USC's wide receiver room fired up following the addition of Jordan Addison
Amidst all the celebration from USC fans when wide receiver Jordan Addison announced his commitment to USC, there were some positive words from an interesting segment of the USC roster. Addison’s new USC wide receiver teammates were clearly fired up with his decision.
It isn’t exactly a zero-sum game when it comes to receptions, yards and touches for the wide receiver. A better offense has a chance to result in more touches for everybody. But it’s also easy to assume that Addison will eat up a healthy number of those opportunities this season. This is someone who caught 100 passes and led the country with 17 receiving touchdowns last year. It would have been understandable had the USC wide receivers met the news with a little disappointment. But the reaction spoke loudly as to the mindset of this team.
Fellow transfer Brenden Rice called it a “day of celebration,” seeming to add a note that the new competition will “fuel the fire.”
Second-year receiver Kyron Ware-Hudson posted an immediate “Welcome,” message to Addison’s tweet announcing his commitment.
Rice also echoed the spring sentiment from players and coaches, that this is not a rebuilding year. The goal is a championship. And the addition of Addison makes that more likely than before.
Kyle Ford posed a general question to his audience that maybe opposing defensive coordinators have thought about following the Addison news.
“How can you double team everyone?” Ford asked.
Terrell Bynum clearly can’t wait to see how many points the Trojans are able to put up on the scoreboard. It seems likely USC will easily outpace the points per game it put up the past handful of seasons. Bynum’s expectations as far as stats and points per game might be a little far-fetched. But the spirit is admirable.
USC’s 2022 Wide Receiver Room (so far)
USC has a Drake London-sized hole in its wide receiver room right now. London, the first wide receiver selected in the recent NFL Draft, caught 88 passes for 1,084 yards and seven touchdowns last season. That was going to be impossible to fill with only the scheduled players returning.
So head coach Lincoln Riley and staff turned to the transfer portal. The Trojans landed four wide receivers from it and now have, on paper at least, the strongest group in the conference and one of the strongest in the country.
Here’s a look at what each brings in terms of previous production.
Jordan Addison – 160 receptions for 2,259 yards and 21 touchdowns at Pitt
Tahj Washington – 100 receptions for 1,377 yards and seven touchdowns at Memphis and USC
Terrell Bynum – 65 receptions for 934 yards and six touchdowns at Washington
Gary Bryant Jr. – 51 receptions for 630 yards and seven touchdowns at USC
Mario Williams – 35 receptions for 380 yards and four touchdowns at Oklahoma
Brenden Rice – 27 receptions for 419 yards and five touchdowns at Colorado
Kyle Ford – 20 receptions for 272 yards and three touchdowns at USC
Michael Jackson III – 12 receptions for 116 yards at USC
John Jackson III – Four receptions for 39 yards at USC
Kyron Ware-Hudson – Two receptions for four yards at USC
C.J. Williams – True freshman early enrollee
