Brenden Rice excited for USC’s season: Can’t wait to ‘get this championship going’
The USC Trojans are eager to get the ball rolling on their 2023 campaign, which will start on Saturday, Aug. 26, against San Jose State. One player who is amped up and excited for the upcoming season is star wide receiver Brenden Rice.
Recently, Rice shared his level of excitement for the upcoming season, along with his thoughts on USC’s wide receiver room.
“Man, I’m so excited. It’s a blessing to be out here with these guys. And I can’t wait just to get this group of guys and get rolling and get this championship going,” said Rice.
“We can be as great as we want to be. We control our own fate. And I can’t wait to see us down the road and how we handle adversity and stuff like that.”
As the norm with a Lincoln Riley offense, USC has a plethora of weapons on that side of the ball, with Rice being one of them. The 6-foot-3 senior wide receiver and son of NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice is entering his second season in the program after spitting his first two at Colorado. Last season for USC, Rice recorded 39 catches for 611 yards with four touchdowns. He truly displayed his ability as a pass-catching threat in USC’s 46-45 loss in the Cotton Bowl Classic against Tulane, where he had six receptions for 174 yards and two touchdowns.
This season at USC, championships are on the minds of everyone associated with the program. The Trojans would love nothing better than to bounce back in 2022, capturing the Pac-12 title along with a national championship in the College Football Playoff. And that journey will start with a victory against San Jose State on Saturday.
Riley explains why he’s so excited about USC’s wide receiver room
Head coach Lincoln Riley also echoed Rice’s excitement for the fast-approaching season. But the Trojans’ headman has run into an interesting problem: trying to figure out what to do with his USC wide receiver room.
“The reality is every one of the freshmen are ready to play,” Riley said on the weekly Trojans Live program. “Every one of the transfers are ready to play. And every one of the guys that we brought back are ready to play.”
As a result, there’s a glut of talent in the USC wide receiver room and Riley will have to figure out how to sort through it.
The team officially released its depth chart on Wednesday and there were four starters listed at receiver: Kyron Hudson, Brenden Rice, Mario Williams and Dorian Singer. All have proven capable players in the past.
Singer is probably the anchor of the unit, a star at Arizona a year ago. Williams and Rice both topped 600 yards receiving last year. So too did Tahj Washington, who went for 785 yards and six scores last season but was listed as a backup on the initial 2023 depth chart.
Thus the problem for Riley. How in the world do you figure out who to play?
“That’s why we get paid, right? It’s a good room,” he said. “Looking at it right now just in August, that one room right now to me is exciting because I don’t know that there’s one guy in there that we don’t want to play. Typically even if you have a good room you might have a couple of guys that aren’t quite ready to play.”