Travis Dye details how quickly he got acclimated inside USC locker room

USC transfer running back Travis Dye joined the Trojans earlier this year, along with many other transfer additions. But Dye said despite his short amount of time with the team, that he meshed and bonded with the team very quickly through their offseason workouts and practices.

“I’ll guess with any team it’s with the workouts and everything you do with the football because this stuff is hard, it’s not easy so you glue together with the guys. But there’s something different about this team and these guys, it was so much quicker and so much better than any other group I’ve been a part of,” Dye said.

Dye attributes the easy transition to the USC players that were already on the roster for creating a welcoming environment for him, and hopefully for other players with so many new faces on the roster and with team camaraderie being so crucial to success.

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“These guys they brought me in and I was one with them so quick I couldn’t even process it really. I feel like I’ve been here for five years, I just got here last February, but it was all thanks to the guys that were here before me setting that up,” Dye said.

Dye had a phenomenal four-year career at Oregon before joining the Trojans, accumulating 3,111 rushing yards (fifth most in school history), 869 receiving yards, and 305 kickoff return yards.  Dye was the Ducks rushing and receiving leader last season, and the Trojans are hoping that he and other transfers Caleb Williams and Jordan Addison can be a three-headed monster in Lincoln Riley‘s offense this season.

Alex Grinch breaks down need for transfer portal production in Year 1

USC‘s Alex Grinch is approaching his first season with the Trojans as their defensive coordinator and safeties coach. There are a ton of new faces on the Trojan’s roster largely from the transfer portal, and Grinch broke down how he and head coach Lincoln Riley approached acquiring players these players to construct their roster. 

“Number one you want to upgrade, I mean anytime you bring somebody in you look at the numbers, and this is the last year to the limit to 25. Now we didn’t have a big issue with that because we didn’t have the numbers from a high school standpoint. Either the first signing class or even into that second signing class, so the 25 wasn’t a huge concern but it’s something to be cognizant of. Anytime you bring anybody in, specifically as a transfer, you want to like the word upgrade, you don’t want to go same as, you don’t want to go equal then,” Grinch said.

Grinch is referring to the NCAA rule that currently allows 25 players to sign to a school per signing class, which has been eliminated for the next two upcoming seasons, which will allow teams to sign as many players possible up to the 85 scholarship limit for the roster. 

Some of the big name, transfer portal additions to USC like Caleb Williams and Jordan Addison have dominated the offseason headlines, but Grinch highlighted some of the struggles that came with building the current Trojans roster.

“But one of the things from a numbers standpoint that we found ourselves in this first year was just strictly based off on need, now that’s not a good situation to be in where you’re just literally trying to fill enough at a particular position so that you can have a spring practice. That happened too much in this first year, that’s just the reality of it, and moving forward we’ve got to make sure that’s obviously not the case,” Grinch said.

Despite these struggles, the Trojans are still holding themselves to a high standard and expect big things this season, as they continue to prepare themselves for their season opener and figure out who their best 11 will be on both sides of the ball this season.