USC’s wide receivers preach selflessness in a crowded room – Daily Breeze

LOS ANGELES – Jay Fair had never shaken anyone’s hand before coming to USC.

Sure, he may have slapped another receiver on the hand when he was at Auburn, but not like that.

After finding a rhythm with veteran Kyron Hudson on Thursday, Fair has checked off individual, one-on-one handshakes with every wideout in the USC room. He’s still lagging behind. Sophomores Zachariah Branch and Ja’Kobi Lane have between 15 and 20 with various members of the program.

That’s a look of pride reflected in Branch’s smile on Thursday, his fingers intertwined in complicated two-step dances across the practice turf, clapping and swaying as intricate as the routes they’ve memorized from Lincoln Riley’s playbook. Branch, the sophomore burner, recently tried a new routine with Georgetown University graduate Asante Das – only to find it was too complicated for the sticky gloves they were wearing.

“We do it like this,” Branch said Thursday, pretending to interlock and twist his fingers, “and our hands always get stuck. So I say, ‘Okay, don’t really touch my pinky.'”

For a few minutes each morning, USC’s fall camp at Howard Jones Field turns into a showcase of the exuberance of a youthful receivers room. They shake hands and trot between pass-catching lines. They yell for a student assistant to change the song blaring from the field’s loud speakers, and sometimes Branch or sophomore Makai Lemon will run to the aux speaker and take DJ matters into their own hands. They show off one at a time, Lane stretching every inch of his 6-foot-4 frame in a vertical leap or Branch stretching across his body to do a one-armed pluck.

Fair also didn’t feel very stable in his offense before coming to USC, finishing as Auburn’s second-leading receiver in 2023 with just 324 yards. That’s changed with the talented sophomores surrounding him at USC. They’re all ready for expanded roles – from Branch to Lane to Lemon to Duce Robinson – and they’re showing it on these mornings at Howard Jones.

But even with a broad offensive from Riley, there are only so many mouths to feed.

“I think it’s always about football and winning games,” Lane said in late July. “So if I don’t touch the ball and we still win, it’s not that big of a deal.”

This spring, potential starting quarterback Miller Moss smiled and shrugged when asked what a team with his DNA would look like. I think we will seehe said at the time. Months later, while representing USC at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Moss was asked again what aspects of his mentality he wanted to incorporate into the program.

He hoped the group would be selfless, he replied, and spoke directly about his talents, guys.

“I think that’s the key to success, especially in the offseason, especially when you have a lot of guys who — and rightfully so — demand a lot of touches,” Moss told the Southern California News Group. “And they’re obviously very talented and have every right to want that.”

Branch, after an All-American season as a true freshman returner in 2023, has been praised by Riley and teammates alike for his progress in increasing his IQ as a receiver. The lanky Lane’s development, after a two-touchdown performance in the Holiday Bowl and an offseason in which he gained 15 pounds, has been “crazy,” as Branch put it. Lemon’s precision and cuts while running routes have bounced off the turf in camp. The 6-foot-6 Robinson could emerge as a threat in the red zone.

Add in Fair from Auburn, Kyle Ford, who returned from USC to UCLA and then to USC, and a confident returner like Hudson, and the battle for touches will continue throughout December.

“I think the guys in our room now are not selfish at all. They want everyone to win,” Fair said in July. “And I think Lincoln Riley’s team has done a great job in the past of being able to use multiple players on offense.”