Musings from Arledge: USC's transfer portal losses and signing day additions

The transfer portal has really made college football weird. I don’t have a problem with kids leaving for another school. I did it myself—just couldn’t turn down the huge NIL offer from William Jewell 31 years ago. 

Coaches leave. Students who aren’t football players leave. I don’t see why football players should be locked in. 

But it changes almost everything. You’re not recruiting only high school players now. You’re not even recruiting transfer portal guys. You’re recruiting your entire roster every season.

USC has lost a group of big-name players in the last couple of weeks. Some of those losses will hurt. Some are pretty surprising.

I don’t think Raleek Brown’s move was surprising. And maybe it’s for the best. The kid has some talent, but I don’t know where you’re supposed to play him. He’s not going to run between the tackles for you, and he never did learn to get upfield. More troubling for a guy who insists on running east-west, while he’s athletic, he’s not Reggie Bush athletic. He’s not De’Anthony Thomas athletic. He’s not Zachariah Branch athletic. He could play slot receiver, but I don’t think he wants to, and he simply wasn’t as good as some of the guys USC had ahead of him, including Branch. So maybe his move makes sense. 

I certainly didn’t expect to lose Malachi Nelson this early. He’s not ready to be a starter at USC, so a one-year QB rental from Kansas State shouldn’t scare him away. And he seemed to understand the value of playing for Lincoln Riley. Yet here he is, trying to decide whether to attend a school like Tulane or Cal instead. 

That Malachi is looking at the programs on his list is either an indication that he badly wants to start somewhere right now—which is short-sighted, I think, but I get it—or an admission that he may just not be good enough to be a starting quarterback at USC under Lincoln Riley. We don’t know, because we don’t see practice and can’t get inside his head. But it’s hard to imagine he would give up USC and Riley’s tutelage—and all that comes with it—to take over at Tulane or Houston if he really believed he could get the starting job after one more year of sitting.

In any event, USC will replace him. He may turn out to be a good player, but he’s not a generational talent. And Lincoln Riley won’t have trouble finding talented transfer quarterbacks.

Stranger still is the departure of Tackett Curtis. USC fans were extremely excited about Curtis coming into last season, and for good reason. The kid has talent, he plays hard, and he appears to love football. And USC’s coaches invested heavily in him. Over-invested, maybe. Curtis wasn’t ready to play last year. He had played very little linebacker in high school, and it’s a huge step up in competition from high school ball in Many, Louisiana to the Pac-12 conference. He didn’t play very well—and that’s to be expected under the circumstances. But the coaches played him anyway, trying to develop him for the future. The team suffered for it, because it wanted to nurture a future All-American. Now that future will be elsewhere. 

It’s hard to feel good about that. It’s hard to understand it, frankly. USC will miss Curtis. They won’t miss what he did last season—we could do without that—but they’ll miss what he could have become. I still think he’s going to be an excellent player, and he’ll be harder to replace than Malachi Nelson or Raleek Brown. 

I assume Domani Jackson’s departure is tied to Donte Williams’. But that’s odd, isn’t it? Williams is going to Georgia. Georgia doesn’t need a corner who plays the way Jackson played last year. The reality is that Domani wasn’t very good. He’s young and talented; he might become good. But he was a liability much of the time in 2023. I wonder if Domani understands that, and if he does, what he thinks was the cause? He must not blame Donte Williams, otherwise the coaching change would be a good thing. Does he blame Alex Grinch? Also gone. Does he think he played well? If he thinks that, maybe we should be glad he’s gone. I really don’t know what to make of it.

I know this. USC hasn’t had good corner play in years. Chris Steele, ITS, Domani Jackson, and a whole parade of four-star recruits have played like they don’t understand their assignments. The only guy who performed at a high level was Mekhi Blackmon, who learned to play somewhere else. Christian Roland-Wallace performed a step below Blackmon but pretty well. He also learned to play somewhere else. 

I know Donte is going to the top program in college football. You don’t have to tell me that Kirby Smart knows a whole lot more about football than I’ll ever know. But it’s strange to see a guy with Donte’s reputation turn out the Saturday work product that he’s turned out for some years now. Maybe it’s somebody else’s fault. Maybe it’s all Alex Grinch and Todd Orlando. I certainly have no problem shoveling blame on those two guys. It’s one of my hobbies. But I’d like a guy who is supposed to be an elite position coach to have some production, not just viable excuses. And while Grinch and Orlando are capable of messing up all kinds of things, can we really blame them for Donte’s inability to teach his corners to play man coverage? To tackle? 

