USC fans are already griping about the head coach and the offensive coordinator, which means it's officially football season again.

We too have plenty of nitpicks from the Trojans' season-opening offensive performance in their 30-7 win over San Jose State on Saturday.

There were some encouraging signs as well, and then there's everything the defense did in it's best performance yet under second-year coordinator Todd Orlando.

As we do each week, here are the top 10 takeaways, observations, critiques and criticisms from Saturday.

Kedon Slovis didn’t look his best in the opener. He held onto the ball too long a few times, made a few poor decisions and didn’t connect on much down the field or in the red zone. He was conscious of that fact himself, making a point to note postgame that he felt that he had plenty to correct from his performance on Saturday. Nonetheless, the good news is twofold. For one, Slovis well below his best is still good for 256 yards, 2 touchdowns, and no turnovers on a 66.7 completion percentage. Secondly, he seems to be physically repaired from the issues that plagued him last season. The mistakes he made were all correctable ones, and there was plenty of good to be excited about. Slovis’ pocket presence is still remarkable, and he showed off his underrated escapability a number of times. Some of the most impressive plays of the day from the quarterback came after the play had broken down, as he spun away from defenders before completing passes downfield and even scrambled for a first down. His downfield arm strength and accuracy are probably the biggest question marks in his game right now, and we didn’t see either tested much Saturday as USC focused the efforts of its passing game underneath to counter the 8-man zones run by SJSU. His receivers didn’t do a great job of getting open today either, and that should be oddly comforting to the Trojans; that’s not likely to be a trend that continues for long.

The statistical headline from USC’s first game of the season was the 137 yards amassed by Drake London on a career-high 12 catches, both by far the most of any player in the game Saturday. To say he was force-fed touches would be an understatement -- it felt as though the plan for the game was simply to put the ball in 15’s hands as many times as possible. He caught one underneath route or screen after another, generating yards after the catch with the freakish regularity that we’ve grown accustomed to. He made an impact down the field as well, catching two go-routes from Slovis for some of the Trojans’ biggest chunk plays of the day. We said it before the start of the season and I’ll say it a gain -- London belongs in the top echelon of receivers in college football today. He is a unique specimen of a pass-catcher, and no one in the country plays the game he does. That isn’t to say he’s a perfect player; there are plenty of areas in his game worth refining. However, what London already brings to the table every game is remarkable, and it might just be enough to pull this USC offense to a different level of productivity once the rest of it gets clicking.

After fielding one of the FBS’ most uninspiring rushing attacks last season averaging less than 100 yards a game on the ground, the Trojans came out Saturday prepared to get the run game going. The split backfield of Keaontay Ingram and Vavae Malepeai split carries nearly evenly, at 15 and 14 apiece, combining for 151 yards. Ingram was the more efficient of the two by far, showing a strong second gear and impressive lateral movement, while Malepeai continued to be productive on the basis of his exceptional vision and feel for cutback lanes. I could see the Trojans leaning more on Ingram going forward, as the Texas transfer brings some more juice to the backfield, but I think the duo of he and Malepeai complement each other nicely and could serve as an effective 1-2 punch throughout the year. It’ll be interesting to see where Kenan Christon and Darwin Barlow slot into the rotation going forward -- Christon didn't get a carry, and Barlow ultimately was inactive after going through pregame warmups.

The debut of redshirt freshmen starting tackles Courtland Ford and Jonah Monheim wasn’t entirely smooth. Both players took a few lumps in pass blocking -- Monheim especially got beaten quite badly on a sack during the first play of the 4th quarter. For the most part though, Monheim and Ford held up soundly in pass protection. They both move well for their size and do a nice job of keeping rushers from rounding the corner on them. You have to expect some mistakes in protection from new tackles, but what they put on tape for most of their respective performances was promising. Neither of the two seemed consistently dominant in the run game either, but I saw both of them clear some big lanes on a few long runs. It’s too early to tell how serviceable they’ll be in the long term as starting tackles, but I feel confident that they both belong.