Offensive coordinator Graham Harrell wants USC to play faster. Not just faster than it used to play but faster than it’s playing right now in practice. And then faster than that.

“There’s always room for improvement, so even if we’re playing at a fast pace, go faster,” running back Vavae Malepeai said.

Sometimes it might sound like Harrell is asking the Trojans to go too fast. Except he knows they can speed things up because that’s how he’s always done it. Forgive the players if they're recalibrating from a playbook that, as Michael Pittman characterized it, was two inches but is now two pages.

“Coach Graham’s philosophy is, the little things we do, we’re going to do it right,” Malepeai said. “We’re going to execute it. His whole philosophy of being simple and being fast is really what gives us confidence. ... I think we’ve come a long way in this offense.”

From the looks and sound of it, USC is already further along in summer prep with the Air Raid -- an offense it became familiar with just six months ago -- than it was last August when still running a version of the spread that the majority of the players had been practicing for years.

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“It doesn’t matter how big or small the playbook is,” Malepeai explained. “I feel like it’s a matter of are you going to learn it? Are you going to understand what you’re doing so that you can play full speed?”