When Bryan Jackson first arrived at USC last January, he was still a few months away from his 18th birthday. The bright-eyed freshman had graduated from high school early, hoping to get off to a good start at USC. And it was immediately clear how quickly the ground moved beneath his feet.
But Jackson, a 230-pound power back, decided not to let the speed of it all consume him. He watched closely as Woody Marks, the Trojans’ workhorse and Jackson’s roommate on the road, played his way through a stellar season. He recorded Marks’ every move, how he arrived early and stayed late, how he took care of his body, how he watched movies and filed it all away for when his moment finally came.
At the time, it may have seemed like Jackson would have to wait a while, with Marks leading the way and standout sophomore Quinten Joyner waiting in the wings. But Marks opted out of the bowl game and Joyner entered the transfer portal, and suddenly the keys to USC’s backfield for Friday’s Las Vegas Bowl against Texas A&M were in the hands of one of the youngest players on USC’s roster, a freshman with barely 20 bears his name.
“It’s an opportunity for me,” Jackson said recently, “one of the biggest of my life.”
Similar circumstances are playing out across college football this month, with the transfer portal ravaging rosters and potential NFL prospects opting out of bowls in droves. USC has already had 19 players enter the transfer portal, while three more – Marks, center Jonah Monheim and cornerback Jaylin Smith – opted to skip the bowl game rather than prepare for the draft.
That has left plenty of opportunities for the taking over the past month, both in the USC lineup and in the USC lineup. In addition to a brand new backfield, USC will have two new offensive linemen – Kilian O’Connor at center and Tobias Raymond at right guard – and will be without three of this season’s top five receivers. On both sides of the ball, young players are expected to play a big role Friday as USC looks ahead to next season.
“There’s a part of this that feels like the last game of the year and in some ways feels like the first game of next year,” USC coach Lincoln Riley said.
Texas A&M coach Mike Elko, on the other hand, said he has essentially already put the Aggies’ season behind him. With three starters out along the Aggies’ defensive front, Elko said Friday that his staff approached the bowl more as an “opener” than as the final stamp on their season. He expects that USC will also look very different than it did a few weeks ago.
“You’re playing with guys in new places, with new faces,” Riley said. “Even the preparation for it is a little bit different because you don’t have your full squad. But you have to adapt. I think going through what we did last year helped us. I think we are less surprised by what happened and that we understood how to plan from the beginning.”
The depth was actually much more serious last December, when USC had just 53 players active for the Holiday Bowl. Still, USC rode an army of reserves and a six-touchdown showing from backup quarterback Miller Moss to a riveting victory that gave the Trojans a surge of momentum heading into the offseason.
That momentum didn’t mean much by the time USC’s first Big Ten slate was in full swing, as Moss was benched and the Trojans limped to a 6-6 finish. But it was during this past bowl season that several building blocks for future USC teams first emerged. They include left tackle Elijah Paige and standout receiver Ja’Kobi Lane, who burst onto the scene with two touchdowns in the Holiday Bowl.
Those opportunities, Riley reiterated Thursday, can be incredibly valuable.
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“It’s an opportunity to showcase the program, it’s an opportunity for young guys to play,” Riley said. “It’s another opportunity, and we’re just not getting that many in this game.”
It could again have special consequences for USC’s plans at the quarterback position. Riley has yet to bring another passer into the transfer portal and said earlier this month that any new quarterback added would only serve as “depth” behind Jayden Maiava. But Maiava was used under similar circumstances last January, only to supplant Moss as the starter in November.
He could get another quarterback to compete with soon enough in five-star freshman Husan Longstreet, who joined the team for practices this month and was part of the bowl festivities in Las Vegas. Circumstances were unusual enough for Maiava this week, as USC practiced on the campus of Nevada Las Vegas, the school he left to join USC.
“He never expected anything other than for us to coach and develop him hard,” Riley said of his quarterback, “and he was ready when his opportunity came.”
That’s the attitude Jackson has tried to take into bowl season, preparing as if this is his moment to take control of USC’s backfield for 2025. He’ll share carries with another young back, A’Marion Peterson, on Friday before another one arrives soon enough. ball carrier – New Mexico’s Eli Sanders – joins the mix. The prospects for USC’s rushing attack can only get dimmer from there.
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Riley called it “a great opportunity for [Jackson and Peterson] to show that they can do the things that big backs in our attack have to do.
It’s been a while since Riley has run with a true power back like Jackson, but the freshman has spent bowl season trying to convince the coach he’s ready, with plenty of cuts and bruises to prove it .
“It was a grind, man,” Jackson said with a smile.
But opportunities like this, he knows, don’t come around often.
“They gave me the opportunity to be the guy,” Jackson said, “so I’m giving it everything I’ve got.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
