Countdown to Camp: Assessing USC's RB picture, storylines and depth chart

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The case could be made that USC has its most talented stable of running backs overall since Ronald Jones II rumbled for 1,550 rushing yards and 19 touchdowns in 2017 (plus another TD receiving).

That feels so long ago, with the Trojans ranking among the worst rushing offenses in the country last year and having the complete opposite of a dominant lead back, going instead with a crowded rotation that further muddled everything.

Whether or not the numbers improve significantly is another story -- it's actually in large part the story we wrote earlier in this series about the offensive line.

But on paper, the collection of talent is very impressive:

USC's 2021 RBs

Player	Year	Recruiting Rank	So far ...

Vavae Malepeai	Redshirt senior	No. 4 RB (2016)	5.0 YPC, 1,730 combined rushing/receiving yards, 18 total TDs in 4 seasons
Keaontay Ingram	Senior	No. 7 RB (2018)	5.3 YPC, 2,326 combined yards, 17 total TDs in 3 seasons at Texas
Kenan Christon	Junior	No. 44 ATH (2019)	5.7 YPC for his career, 499 combined yards, 5 TDs in 7 games in 2019
Darwin Barlow	Redshirt sophomore	No. 15 RB (2019)	5.9 YPC, 428 rushing yards, 4 TDs last season at TCU
Brandon Campbell	Freshman	No. 10 RB (2021)	7.6 YPC, 1,159 combined yards, 21 TDs in 2019 at Pearland HS in Texas.

That's four top-15 national RB recruits and a blazing speedster in Christon who was severely underutilized last year (and may be so again this season).

USC has the talent in the backfield to be a productive rushing team -- but that's only part of the equation, of course.

The onus is on new offensive line coach Clay McGuire to "fix" the operation up front -- the implication has been that former coach Tim Drevno's approach with the OL wasn't a perfect fit in an Air Raid-esque system. And now that he has his OL coach of choice in place, it's also ultimately on offensive coordinator Graham Harrell to show that his brand of football can indeed foster a productive rushing attack.

There's no need to belabor the points that were covered more in-depth in the offensive line preview.

Or to go spend a lot of time on the 2020 numbers, other than to say that USC's 97.33 rushing yards per game ranked 120th out of 127 FBS teams and was the second-worst total in program history behind the 2001 season (87.7). (The stats were certainly skewed in a short six-game season by USC's 5 net rushing yards in a pass-happy comfortable win over Washington State, but the Trojans weren't much better in 2019 when they averaged 118.23 rushing yards per game to rank 119th nationally).