USC Football Notes: Early thoughts on Arizona, injury updates, Kedon Slovis

Last week, Clay Helton talked about the challenge of preparing for an Arizona State team that had new coordinators on both sides of the ball, including a co-defensive coordinator in Marvin Lewis who hadn't been in a coordinator role since 2002 in the NFL.

Well, this week presents a similar challenge from a scouting standpoint as USC's Saturday opponent Arizona has a new defensive coordinator in Paul Rhoads who was last in a coordinator role in 2017 at Arkansas.

And with Arizona's season opener at Utah getting cancelled due to the Utes' COVID-19 situation, there is no fresh tape to evaluate.

"Scouting that tape from basically three years ago, we’ll see what changes have been made. He did a lot of odd fronts back then, which kind of fits their personnel," Helton said Tuesday. "... I’ll tell you, it is hard. When you don’t have a scouted look, you have to really focus on your execution and what you believe in and do the things your kids are good at. You don’t do a lot of new things when you don’t know what you’re going to see. You lean on what you’re good at, what your kids can execute. You worry more about fundamentals and techniques and being execution-based rather than just trying to trick people. You have to be really good at making adjustments in games and talking after each and every series about what you saw, what we’re doing. ...

"We’re guessing we’re going to get an odd front, based on what we’ve seen when he was at Arkansas, as well as how their personnel marries up. But you don’t know. Three years, you can add anything, have new ideas. We’ll just have to have great communication again."

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Helton noted that Arizona has refashioned its defensive line with grad transfers/JUCO players, while highlighting the experience in the back end with redshirt senior defensive backs Lorenzo Burns and Jarrius Wallace. (Interestingly, Greg Burns is Arizona's DBs coach after spending last season in that role at USC.)

On offense, USC will see sophomore quarterback Grant Gunnell again. Gunnell, who passed for 1,239 yards, 9 TDs and 1 INT last season, played against the Trojans last year while subbing in for veteran QB Khalil Tate and completing 16 of 26 passes for 196 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT.

"On film, a little bit different style of quarterback. But I thought he did an exceptional job coming in, handling the RPO game, which is a big part of their offense. Gets the ball out quick, has good deep ball accuracy. When you go back and look at the tape, he’s a quarterback that protects the ball. Only one interception in eight games that he was in last year," Helton said. "He’s more of a pocket passer than Khalil, who was a very athletic dynamic runner as well as thrower. This is a true pocket, RPO quarterback."

Arizona lost standout running back J.J. Taylor to the NFL and replaces him with Gary Brightwell, who averaged 5.9 yards per carry last season while rushing for 390 yards and 5 touchdowns.

"Bigger back than J.J., but just as electric. Shows great explosiveness," Helton said.

Overall, Arizona was picked to finish last in the Pac-12 South in the preseason media poll after going 4-8 last season and ranking 120th nationally in total defense (allowing 471.4 yards per game) and 118th in scoring defense (35.8 points per game). The Wildcats ranked 30th in total offense (440.1 YPG) and 77th in scoring (26.9 PPG).

"The biggest thing that we’re going to face this week, and we got hit for a big play in the Arizona State game, is making sure we control the perimeter," Helton said. "We let one of the perimeter, RPO plays get outside of us. One of our safeties was in perfect position and jumped in at the last second, and the ball got outside. It created an explosive play. It’s just being real disciplined in our assignments, being able to force that ball back in. This is a huge RPO team, and as good as you’ll see in our league at it. Kevin [Sumlin] has always been good with that. I would say the biggest thing for us is to handle the tempo of Arizona. This will be the fastest-paced team we face all year, and then being able to handle the RPO game out on the perimeter, which cost us an explosive play last game."