USC TE Lake McRee shows he’s tough to keep down

COLLEGE PARK — Flag football was never quite the game Lake McRee was meant to play, and yet a flag football game still stands as one of Clint McRee’s favorite memories of his son’s childhood.

In one matchup, Lake McRee’s quarterback threw a pick, as Clint McRee tells it – so blatant that most kids would’ve eased up and made no attempt at giving chase. But as the field flipped, a young McRee sprinted toward the defender, lunged and ripped away his flag a yard before he crossed into the end zone.

After the game, the opposing coach approached Clint McRee.

“We’re probably going to read about Lake,” McRee’s father remembered him saying, “in the newspaper someday.”

He’s been in the newspaper plenty since, for plenty of good, a former high school standout in Texas and a junior tight end at USC who’d led the Trojans in receiving yards through the first two games of 2024. He’s been in the newspaper too, though, for plenty of bad luck, injuries curtailing his momentum at every turn since his days at Lake Travis. First came an ACL tear his junior year of high school. Then came another tear in a practice before December’s Holiday Bowl. And after a remarkably quick recovery, Lake McRee crumpled to the turf in Week 3 off a low hit by a Michigan defender, seen bursting into tears on the sideline bench after limping off.

Within four games, after what looked at first like another season-ending injury, Lake McRee was back starting at tight end for USC against Maryland on Saturday.

“He just kind of keeps bouncing back,” Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley said in September, even before his latest bounceback. “He’s incredibly tough, resilient, a smart player.”

The ACL tear before the Holiday Bowl, in short, was devastating, as Clint McRee put it. His son was motivated to show a glimpse of the future, catching balls from backup-turned-starter Miller Moss, the two growing close after coming into USC in the same 2021 class. Instead, he crumpled in a bowl practice in what Riley called a “gut punch” before the Holiday Bowl, with a long road staring him down to return – at all – after his second ACL surgery.

But that first tear, his junior year of high school, was a blessing, in a way. lake McRee had been through it, physically and mentally. He knew exactly what his rehab would entail. And he never once let himself go to a place mentally, his father said, of thinking he wouldn’t get back.

“I tried to always tell myself that I was going to be back for – not even first game, I wanted to be back for fall camp, so,” Lake McRee said, earlier in the fall. “If I shot my goal for that, then I’d definitely be back for the first game. So that was kinda my plan.”

Full returns after ACL tears, for football players, can take roughly close to a year. lake McRee was back in about seven months, there suited up in pads for the start of USC’s fall camp. He had a direct goal in rehab, Clint McRee said, to minimize muscle atrophy; he did physical therapy three times a day for six times a week.

“I dare say, I think Lake actually started this season stronger and bigger, from a football perspective, than he was last year,” Clint McRee said.

It showed, early in 2024, before Lake McRee was sidelined again in Week Three. It showed, a few games later, the tight end avoiding major injury on that low hit by a Michigan defender, returning against Maryland and targeted by Moss for a nine-yard catch on the first play of the game.

Lake McRee has broken his hand. Broken his arm. Fractured his arm. Torn his knees – twice.

He’s still kicking, and USC is all the better for it, their starting tight end opening another safety valve for Moss against Maryland.

“That’s,” Clint McRee said last week, “just who he is.”