**Not subscribed? Get 60 PERCENT OFF the first year of a new annual subscription by using promo code KICKOFF2023 and this link. Offer valid for a limited time.**

Our TrojanSports.com team has collected the last bits of intel and insight from the limited viewing periods at practice and a spate of interviews this week leading into USC's season opener.

While we'll have much more coming as part of our preview coverage, here are five notable takeaways from the last few days that will be worth keeping in mind Saturday as the No. 6-ranked Trojans host San Jose State in the Coliseum.

RELATED: See USC's official depth chart for the season opener

With so many established stars, veterans and high-profile transfer additions, there weren't going to be many surprises at the offensive skill positions as USC released its official depth chart Wednesday night.

The closest might have been redshirt sophomore Kyron Hudson sharing the top line at one of the two outside receiver spots with senior Brenden Rice, but that is only a surprise for those who haven't been paying attention the last couple weeks.

There were already mounting indications that Hudson -- a four-star Rivals250 prospect coming out of local Mater Dei High School -- was having the kind of camp that could propel him into a breakout season, and then head coach Lincoln Riley punctuated that notion Thursday morning.

"He might have been the team MVP in fall camp. I mean, he had as good of a fall camp as any player on our roster at any position," Riley said. "He’s a consistent guy that I think has gotten a lot more explosive. He’s in great shape, he’s healthy, he’s playing at a high level right now."

Hudson had 15 catches for 152 yards and 3 touchdowns last season after injuries limited him to just one game as a true freshman.

And even with the likes of Rice, Mario Williams and Tahj Washington returning, with marquee WR addition Dorian Singer arriving via the transfer portal and an absolutely loaded freshman class of wideouts, Hudson has positioned himself for his best opportunity yet with the Trojans.

"Kyron has been Kyron -- everything that goes up in the air he's been the quarterback's lap. He's coming down with it," outside receivers coach Dennis Simmons had said a couple weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Hudson was asked what he felt he had to show the coaches this year to earn a larger role within the offense.

"I feel like I've performed pretty well. I just continue to be the leader of the group and continue to help the younger ones perform. Just whatever they ask for, I'm there to do," he said.

"I think just mainly just being a leader. Having a year in the offense, having that really helps me, it helps the young ones and it helps even Coach Simmons -- it's not putting so much stress on him. They can come ask me ... Just having that role is definitely important and it helps my game also."

Riley also noted Hudson's maturity and general reliability as key factors in his impressive camp performance.

"He’s one of our most consistent players, most consistent workers. He never complains. He's always just out to work and get better. He has a real professional mindset," Riley said. "I love the kid, love coaching him. He’s a joy to coach."

Simmons was asked Wednesday how many wide receivers he expects to get into the game Saturday.

"We plan on playing a lot of people," he said. "Hopefully, those guys will get out and get an opportunity to shine and show you guys what we've been able to see for the last couple weeks."

Singer, Rice/Hudson and junior Mario Williams are listed as the starters, Tahj Washington is coming off a career-best season, Raleek Brown is a five-star talent settling in at slot receiver, and it's possible all four freshmen -- Zachariah Branch, Duce Robinson, Makai Lemon and Ja'Kobi Lane -- get opportunities as well. (Junior Michael Jackson III's status for the game was unclear earlier this week.)

"All the young guys have exceeded expectations as far as what we've seen in camp," Simmons said. "Hopefully we can give them an opportunity to showcase what they can do and showcase why they earned the right to come play at this historic university."

Before fall camp started, Simmons was asked if he'd ever coached a group of receivers this deep.

He took a few seconds and genuinely considered it.

"No, I can't ... No," he said. "I have been a part of some groups that are equally as talented as this group, but when you go from top to bottom the playing experience that several of the guys in my room got last year, catching multiple touchdowns and stepping up helping us win games, no I haven't."

