LOS ANGELES >> JuJu Smith-Schuster has a cold.

Earlier this week, the USC receiver said he was feeling 90 percent, most of his nagging injuries from the season healed over the month off following the regular season. But he arrived Friday at the Rose Bowl media day in a downtown Los Angeles hotel blanketed in a sweatshirt.

Coach Clay Helton said a day later that Smith-Schuster is on z-pack and taking antibiotics.

Helton added that several players and coaches were under the weather.

“We’ve all got a little bit of a cold right now,” he said.

Smith-Schuster, a junior, has continued to practice, Helton said. USC’s final practices before the Rose Bowl have not been open to reporters.

“As we know, he’s a warrior,” Helton said.

Helton said he expects Smith-Schuster to play Monday against Penn State.

“Pray for me!” Smith-Schuster wrote on his Snapchat account Saturday. “Feeling really sick! Pray for a speedy recovery!”

Michigan linebacker Jabrill Peppers, a junior who is also eligible to enter the NFL after this season, did not play in the Wolverines’ Orange Bowl loss to Florida State on Friday night because of a hamstring injury.

Afterward, Peppers faced questions about whether his professional future had an impact on his decision to sit out the game.

“My future didn’t play any role in this,” he told reporters. “I still don’t know what I’m going to do yet.”

Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey and LSU’s Leonard Fournette both skipped their teams’ bowl games to prep for the draft.

Smith-Schuster said he would not follow a similar path by missing the Rose Bowl. He has said he would not make a decision about whether to enter the draft until after the game.

Feeling like home

For its final week of preparation before the Rose Bowl, the Trojans have stayed at a hotel in downtown Los Angeles only a few miles from campus.

They have held team meetings at the John McKay Center and practices at Howard Jones-Brian Kennedy Field.

The Trojans were undefeated at the Coliseum this season and also defeated rival UCLA at the Rose Bowl in late November.

Since Helton took over as the interim coach midway through last season, they have not lost a game in the Los Angeles area.

“Traveling on the road, you get things such as players not adjusting to the plane ride,” running back Justin Davis said. “There’s a whole bunch of things that combine. I definitely feel that we’re more comfortable just playing at home, or L.A. to be more general, because we don’t have to experience some of the things that you have to deal with when you’re traveling.”

Quick hits

USC right guard Viane Talamaivao did not fill out paperwork with the NFL Draft Advisory Committee in order to receive feedback. He said he would return to USC for his senior season. … USC remains a seven-point favorite over Penn State.