QB Kedon Slovis transfers to Pitt, reflects in depth on his time at USC

"It's really weird because after your freshman year you think you're probably going to graduate and go to the league from USC, and it's just not going to shake [out] that way. It's very strange, but I kind of feel a lot better about things," Slovis said on the podcast. "This season was really tough on me personally, as it was [for] a lot of people, I'm sure. And at the end of the season too and the couple weeks before I got in the portal, there was just a lot of uncertainty in terms of what I'd do. That in itself was a lot and it was pretty stressful times, pretty depressing times. It was definitely a pretty big bump of adversity that I haven't seen before because it kind of came in a different way.

"It's been a long journey and it's only been a few weeks really, but I'm really glad to be here and really excited for the future because I feel I'm in a much better place [mentally] than I was not too long ago."

Slovis was a three-year starter at USC who opened this season as a projected first-round pick in some high-profile NFL mock drafts.

But two games into the season, head coach Clay Helton was fired and everything seemed to continue to unravel from there.

Slovis was knocked out of the next game early with a neck injury, opening the door for freshman Jaxson Dart's breakout performance and for the fans to clamor for Dart the rest of the season. Star receiver Drake London would eventually sustain a season-ending fractured ankle later in the year, interim head coach Donte Williams would force a highly-scrutinized quarterback rotation between Slovis and Dart that didn't seem to benefit either, and Slovis would end up missing the final three games due to what he says was a hamstring injury.

Slovis also had a mostly unproven set of receivers behind London, after throwing to NFL-caliber targets like Michael Pittman, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Tyler Vaughns and London in previous years, and opened the season playing behind two redshirt freshman offensive tackles who would have their struggles.

Overall, he passed for 2,153 yards, 11 touchdowns and 8 interceptions this season and 7,576 yards, 58 TDs and 24 INTs in his Trojans career.

The high point was certainly his breakout freshman season, when he completed 71.9 percent of his passes for 3,502 yards, 30 TDs and 9 INTs. He was the Pac-12's Offensive Freshman of the Year that season and a first-team all-conference pick as a sophomore.

But the last two years in general were not easy and this one in particular took its toll on Slovis.

"There were a lot of great things and I had a lot of great experience at USC, lots of positives, but one of the reasons ultimately that led to me transferring or deciding to transfer, is there was a lot of negativity from the moment I got there," he said. "Obviously after the 5-7 season (in 2018 before he arrived), there was a lot of upset people in the USC family and I understand that, but we came in and I thought there was significant improvement, showed a lot of promise. But even that, I look back at the end of our freshman year, I think we had four games where we had lots of yards, I threw for lots of yards, the last game we had four receivers go over 100 yards -- the second time that's ever been done -- and then the next Monday Mike Bohn's having to announce that Clay Helton is not being fired.

"I look back at that as a great memory and I always will cherish that, but again, one of the reasons that's been frustrating is even in those great moments the perception was very negative. I kind of just want to get to a situation that's more positive and I'm looking forward to that as a whole."