing defenses are in big trouble.

On one hand, it’s impressive that Marlon is a 17-year-old acclimating to a college football program in less than a month’s time.

But, on the other hand, he’s already built like Ndamukong Suh.

Nevertheless, this man-child is already starting for the Trojan defense, and he probably hasn’t even gone through freshman orientation yet.

Don’t be surprised if you see a “C” patch right above the “42” on Nwosu’s jersey this fall. He’s been impressing coaches on and off the field.

I don’t know if it’s because this is the first time I’m covering spring practice, or the fact that everyone one associated with cardinal and gold is extremely optimistic for the upcoming year but, I did not expect so many freshman (especially linemen) to be getting reps with the first team so early. Is it lack of depth or pure talent? I guess we will eventually find out.

Injuries

The injury bug hit the team on Thursday.

After his phenomenal last week, Jamel Cook had a little bit of a setback when he sprained his ankle early in practice.

Luckily, with advanced modern medicine, also known as a ton of athletic tape, he was able to return.

When I sprain my ankle (which is very often), I can’t use the elliptical for a week. Jamel Cook is blocking field goals.

Not sure if it was wise for Cook to return to practice despite having a noticeable limp after the injury, but it didn’t lead to the injury worsening.

*knocks on every piece of wood in the building*

Rasheem Green hurt several of his fingers. Hopefully he doesn’t return with his hand taped up like a club.

Probably the worst injury of the day was to freshman linebacker Tayler Katoa, who tore his ACL and will require surgery, forcing him to miss his first season with the Trojans. Katoa was one of the five early enrollees and was getting playing time at the Will linebacker position, beside Cam Smith.

The injury is awful, but the silver lining is that Katoa will not lose a year of eligibility for it and should be ready to return in 2018 as a redshirt freshman. Wishing Katoa the best in his surgery and recovery.

What does this mean for the Trojans? Well, it just depletes the Trojans’ linebacker depth even more. With Cam Smith being the only inside linebacker with experience, either John Houston or Jordan Iosefa will have to step up to be his counterpart or Clancy Pendergast might have to rearrange his defensive schemes to adjust for the lack of talent in the interior before the season opener.

Last week, I implied that with the ascension of Jamel Cook as the starting nickelback, Clancy may put him into games by removing a linebacker due to the lack of depth at that position. While the injury to Katoa might add a little merit to that proposal, fellow Trojans fans alerted me on the various schemes Pendergast will implement to utilize the best of Jamel Cook’s ability.

Some of those schemes included installing a 4–4–3 defense also known as the Notre Dame Box Defense in order to have Cook closer to the line of scrimmage, which would make him key to various blitz packages.

Another suggestion was a 2–4–5 defense with three safeties with Cook playing a hybrid linebacker-safety role similar to Su’a Cravens time with the Trojans. Just a little food for thought on the various directions the Trojan’s defense can go this year.

The injuries over the past three weeks were too much, so Clay Helton decided to punt (a smart decision this time) on having a scrimmage Saturday.

There’s no reason to lose any more players in Spring when you need them in the Fall.

Saturday

With the lack of a scrimmage, Saturday was not that noteworthy.

If he only had one TD, he’d have to be called Tyler Vaughn

With Vaughns, Velus, Burnett, and Pittman Jr. excelling at wide receiver this Spring, I don’t think we have to worry about all the talent lost at that position. Yes, some of them weren’t good enough to get on the field last season, but it’s underestimated how crazy our depth has been at skill positions the past couple of years. I’m excited to see what all this new blood can do with more reps.

Finally, thanks to one loyal reader, I’d like to christen the new nickname for Darnold to Deontay connection: The Sam-Burnett-dino.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m trying to delete.

Two more weeks until the Spring Game. Anyone know if it’s going to be televised? You know what, who cares? I’ll see everyone down there on April 15th.

FIGHT ON!