The 22 Most Important Trojans for 2022: No. 14 DL Nick Figueroa

We've told his story here a few times. Figueroa was lightly recruited out of Cajon High School in San Bernardino, redshirted the 2017 season at FCS-level Cal Poly, walked away from his scholarship there to gamble on himself in JUCO at Riverside City College, parlayed one year there into a spot at USC, and now is a sixth-year senior in his fourth season here who just seems thankful that the Trojans' dismal 2021 season wasn't his ending.

"I'm so excited," Figueroa said before camp started. "COVID gave me an extra year, a few other guys on our team. I can't really imagine any other way I would have had a chance to be here as a sixth-year senior, but so fortunate and excited about it."

It also worked out well for USC, which was scavenging the transfer portal for defensive line depth this offseason. In Figueroa, the Trojans have a player who has logged 28 games and 11 starts in Cardinal and Gold and who led the team during that COVID-shortened 2020 season with 3.5 tackles for loss and 7 sacks in six games. (A nagging shoulder injury undermined his 2021 season.)

But Figueroa doesn't seem all that interested in looking back. He traded in his No. 50 for No. 99 this year as it came open with Drake Jackson heading off to the NFL.

"I had thought about it for a while, and I just kind of felt with all the new stuff that was going on around I needed something new for myself to kind of put the past behind," Figueroa said.

Plus, it was his JUCO number when he truly transformed his career.

When we made this list of 22(ish) initially, we just assumed that one of the most experienced players on a defensive line lacking experience would be locked in as a starter -- hench his standing at here at No. 14 in our countdown.

That wasn't the case with the depth chart release Thursday morning, as Figueroa is listed as the backup to star Tuli Tuipulotu at defensive end. That could merely be a function of the staff wanting him to stay at that defensive end spot, whereas untested redshirt junior De'jon Benton surprisingly emerged as a starter at defensive tackle. Figueroa and Tuipulotu have played together on the line before, and they likely will again at various points.

Either way, Figueroa remains as valuable as ever even if it's in a rotational role behind the first unit.

For a program that, again, searched far and wide for defensive line depth -- TCU (Earl Barquet), Wyoming (Solomon Byrd), a raw player out of Western Samoa via Kansas State (Tyrone Taleni), a walk-on transfer from San Jose State (Sinjun Astani) -- USC couldn't ask for anything more in that regard than a sixth-year senior with a track record of success and a renewed excitement to be a part of this new era of Trojans football.

For that matter, USC probably couldn't have asked any more from a JUCO pickup in the 2019 recruiting class all those years back.