I may be wrong about Donte. Maybe he dominates at Georgia and becomes a successful head coach one day. But I won’t miss him. I feel like I’ve seen enough.

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On the high school recruiting front, USC is struggling to compete in free agency—that’s what recruiting is these days—with programs that have more NIL money to spend. USC has some, and they use it. But they don’t have Oregon money or Texas money. And they’re going to have a hard time landing the bluest of the blue chips as a result.

But I have to say, I like what they’ve done with the last two classes. USC can find quarterbacks, running backs, and receivers in the portal. With this defensive staff in place, they can probably find quality defensive players in the back seven to plug holes.

What they can’t do is transfer portal their way to a solid offensive line. And I don’t think they’ll have to. They may still have some growing pains this year, as their first full O-line classes are still young. But I like what they’ve done upfront over the last two years. They have some studs—Elijah Paige, Jason Zandamela—some guys who are well regarded and probably still underrated like Makai Saina and Alani Noa, and a whole bunch of guys who are either big and athletic or athletic with the frames to add a lot of weight. I’m not worried about star ratings with offensive linemen. For every Francis Mauigoa who is almost certain to be a star, there are a large group of other guys who become stars only after developing. Offensive line is the hardest position group to project. You need guys who are (or will become) big; that’s obvious. But you need athleticism. You need guys who are smart. You need guys who are willing to grind. You need guys who will work together. And you need cohesion, which is why the portal might work to fill a hole or two, but can’t be the answer for the entire line.

Riley and Henson have put together two straight O-line classes that are pretty exciting. I think those efforts will pay off over the next two to three years.

I also feel really good about the edge guys USC has recruited on defense over the last two years. There are some big, athletic guys in both classes—guys with high motors, too. Some of these guys will be big enough to play with a hand in the dirt. Some will stay upright and rush off the edge. But I think USC’s edge recruits over the last two years are really good. USC will get after the passer. Maybe not in 2024; we’ll see about that. But in 2025 and 2026, absolutely. You know, unless they decide to transfer. I guess we always have to include that caveat.

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I know I shouldn’t do it, but did anybody else see that video of Clay Helton on signing day? I still can’t believe USC hired that guy as its head football coach and kept him around for six years. It’s a crime that guy isn’t doing what he was truly called to do: running a summer camp for junior high kids. He would be amazing.

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Losing recruits to Oregon always makes me angry. USC isn’t going to miss Ryan Pellum. I’m sure the kid will be a good player, but average-sized, four-star receivers grow on trees for USC. Lincoln Riley has only to stamp his foot for four-star receivers to spring up at USC. (Give me the reference without a Google search, Trojans. One two or three people at Oregon could do it.) 

I don’t blame a kid for taking more money from Oregon. I like money, too. Most everybody I know wants more of it. But it would be nice for one kid, one day to be honest about what happened. Here’s Pellum’s quote: “I think I’ll be better produced over there as a receiver. Think I got a better chance over there. As far as developing myself as a receiver.” Yeah, the school that produced Amon-Ra, Drake London, Michael Pittman, JuJu, Jordan Addison (kind of), Nelson Agholor, Robert Woods, Marqise Lee, Johnnie Morton, Curtis Conway, Keyshawn Johnson, Mike Williams and Lynn Swann probably can’t help you develop as a receiver. Especially in an offense that never throws the ball. USC: Dead End for Receivers U.

Come on, kid. You took Uncle Phil’s money. Don’t be embarrassed. Lots of people do it. Just own it. Don’t say ridiculous things thinking it will hide what really happened. It’s embarrassing.

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Does anybody else feel sorry for Kirby Smart, seeing him lose all of those studs to the portal? I wonder if he’ll be able to field a football team next year?

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Holiday Bowl, huh? For the last game of the year, it sure feels like a preseason game. And that’s exactly how I’m going to watch it. Let’s see what the young guys can do. Let’s learn something about the future. Does the final score matter? Kind of, but not really. We don’t hang Holiday Bowl Champions banners in the Coliseum, and nobody will care next year whether USC went 7-6 or 8-5. I want the guys to play hard and play smart. Whatever happens, happens.