Stephen Carr, Vavae Malepeai thrive as USC RBs surprise in opener

It seems clear now the USC coaches were simply being careful -- very careful -- with junior running back Stephen Carr in the preseason, because there was no foreshadowing of what everyone saw Saturday night.

"I think whatever I was doing was in coaches' best interest," Carr said of his quiet August.

He can be evasive in interviews at times, but when he's as consistently elusive on the field as he was in the season opener, well, there isn't much perspective needed.

After a steady stream of questions about his health over most of the last year and a half, Carr answered with his play in USC's 31-23 win over Fresno State, scoring the first two touchdowns and finishing with 99 combined rushing and receiving yards on 12 touches.

"I just want to give props to my O-line. We've been in so many film sessions, talking about things off the field. It was just amazing to come out here and show everybody what this offense could do," Carr said afterward.

It was indeed a collective achievement with fellow rusher Vavae Malepeai (134 yards and a TD on 23 carries), Carr (9.3 yards per carry on his 6 attempts) and the Trojans' offensive line and second-level blocking.

What was the biggest question for the offense entering the season -- the ability to run the ball after two quiet scrimmages -- became the team's stabilizing force while introducing a new freshman quarterback on the fly Saturday night.

The two running backs combined for 190 rushing yards on 29 carries (6.6 YPC) and were the most encouraging facet of the first game.

"I do know it's fun in this offense," Malepeai said afterward. "I've said it many times, when we came to the sideline even when we didn't get in the end zone, I told [RBs coach Mike] Jinks all night, 'This is fun.' … I told coach [Graham] Harrell that many times."

Jinks said in the preseason that USC wouldn't force the run but rather let the Air Raid passing attack open up opportunities. Indeed, Fresno State seemed more concerned with playing the pass and didn't exactly load the box on the Trojans. So it could be tougher going in future weeks, but there was plenty to be encouraged by with the ground attack regardless.

Starting with Carr. On 10 of his 12 touches Saturday night, he made at least one tackler miss or moved a defender for extra yards. He showed both the vision and burst that made him a budding breaking star in the first few games of his freshman season -- before the injuries took their toll -- and he showed it immediately.

USC marched down the field -- mostly through the air -- on its opening drive, and Carr would cap it off with back-to-back catches of 10 and 8 yards. On the first, he took a short reception, shook off an almost immediate hit and turned in a nice gain. Then on the next play, he shimmied left to avoid the first tackler and froze the second while slipping up the right sideline, barely staying in bounds on his way into the end zone.

He'd cap the Trojans' second drive with a 14-yard touchdown run as the offensive line created a huge lane up the gut and gave Carr about 5 yards of depth before he darted past the first would-be tackler, used his field vision to find the second-level block and showed his burst to break through a leg tackle and plow past the last defender and into the end zone.

"I would say I feel a lot quicker. This offseason has been a great one, I would say. I've been getting a lot of work in," said Carr, who rushed for a relatively quiet 384 yards and 2 TDs last season before an ankle injury sidelined him down the stretch.

Coach Clay Helton had said early in camp that he thought Carr had that burst back, that he was back to running without hesitation like he did early in his freshman season. There was one play early in camp that prompted and backed up those comments from Helton, but that was about the only harbinger for anything like what Carr did Saturday.

After the back and ankle injuries that plagued the talented rusher, including the ankle injury that disrupted his electric start to the 2017 season, the offseason back surgery keeping him out of practice that following spring and then the latest ankle injury that shortened his sophomore campaign, it's understandable that the coaches wouldn't feel any need to show him off in August.

Especially if they had any idea he was capable of doing this on Saturdays in the fall.

Again, most every Carr play against Fresno State was worth watching again with all the jukes, sidesteps and spins he used to create extra yards, but a couple other highlights of particular note were a 27-yard run on USC's final touchdown drive in the third quarter and a clutch first down on USC's penultimate drive.

On the 27-yarder, Carr kicked in the burst immediately to breakthrough an opening before cutting left and following a Michael Pittman block downfield for a few more yards. On his final first down, he went a much shorter distance, picking up 3 yards on third-and-2, but he did it by lowering his shoulder and forcing his way across the line to gain.

Meanwhile, Malepeai validated the coaches' decision to give him the bulk of the carries despite missing much of camp with a sprained knee. He hit the hole hard and made the most of the ample blocking he received Saturday night.

A prime example of that synergy came midway through the second quarter on a 26-yard run down inside the Fresno State 10. Tight end Erik Krommenhoek closed out the left side and right guard Andrew Vorhees held the lane open from the other side to give Malepeai a good start, left tackle Austin Jackson and left guard Alijah Vera-Tucker then delivered big second-level blocks that Malepeai followed perfectly before twisting and lunging his way for every last yard.

"It's a nice vibe. I know you guys can see the love on the field," Carr said of sharing the backfield with Malepeai. "We respect each other as players, man, and it doesn't matter who has the ball because we know we're both going to try to get in the end zone as much as we can. We're both talented players."

The only question with the USC running game Saturday night was the lack of involvement of redshirt freshman Markese Stepp. He drew steady praise during an impressive preseason and all indications were that he'd have some role in this rushing attack. Instead, he didn't touch the ball once in the opener. (Stepp indicated after the game that he was not expecting it to play out that way).

That's a question to be asked this week, but one couldn't really find much fault in the usage with Malepeai and Carr so effective. The one spot where the larger, bruising Stepp might have made a lot of sense was on the third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 plays where USC failed to convert late in the fourth quarter, giving Fresno State one last chance to try to tie the game. (The fourth-and-1 was doomed when backup QB Kedon Slovis bobbled the handoff to Malepeai with a defender already closing in, but nonetheless).

Asked for his thoughts on the rushing attack, offensive coordinator Graham Harrell seemed pleased.

"I knew we had good running backs and the offensive line does a great job. Fresno State did a nice job, they just try to mix things up -- try to twist on you and just try to cause penetration. And sometimes it's going to hit you, and sometimes you're going to get them too when they do things like that. But I think overall [we] ran the ball pretty well," he said. "... There towards the end when you've got to run the football, obviously we need to get that third and fourth down, but at the end of the game we were able to get a first down when we needed to so that was nice."

Said center Brett Neilon, who had been confident early last week that the Trojans would succeed on the ground: "I thought our O-line did a great job communicating and really being on the same page.... We know what we're capable of -- we know we can run the ball."

Fresno State was just the first test, and as Harrell noted, the Bulldogs' defensive approach set up some conducive opportunities. Stanford should be a tougher challenge this weekend.

After simply not seeing it in the preseason, it's hard to buy all the way in on the encouraging first showing by the running backs until they prove it again against the Cardinal. Yet, at the same time, after seeing not just what they did but how Carr and Malepeai earned their yards Saturday night, it's also hard not to buy some stock in the duo or at least feel better about it than one might have a week ago.

Carr always seemed especially well suited for this offense, with its use of the running backs as pass catchers, and he proved Saturday that it's worth finding ways to get him the ball in space and letting him do the rest.

"I feel like, shoot, I can do anything that they [ask me]. So can any of the running backs. As long as I stay in tune with my offensive line, they stay in tune with me and the quarterback and these receivers, the sky's the limit," Carr said.

"... [The offensive line was] amazing. Those are my guys. We're going to go back to the drawing board and get better. It's only up from there."