USC-Washington notebook: Kyle Ford starts over Ja’Kobi Lane at WR
SEATTLE – For weeks on end, Kyle Ford’s mental process was largely the same.
Frustration boiling on Saturday, only a couple of spare targets sent his way. Golf on Sunday, to step out of his own mind. Practice on Monday, to reset. Sometimes the reset didn’t come, fully, until Tuesday.
Finally, though, last Friday, Ford earned the looks he’d returned back from UCLA to USC for – hauling in a crossing route against Rutgers and stiff-arming a defender on a traipse into the end zone for his first touchdown of the year.
“It’s obviously really important for guys to take advantage of their opportunity,” Moss said, on Tuesday. “I think Kyle did that, in the best way possible.”
Ford had been able to “stay in the moment,” Lincoln Riley noted Tuesday, a trend USC’s head coach expected to continue. And when USC trotted out in front of towel-waving Husky faithful on a brisk Saturday night, Ford lined up at outside receiver – his first start of the year, and displacing sophomore Ja’Kobi Lane in Lane’s first opening-drive appearance on the bench since Week 1 against LSU.
Since a 10-catch, 105-yard, two-touchdown breakout against Wisconsin where the 6-foot-4 Lane looked primed to step into the limelight as the next great receiver in a long Trojan lineage, his momentum had stalled, pulling in a ridiculous one-handed TD against Maryland but recording just 10 catches across the last four weeks. And Riley turned to Ford, who’d come to USC in the transfer portal in the spring on a “conversation of competition” at outside receiver, according to father Dan.
“It was to a point to where we know we’ve got younger receivers,” Dan told the Southern California News Group this week. “But, I’ll be honest with you. Me and Kyle felt we’re better than them.”
Ford had a chance to prove it Saturday – and couldn’t quite deliver, as a slightly long first-quarter pass from Moss tipped off his outstretched arms and was picked off by Washington. He didn’t record a catch in the first half, while Lane ended up hauling in three balls on subsequent drives to lead the Trojans in first-half receiving yards with 52.
In partial good health
It seemed a bad omen from the universe on Tuesday, when Lincoln Riley was in the middle of delivering an injury update on a banged-up secondary – and a team cart carrying buckets of Gatorade slammed into a nearby wall on Howard Jones Field.
“Obviously we’ll take any number we can,” Riley said before his attention was suddenly seized by a loud thump in the distance.
“Uh-oh,” Riley said, staring as a bucket of ice suddenly lay scattered across the turf. “Hit that corner tough.”
And USC could little afford another string of poor injury luck, with seven starters sidelined by the second half of the previous week’s win over Rutgers. They got some positive news, though, with the return of cornerbacks Jaylin Smith and Greedy Vance Jr. Smith, in particular, was a massive lift to USC’s defense Saturday, the program’s best-performing outside corner all season racking up a team-leading four tackles in the first half.
Bryson Shaw, meanwhile, started again at safety in place of hard-hitting Kamari Ramsey after a solid performance in the previous week’s win over Rutgers. DeCarlos Nicholson started his third game of the year at outside corner in place of Jacobe Covington, supplanted on various drives by fellow backup corner John Humphrey.