Indeed, Washington returns after catching 50 passes for 785 yards and 6 touchdowns last fall, Williams had 40 catches for 631 yards and 5 touchdowns, Rice caught 39 balls for 611 yards and 4 touchdowns, Jackson had 236 yards and 4 TDs receiving, Brown had 3 of his 6 TDs receiving, while Singer caught 66 passes for 1,105 yards and 6 TDs at Arizona last year, Branch and Robinson are five-star prospects, Lemon is a high four-star prospect who was ranked the No. 54 overall recruit nationally and Lane was substantially underrated as an athletic 6-foot-5 target with great hands.

But with that depth comes the question of how to get everybody involved (and keep everybody happy).

"It's very hard. Now I understand why Dr. Phil gets paid the amount of money he gets paid," Simmons joked. "Especially in the day and age of college football, everybody comes in and everybody wants instant gratification," Simmons said. "Obviously, the way we do things here is you earn the reps that you get and you earn the opportunity that you get, and when you do get those opportunities you need to maximize them.

"To say that we're going to be able to keep everybody happy, we would like to, but all these guys came here because they're used to being that guy where they came from. Now, let's see if you can take that cream, as they like to say, and elevate your game and rise up to the top."

As he reiterated Wednesday, the early part of the season may provide extra opportunity to involve more receivers, and what they do with those chances will shape how their role develops from there.

"We talk about it all the time -- all those guys have the capability of scoring any given route anytime they get the ball so my advice to them is if you want to get a touchdown then you better work to score every time you touch it because who knows when is the next time you're going to get it," Simmons said.

With veterans Eric Gentry and Shane Lee limited for parts of camp, it had become expected that freshman Tackett Curtis would make his Trojans debut as a starter Saturday.

That was confirmed with the release of the official depth chart, with Curtis listed as the starting WILL linebacker next to Mason Cobb.

It's unclear how much Gentry or Lee will play Saturday, though both were active in the periods of practice open to media this week.

What is clear, though, is that Curtis is going to be a major cog for the defense this season, even when the Trojans are at full strength.

"Yeah, he’ll have a major part of the defense. A guy that was here in the spring and plays the game the right way. I could not be more positive on Tackett," defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said this week. "For a freshman to come in here and learn and understand, but also kind of be the model in how we want a guy to play, and then he's been one of those guys that the head coach has pointed to in team meetings just from an effort standpoint.

"Now, you gotta make sure he’s going in the right direction -- he’s one of those guys that the direction is going to be the football, eventually, so sometimes there’s other responsibilities before you just go see and hit the thing, but that’s a pretty good quality to start with."

The praise for Curtis this month has been often and from a wide range of players and coaches alike. The top 100 national prospect, out of Many, Louisiana, is going to get every chance to make his mark on this defense.

Here again, for those paying attention this month, it's not news that freshman offensive guard Alani Noa has asserted himself this fall camp while standing out from the other first-year linemen.

Teammates and OL coach Josh Henson had already made that clear.

But maybe it was somewhat of a surprise to see Noa listed as an "OR" for first-team left guard along with Wyoming transfer Emmanuel Pregnon.

"He's been one of our best O-linemen," Riley said mater-of-factly. "He's incredibly gifted really for a young guy, plays hard, plays really physical and has done a good job picking our stuff up. He's a smart kid, he gets the game, he's still learning certainly, but he's playing with some guys in there that have played a lot of ball and that's certainly helpful and he's been very good mentally. So, yeah, just impressed with his consistency, his physicality, effort and kind of mentality he plays with.

"For any offensive lineman, that's where it starts. You have to have that and he does that consistently like a veteran. You love seeing that, and with that, he's improved rapidly and there's no question he's going to -- we'll see what the rotation ends up being or who ends up starting and all that, we've still got competitions ongoing like we told you guys -- but he's certainly going to play."

It's most certainly a positive that Noa, a three-star prospect from Sacramento who chose the Trojans over Oregon, is ahead of schedule.

But it could also reflect that Pregnon isn't quite a finished product despite having a solid year at Wyoming last fall. It's also notable that when camp started, it was Pregnon and redshirt senior Gino Quinones competing for that job -- Quinones later moved to second-team center and ended up as the second-team right guard on the depth chart.

