Jaxson Dart is "day-to-day" with injury, and other notes from Donte Williams

Jaxson Dart’s first-half knee injury against Washington State didn’t stop the true freshman from finishing the game or putting together an eye-opening performance. But it will stop him from participating in a full week of practice, head coach Donte Williams said on USC’s Trojans Live radio show Monday night.

“He’s day-to-day,” Williams said of Dart. “And we’re going to save Jaxson from himself a little bit…The quarterback competition will continue, but right now we’re going to hold him out a little bit for precautionary reasons and he’ll be day-to-day.”

Dart called last week a “roller coaster” with Clay Helton getting fired on Monday and replaced by Williams. Dart was then unexpectedly thrust into his first game action on Saturday, when Kedon Slovis went down on USC’s first drive of the game.

That roller coaster continued on Dart’s first handful of drives. His first resulted in an interception. His third stopped due to his own fumble. On the fourth, he came up after a scramble with a notable limp. He never missed a play and finished that drive with the first touchdown pass of his career. It was a 38-yard strike on fourth down to Gary Bryant Jr.

“Early on, I think I had my emotions get the best of me a little bit,” Dart said. “I was just super jacked up to be in there and the game was just a little fast for me at the start. Later on, I was able to hone in…I think that fourth-down conversion gave me a lot of confidence and I think it was a huge boost for our team.”

“He got a little dinged up,” Williams said. “And you got a chance to see, even though he was dinged up in that game, he still battled and played the whole game.”

More injury notes

Slovis watched the rest of the game from the sideline after exiting early in the first quarter. Wide receiver Drake London left the game following his second touchdown grab. His head contacted the ground hard as he was thrown down into the endzone.

Williams said Slovis and London are “a little dinged up,” but didn’t go into specifics about whether they would be out or return to practice. On Sunday, Williams said he believed Slovis would be ready to return to practice early in the week.

Williams praised wide receivers Kyle Ford and Joseph Manjack IV for their performances when London went out.

“That’s why we practice,” Williams said. “We practice to make sure guys behind other guys are prepared to play when their number’s called. And that happened. It’s all about us continuing to fight on and making sure that every guy is prepared to play. If you travel on that trip, be prepared to play. We traveled with 74 and 62 played.”

A tough grader

Despite a 45-14 win, Williams gave himself a C- when asked to grade his performance.

“I’m extremely hard on myself,” Williams said. “I expect still a lot more. It’s a lot of things I can do to improve. It’s a lot of things I can do to improve to make sure our team is ready to play in the first half like they did in the second. I look at myself. No matter what I do, I want to be great at it. Otherwise, you might as well not do it. I still have a long ways to go just like we have a long ways to go as a team.”

Williams blamed himself for the delay of game penalty that pushed the Trojans back five yards. He said he was still getting some first-time coaching lessons on the day of the game.

Williams said he asked for the red flag coaches can throw to challenge a play. He was told instead to call a timeout and they can initiate the challenge then.

“Before the game, I’m like, ‘Where’s my red flag at?'” Williams said. “If I gotta throw the red flag, I want to throw it.”

Accountability

Monday marked the first time Williams could enforce post-game accountability in practice. He said all players who committed penalties had to stay after practice. Every yard in penalties earned players 10 yards of sprints and up-downs. Williams, by virtue of the delay of game, joined the players.

“When those guys that got penalties ran and did up-downs at the end of practice, so did I,” Williams said. “We’re all in this together. I did my up-downs and ran with the rest of them.”

Defensive adjustments

The defensive players said following Saturday’s game that there wasn’t much of a scheme tweak that turned 14 first-half points into a shutout for the rest of the game. Williams echoed that thought on Monday. He said the early success for Washington State came by way of individual mistakes by USC defenders.

“When you watch the film, it was always one guy kind of off,” Williams said. “It’s Cover 2 and the corner’s too deep, a guy getting off a block and takes a bad angle, it’s Cover 2 and a linebacker doesn’t drop into the fit. Just little things. And credit to Washington State, the quarterback was finding the holes every time.”

Williams said the ability of the USC defense to start getting to the quarterback played a big part in slowing down the Cougar offense.

“Once coach Orlando settled in, it was over,” Williams said.