Caleb Williams calls for more consistency for USC

The USC Trojans picked up their first win of the 2023 college football season in Week 0, beating San Jose State. The Trojans defended their home field successfully, walking off with a 56-28 victory over the Spartans led by Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Caleb Williams.

For as good as the USC offense looked in their season opener, their star quarterback understands that there are things the team still needs to work on. And as they prepare for their Week 1 competition against Nevada, Williams details the top areas of improvement the Trojans need to address this week.

“It varies from week to week, but I would say this week is consistent. It’s something that I push myself on every single day,” said Williams. “But being able to push a whole offense and team is something that we’ve talked about at our leadership council… It’s just consistency and keep pushing.

“We can’t take anybody for granted, (and) we can’t take anything for granted. We had a good team last week; we have another good team this week. If you go out there and you’re not consistent, you don’t execute, you don’t have second-effort plays, scores are a lot closer than they should be. Whether you’re playing a championship game or whatever the case may be, scores are always going to be a lot closer when you don’t have second-effort plays (and) consistency. Those are the two most important things, I would say.”

While it wasn’t a flawless performance, Williams and USC’s offense dominated San Jose State. The Trojan star quarterback finished the game, completing 18 of his 25 pass attempts for 278 yards with four passing touchdowns. Still, USC will have to find their consistency before they start Pac-12 play if they want to avoid a repeat of 2022. Something that Williams and the rest of the Trojans would prefer to avoid this time around.

On3’s J.D PicKell ponders what happens if USC’s struggles defensively against Nevada

USC’s offense looked on par with last year’s offense. At the same time, the same thing could be said about their defense, as they gave up 28 points to San Jose State. This week, the Trojans’ defense can’t allow a similar result to happen. On3’s J.D PicKell gave his thoughts on what if, defensively, USC has multiple lapses for the second week in a row against a lesser opponent, while on the Andy Staples’ Podcast.

“Last game, too, you had Chevan Cordeiro, who’s going into his sixth year playing college football,” said PicKell. “And to your point, Andy, you could reason and say, ‘ OK, there are some things here that need to be adjusted.’ And I think that it’s a pretty fair conversation if you are a USC fan that what you saw in game one doesn’t have to be what you roll out in that game against Notre Dame in South Bend.

“But, like you said, if it’s multiple games in a row where you’re like, ‘OK, there is something seriously wrong here.’ And you point the finger back at Alex Grinch, saying ‘We got coverage busted against teams that we shouldn’t have coverage busted against in our second week of playing competitive football, like, what is going on?’”

As the segment closes, PicKell turned his attention to what this worst-case scenario could mean for USC and its fans. It wouldn’t be just the fact that USC assembled another promising team only to come up short, but that they couldn’t rally around arguably one of the greatest college football players in recent history.

“We’re aligned here on what USC could be with Caleb Williams. If you don’t have the defense to go with him at USC, you’re wasting a generational talent.”