USC had its fair share of troubles on defense at most every position over the course of last season, but the one player in the secondary they could count on was Mekhi Blackmon.

With Blackmon off to the NFL and nobody else truly entrenched, the competition to fill the void at cornerback has become perhaps the most evenly-matched of the Trojans' fall camp position battles, as Ceyair Wright, Jacobe Covington and Domani Jackson are presently the favorites for the two spots.

Head coach Lincoln Riley said a week ago, "You can leave here today saying all three of those guys will play a lot."

But who will get the chance to start and take command of the position?

For defensive backs coach Donte Williams, it's all about consistency with every day of camp serving as a fresh audition.

“I guess, somebody who’s gonna be really consistent because we have some good depth there. So we're really gonna be, who can do the job on a daily basis," Williams said. "Just basically being really consistent because some of these guys will have flashes, you know, where all of a sudden they'll dominate a period or a dominate a day. But we're looking for the guy that can do it on a consistent basis."

If the end of last season counts for anything, the contender with the most momentum entering fall camp was Covington, who replaced Wright in the starting lineup for the final three games. Per PFF, he gave up 2 catches for 22 yards on 4 targets over 34 coverage snaps in the Pac-12 championship game, and then wasn't targeted over his 27 snaps in the Cotton Bowl.

"Jacobe, I think, [is] carrying over some of the momentum of what he had at the end of last season," Riley said last week. "His good plays are so, so good. We're working on his consistency, but he's flashing just more and more as time goes on."

The transfer from Washington and former top-120 national prospect was brought in to compete for a starting job at the onset last year, and while it took him a little longer than that to find his footing, he indeed kept getting better and better as the season progressed.

After seeing notable playing time the first three games last season, his role dropped off considerably during the middle of the fall before his late-season surge. So what changed?

"I think it was just my confidence and my technique. I got more confident during the season and this offseason I [was] able to work on my technique a lot, it helped my confidence a lot," Covington said. "... I don't know if there was a turning point, but it was just me understanding the position of cornerback more."

USC clearly felt that after losing Blackmon to the draft, they needed to bring in another veteran cornerback and that search led them to Christian Roland-Wallace from Arizona. The redshirt senior brings in that needed experience to a squad that doesn’t have a ton of snaps as a team and could end up playing anywhere in the secondary, though he seems to be working mostly at nickel for now.

Wright has received strong praise for his development since last season as well, while Jackson is always lurking as the former five-star prospect with the blazing speed to go with his prototypical 6-foot-1 frame.

But Covington boasts a lot of those same attributes and at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, he is also the most physically imposing of USC's cornerbacks.

"I'm just trying to keep the momentum from last year, trying to get better as a player, make the most of my opportunities," Covington said. "As far as the cornerback room, it's a competitive room. We compete off each other and make each other better. It's exciting to have competition."

Ultimately, he wants to show that the version of himself that emerged late last season was just a tease of his overall potential.

“I want to get better at the little things, details, but overall, I just want to be a whole different player coming to this next season," he said