One Play Away

You are a highly recruited high school athlete and you are being recruited by all the major programs in college football. Your love for one school is worn on your chest for all to see. The campaign is carried out and on NSD-1 or NSD-Original you announce the obvious. You are attending the school you love. The school that you wore the colors of throughout your childhood and played recreational sports like Pop Warner etc through High School. You arrive on campus early and are eager to compete.

Things happen. Every position in sports is backed up by players who for whatever reason were not chosen to start. But those starters are one play away from an injury that could ring the bell of the backup players who are thrust into a game in progress with little or no warning. You are rushed into the game and although your mind was prepping all week that rush onto the battlefield is never as you had thought. The defensive coordinator on the other sideline is going to try and shock you back to the sideline where you came from. But for some, like Jaxson Dart and Kedon Slovis recently, they surge on the scene and command the line of scrimmage as if they started the season as a QB-1.

One play away and your career is getting attention. You are starting to get that post-game interview for the first time. Some get overwhelmed but some grab the microphone and own it. With Dart and Slovis we all saw how uncomfortable this can be and yet over time both Trojan QB's settled into their role as starters.

The current USC Football roster is pretty much set for springtime. Sure there will be adjustments so if you are Hasan or Moss you know that Caleb is coming in as #1. So where is your mindset? Are you still committed to the program and school? Remember Matt Cassel? We all saw him starting for the Trojans and along came Matt. The rest was history. But what happened to poor Matt Cassel? He went on to show off his talents in the NFL and had a very good run and made a great career out of what he didn't get handed to him at USC. His attitude was to be ready. He, unfortunately, didn't get a lot of snaps as those years the offensive line was pretty stout and Matt was well protected.

I really don't envision Caleb Williams as the real competition for Moss. I think the 2023 recruits coming in will be the real test but at the same time, it should give Miller time to get earn the QB-1 role if and when Caleb decides to bolt for the NFL early. In the meantime, Moss gets a free USC Diploma and builds his network for post-football and beyond. Not so bad and he's a smart kid who has been raised well and seems locked in on what his role will be. You all know how I feel and I hope to see this play out where one day we see Miller breaking the huddle and commanding the USC offense in the future.