SALT LAKE CITY, Utah -- The first surprise came early Saturday night as USC's leading rusher Markese Stepp came out for warmups in sweatpants and his No. 30 jersey, playing the role of spectator as his teammates loosened up for the clash with Utah.

The second surprise came when fellow running back Stephen Carr, who did go through pregame warmups, wasn't used at all in the first quarter.

As it turned out, neither would be a factor Saturday night as Stepp missed the game with a pectoral strain and Carr got all of 1 carry (for -3 yards) for a less clear injury.

"Markese had a pectoral strain that we were hoping would get better throughout the week. He practiced through the week, but just wasn't himself there. Stephen was the same way. He didn't practice a lot during the week, and then got a little bit of a knee to the back and we went ahead and pulled him," coach Clay Helton said afterward. "We kind of knew it was going to be Vavae's game and Kenan's game, and I thought they did a nice job. Kenan came in and gave us an explosive run, and Vavae was that every-down back that we needed."

Redshirt senior Vavae Malepeai got a season-high 20 carries that netted 62 yards and a touchdown, along with 4 catches for 14 yards. Sophomore Kenan Christon rushed 5 times for 55 yards, including a 47-yard scamper that reminded everyone of his game-breaking speed.

Christon has been the odd man out of the running back rotation to this point of the season -- he had just 1 rushing attempt entering this weekend -- but after averaging 5.5 yards a carry last year, scoring 5 combined rushing/receiving touchdowns and delivering a handful of the biggest gains the USC offense had in 2019, it has seemed a missed opportunity not to find a handful of plays a game for his unique skill set. Saturday only reinforced that notion.

Ultimately, the most significant takeaway from the Trojans' rushing performance in the 33-17 win at Utah was that -- as many forecasted -- the team's 173-yard rushing output at Arizona that the coaches trumpeted was indeed misleading. As we noted here, 105 of those yards came on three plays while the rest of the carries were mostly ineffective. And the same was true Saturday, as Christon's 47-yard run and a 14-yard Malepeai gain accounted for more than half of the running backs' 114 yards while the other 24 carries netted an average of just 2.2 yards.

Maybe a healthy Stepp and Carr could have changed that -- both had big gains a week ago that helped buoy the overall rushing totals -- but the fact remains this team has not proven yet that it can consistently lean on the running game.