Meanwhile, Florida transfer Michael Tarquin officially won the right tackle job after competing in camp with redshirt sophomore Mason Murphy, though it wouldn't be a surprise at all to see Murphy get his opportunities early this season as well.

This offensive line has plenty to prove still, but the potential is certainly there across the board.

"I think we got some good competition and I think the most important thing is figuring out eventually who are the right five guys," Riley said. "I think some of the potential rotations here early on are for good reason -- we’ve got several guys that we think could be that and we want to give those guys a chance to play. And so yeah, I think here at some point, you would hope/expect that the lineup will settle in in a way.

"But we played with a lot of different lineups last year. Sometimes where this benefits you is where the injury does happen, when this guy all of the sudden is not available to play, you’ve got to move some people around and you’ve got different guys that have played and you’ve been able to move a few guys around position-wise. It sets you up for a season. I think I’ve had one season in my career where we started the same offensive line every single game. It just doesn’t – it’s such a physical position, it just doesn’t happen very often. I thought at times last year, it really affected us. ... Most important you get the right five guys on the field, but one of the hopes right now is we can be deeper, we can be a little bit better so that when it does happen, it doesn’t affect us quite as, at times, negatively as it did last year."

The two other most notable takeaways from the depth chart reveal were sophomore cornerback Domani Jackson beating out veteran Jacobe Covington, who started the final three games last season, for the starting job opposite junior Ceyair Wright ... and a three-way "OR" at first-team nose tackle with Bear Alexander, Kyon Barrs and De'jon Benton.

First, on Jackson, the former five-star prospect who played limited snaps last year while recovering from injury and adjusting to the college game had been generating positive momentum all fall camp.

"We tried to force feed him a little bit when we could a year ago and [it] probably wasn’t completely fair to him, to be honest with you. But there’s only one way to get better and it’s game reps and obviously to get those game reps you’ve gotta do it on the practice field. Certainly was not 100% last year but had a good spring for us. And I think just as you get the cumulative reps, the confidence comes with it and you see so many different things," Grinch said.

"The nice thing for him is he’s been healthy. He was kind of supposed to be on a pitch count in spring and very, very quickly kind of came off of that and kept going, kept going, kept going, which allowed him to have a good spring in terms of volume. Same thing into the summer, which we didn’t get a year ago, either of those two things. And then been healthy and working and could not be any higher on Domani. Now you gotta go do it on Saturdays, we understand that, but I’ve been very pleased with him. He’s an exciting young player."

As for the defensive tackles, most figured Alexander (the Georgia transfer and former five-star) and Barrs (the multi-year starter at Arizona) would be the two starting interior defensive linemen.

Instead, Purdue transfer Jack Sullivan is at DT with those three listed at NT. Now, bear in mind, the defensive line rotates more than any other unit on the field and those guys have trained at multiple positions, so nothing is set in stone.

But it was notable to see Benton listed with those guys. Perhaps unfairly, he doesn't get talked about much even though he played 256 defensive snaps last season.

"Yeah, Dede's done a nice job. He's active, which he's kind of always been. I think he's added a little bit of mass, a little bit of strength, stronger at the point of attack than I think he was going into last season, and that was a point of emphasis for him. We've seen some real improvement there," Riley said. "He had some pretty explosive moments in games last year that were really, really good. We've challenged him to become more consistent and he's done that on the practice field, so has earned the right to get in there and play some reps."

Riley also noted that Alexander's delayed start to camp due to an unspecified minor injury has setback his conditioning for the season, so it would stand to reason his role would grow as the season progresses.

"Yeah, Bear's done well -- was a little limited early in fall camp, so we're playing catchup a little bit in terms of conditioning, in terms of just learning the defense and getting fully acclimated, but [he] has really made up a lot of ground here the last couple of weeks and starting to get into a little bit of game shape, being able to play a lot of plays in a row and again understanding exactly what we're doing defensively -- that was really grown here in the last few weeks," Riley said. "So he's developing, excited to see him play. You can tell when he cuts it loose and you can see his gifts. He gives our guys on the offensive line a hard time when he really gets going."