First-and-10: The 10 most notable takeaways from USC's win over Nevada

As USC coach Lincoln Riley said Saturday night, the schedule is what it is and the Trojans can only play the teams they're put up against each week.

No, maybe lopsided wins over San Jose State and Nevada weren't the most revealing gauges of this team's potential, but especially this past weekend in that 66-14 win over the Wolf Pack, the No. 6-ranked Trojans did their part.

"I just gauge it by our team. You've been around these guys a lot now, you're starting to get a feel for these guys, where they're at individually, where they're at collectively, what we can be. For us, it's just a steady climb, right?" Riley said. "We can't beat anybody until we play them, so you've got to continue throughout the year. I do think we took some really positive steps tonight, but in college football every week is it's own story. You scrap it, you learn a few things and then you start over and the matchups and challenges are going to continue to change."

Where did the Trojans take those steps? What did we really learn this past week?

We break it all down in the weekly First-and-10 -- our 10 most significant takeaways from the Trojans' performance.

For a second consecutive week, Caleb Williams rather comfortably picked apart a defense ill-suited to match up with the firepower of the Trojans offense. He took control of the game with ease, leading the USC to 35 first half points as he went 15 of 20for 258 yards and 4 passing touchdowns. Nevada’s defense had few answers for either Williams’ legs (on a 46-yard run) or his ability to push the ball downfield, allowing him to almost casually lead the Trojans to one touchdown after another.

As wide receiver Mario Williams put it, "That's just Caleb being Caleb."

Indeed. The reigning Heisman winner once again added a handful of dazzling plays to his highlight reel, pulling off things that few other players would be capable of attempting on a football field, let alone executing. On just the second play of the game Williams gave us a jaw-dropper, flushed all the way to the sideline by a host of rushers before turning what looked like a last-second throwaway into a lofted touch pass that dropped right over Dorian Singer’s shoulders 30 yards down the field. The audacity to even attempt a throw from that position befuddled the Pac-12 Network cameramen, who didn’t realize the pass had been thrown at a target until Singer was already on the ground with the ball in his possession.

"I was yelling at him to throw it away. Sometimes I'm mad when he doesn't listen to me; this time I was glad he didn't listen to me," Riley said.

Amidst a host of perfectly-placed throws and pocket escapes, Williams saved his best play of the game for a redzone snap in the second quarter, scrambling with arrogant assurance for an eternity as he ran circles around Wolf Pack defenders until finally firing a dart to Brenden Rice in the endzone.

In moments like those, it’s clear that Williams is playing the game on a different level than what most opponents consider to be possible, breaking the traditional parameters of what good offensive football looks like. We have plenty of tape to tell us that this is the case regardless of his opposition, whether it’s Nevada and San Jose State or Utah and Notre Dame. However, despite his effortless production (he finished 18 of 24 for 319 yards and 5 TDs), Williams is still working toward becoming the best potential version of himself on the football field.

Riley continues to emphasize that point, seeming to realize that it may fall on deaf ears publicly.

"He's improving. I can't say I'm like disappointed with how he's played, but he's got to get better, right?" Riley said Saturday night. "Again, like I told you guys about the game last week, everybody wants to look at the score and then just write the story and there's so much to it. There's some things he's done really well, especially the situational ball, and some understandings defensively I think have improved. But we've had a handful of plays in both games that we both want back that we got to go get and not leave on the table here going forward."

In the first game, the quarterback wasn’t particularly impressive by his own standards even though he put up great numbers, missing opportunities in the structure of the offense and appearing to force decisions made pre-snap at times despite defensive looks that called for other options. This game, Williams looked significantly better in those regards as he ran the downfield passing game with more control and decisiveness, taking advantage of what the defense gave him and showing real savvy to manipulate defenders. However, some of those aforementioned areas for improvement remained visible, as Riley noted.

Riley alluded to Williams’ need to keep improving his situational decision-making, and though it can be hard to figure out what exactly that means with a quarterback who’s led his team to two dominant victories to start the year, the tape shows some of what the head coach has in mind.

For example, on the Trojans' second drive of the game, Williams and the offense faced a second-and-10 following a deep incompletion on first down. On the next snap, Williams went for a tough sideline fade to Kyron Hudson between two defenders, nearly hitting the throw but placing it just out of his receiver’s reach. That’s poor situational decision-making; a low percentage throw like that on second-and-long is not an efficient choice in that context when setting up a third-and-manageable should be a higher priority. There are examples elsewhere on the film -- even on plays that Williams ends up eventually making! -- where the quarterback doesn’t take a clean read for solid yardage in the early-timing window of the progression, instead relying on his ability to extend the play to get a big gain eventually as he so often does. Though those choices often pay off for Williams, they carry the potential to knock the offense off-schedule and are liable to create tricky situations for the team in matchups against tougher opposition.

Getting a better feel for when to lean on his X-factor abilities versus when to take the simple throw in the rhythm of the called play is a balance that No. 13 will no doubt keep working on over the course of the year, especially given the emphasis Riley has put on the need for him to keep improving. If the best player in college football can make such strides leading over the course of the season, the Trojans offense will be significantly harder to defend than it already is.

After a promising second half to his USC debut a week ago, MarShawn Lloyd had his breakout performance as a Trojan against Nevada. Handling the bulk of USC’s snaps at running back through the first half, Lloyd shredded the Nevada defense as he easily picked and weaved his way through it behind a strong blocking day from his offensive line, racking up 76 yards and a touchdown on just 7 carries while adding 59 receiving yards on 2 catches.

The South Carolina transfer made a statement on his first touch of the game, pulling out an easy juke to leave a defender grasping at air before hitting the jets down the field for a gain of 30 yards. Just two carries later, Lloyd’s lateral wiggle allowed him to beat the defense to the sideline before he once again showed off the acceleration, dusting the defenders en route to a 24-yard touchdown, his first in a USC uniform.

Though the burst, contact balance, and vision all showed up as real strengths of Lloyd’s game, it’s his twitchiness that stands out as a truly unique gift. The suddenness with which he’s able to redirect himself without losing any momentum is special, allowing him to make defenders miss with ease both in the hole and in the open field. His ability to fight through contact and his vision make him a strong between-the-tackles runner as is, but that twitch allows him to put moves on defenders that have him dead to rights at the line of scrimmage, turning potential losses into positive plays. In this game, he used a pair of perfectly-timed spin moves to convert a fourth-and-1, creating just enough space for himself to slip free for the necessary yardage, showing the value of those skills as a short-yardage back.

However, that’s certainly not all he is; Lloyd also brings plenty to the table as a pass-catcher. He had a great moment as a receiver in this game, executing perfectly on a seam route out of the backfield to get behind the coverage in the middle of the field before showing soft hands to secure the ball and using his dynamism in the open field to rip off a gain of 54 yards. It’s that potential to be a three-down star that made Lloyd a five-star prospect out of high school, and it’s not been hard at all to see why in his short time as a Trojan so far.

The problem throughout his collegiate career has just been his ability to stay on the field. No doubt, the team will try to maintain a rotation over the course of the year despite his likely role as the lead back to reduce the wear and tear he accumulates. If Lloyd can remain healthy, he’s capable of becoming a focal point of this offense and entirely changing the way defenses have to approach USC. Having a true game-breaker in the backfield can do wonders for an offense, and a healthy Lloyd would give the Trojans exactly that.