New USC offensive line coach Clay McGuire is fairly candid, and so in evaluating the Trojans' season opener Saturday he had no hesitation sharing one aspect he’ll be harping on with his unit this week.
"The disappointing thing is if we do get the little things here and there in about four or five plays I do think we go over 200 yards [rushing]," he said Tuesday after practice. "The one thing I'll say that was disappointing in the run game, I thought we came off the ball well, I thought we hatted up well -- I don't think we finished very well. I thought San Jose finished a lot harder than we did, which we've got to get fixed in the room. That can never be an issue with us."
The spotlight has been on McGuire and that group since he arrived in the offseason with hopes that his familiarity with offensive coordinator Graham Harrell's system could improve the synergy up front and with the run game.
And, you know, to make sure to keep star junior quarterback Kedon Slovis upright despite introducing two redshirt freshmen first-year starters in left tackle Courtland Ford and right tackle Jonah Monheim.
It's too soon to levy any verdicts on those matters after just one game -- the Trojans rushed for 160 yards as the running backs averaged a solid 5.2 yards per carry, and Slovis was sacked twice (one being the fault of running back Keaontay Ingram not picking up an unblocked pass rusher.)
As for McGuire's overall assessment from USC's 30-7 win over San Jose State ...
"I honestly have high expectations. I want them to be perfect out there. I thought we could do better, but I think that’s a very good football team we played," he said. "I think they play really hard, did some good stuff, but there’s a lot of things on the tape that are really high quality reps that we made that we can continue to work and grow and develop. If we can make those clips routine, then I think we have a chance to be all right."
Notably, PFF graded the veteran interior of the Trojans' offensive line glowingly as right guard Liam Jimmons (89.7 on a 1-100 scale with grades in the 90s rare), left guard Andrew Vorhees (84.2) and center Brett Neilon (83.5) receiving the highest marks of their USC careers and graded out as USC's top three players overall.
The Trojans also gave redshirt junior Justin Dedich 21 snaps at the guard spots and he graded out at a solid 78.9. McGuire said he will continue to get Dedich (and veteran second-team right tackle Jalen McKenzie) involved each week.
"Those guys have played a lot of snaps together, but I think they've worked real hard too in their fundamentals and came out here and I think they're on the same page," McGuire said of the interior linemen. "I thought they did a really good job. I think there's a lot of room still from the inside part to continue to grow, but I think they're good players. They've got real good size, they're athletic, they're smart kids, they've played a lot of football, so we need to continue to see the growth as we move forward in the season."
With regard to the young tackles, it was expected there would be struggles to work through early on this season.
Both Ford and Monheim allowed 3 pressures, per PFF, with the rest of the line giving up none.
Ford notably dislocated a finger on his left hand, forcing him and Monheim to switch sides briefly until he could have it taped up, and he played through the injury with no obvious setback.
The one play that McGuire surely went over during film review was the 8-yard sack Monheim allowed to Viliami Fehoko on the first play of the fourth quarter, which just so happened to be a pivotal first down play from the San Jose State 17 and led to the Trojans having to settle for a field goal in what was still a close game. Monheim got beat cleanly around the edge on that play, and McGuire shared the feedback he gave his young tackle.
"It was just more one of those things I don't think he was playing his game. He went out there and tried to do something to overcompensate and like I said it was just really poor fundamentals. If he just does what he always does we'll survive that one, for sure. But he went out there and kind of overcompensated, lunged real badly and tried to stick the guy at the line of scrimmage and just missed and put him in bad position. I think if he just continues to trust himself and have confidence he'll be fine," McGuire said.
Monheim was asked about the feedback he received from McGuire both positive and negative.
"There was a lot of both. Like I said, a lot of things I've got to clean up, a lot of things I've got to get better, but there were some things that I felt good at that I've got to continue to do," he said.
He described that he was overshooting on zone blocks and is working on his hands and his punch this week to shore up that right edge for Slovis.
The sack aside, McGuire also liked a lot of what he saw from Monheim, especially in the run game.
"I thought he did a good job. He's really good in the run game. Technically, he's got a chance to be as good as anybody we have right now," he said. "Right now both those kids, where they've really got to improve is the edge. They've got to hold the edge and keep the pocket. Kind of talking to the guys, when Kedon had a real clean, good pocket, I think he's probably about 100 percent in the game. When he had missed throws it was because the pocket got collapsed on him or something like that. So like I said, I challenged the guys if we can go out and give him a nice pocket to step up and work and throw we've got a chance to be special."
With regard to Ford, he said he came off the game feeling he had to shore up his fundamentals in terms of things like hand placement and pad level. McGuire echoed those sentiments.
"He did a good job too and that's the same thing too. Like I said, my one correction for both those guys is continuing to trust their fundamentals, play more physical with their hands and keep the pocket longer," McGuire said. "That was the one thing we didn't do a very good job is the pocket kept getting condensed on the quarterback."
