Caleb Williams, MarShawn Lloyd break down 54-yard pass play

The USC offense posted highlight-reel play after highlight-reel play during the Trojans’ 66-14 win against the Nevada Wolf Pack this past Saturday. A number of plays from quarterback Caleb Williams and running back MarShawn Lloyd were worth discussing, but there was clearly one that stood out to Lloyd.

In the most recent episode of Almost Pro: USC Football, Williams and host John Terzian have Lloyd on as a guest. Williams asked Lloyd to talk about his first touchdown as a USC Trojan, but Lloyd quickly went to a different play.

“What I really want to talk about is that play we’d been running all week,” Lloyd said. “Me and Caleb had been running this play all week…And all week, I’d been dropping the ball. I dropped the ball like 20 times.”

Lloyd said he made sure he approached Williams during walkthrough on Friday and recalled him telling the quarterback, “Bro, let’s get this route.”

Williams said he and Lloyd worked on the play a few times, just the two of them, on Friday at the end of walkthrough. That extra work might have made all the difference.

Lloyd said the throw in the game from Williams was the first time he’d ever gotten the throw over his back shoulder. The USC running back wound up spinning around to bring the ball in and rumbling for a 54-yard gain. It highlighted all the agility and explosiveness Lloyd brings to the position, along with tremendous ball skills.

“There was a guy on this side, so I’m thinking Caleb is going to throw it far and I have to run and get it,” Lloyd said. “But Caleb put it on my back shoulder, so it made me turn around. It was a great play.”

Williams didn’t put all the practice drops on Lloyd. He said that he overthrew some and backed Lloyd up by saying it’s a “weird angle” for a running back to have to catch a ball.

“We just kept missing or messing up the play,” Williams said of the execution during practice.

But when the play call came in from the sideline against Nevada, Williams said he saw the Wolf Pack defense lined up in a two-high safety look, exactly how the Trojans wanted them.

“I didn’t even really look at coach Riley,” Williams said. “It was kind of like a check-with-me play just because there was so much going on with that one play. It was a check with coach play. I kind of peeked over there, but the look looked exactly how we practiced. Shout out to the scout team. It looked just how it looked in practice.”

Williams then took the listeners through what he saw on the play.

“I set hard to the right, came back left, made sure I held the people on the left, and while I was coming back to the left, I saw MarShawn just kind of shoot down the middle,” Williams said. “So I set hard left to make sure I also saw that side. And I snapped back and threw the ball to MarShawn. I did not throw the ball I wanted to throw. But it was a completion. Big play. Big explosive play.”

“It was really cool to be in that moment,” Williams said. “You kind of see the hard work that pays off. It’s pretty cool to be able to have that moment.”