The players who impressed the most during USC's spring game

USC coach Clay Helton said it was important to him to give a lot of spotlight opportunities to the Trojans' younger players Saturday during the team's spring showcase in the Coliseum.

And indeed several took full advantage in seizing their first opportunity to play in front of fans and a television audience.

At the same time, established stars like wide receiver Drake London, outside linebacker Drake Jackson and cornerback Chris Steele also maximized the opportunity to play for an audience, and another veteran Trojan had many buzzing as to whether he might be "back" to his peak form.

We'll get more in-depth into all of that as we break down our individual standouts from the spring showcase.

Junior wide receiver Drake London has nothing to prove this spring. He is going to be USC's top receiver, might be the best receiver in the Pac-12 for that matter and will be trying to open more eyes nationally this fall after two impressive seasons with the Trojans already.

But he stole the show nonetheless Saturday.

London has been working at outside receiver for the most part this spring, after dominating as an inside receiver the last two years, and he's proven that it doesn't matter where he lines up.

Near the end of the first quarter Saturday, QB Jaxson Dart took a quick drop and lobbed up a pass down the left sideline for London, who perfectly adjusted his stride and turned his body backwards to time the pass right into his hands as it dropped in over cornerback Dorian Hewett for a 30-yard gain.

Then early in the third quarter, playing with starter Kedon Slovis, London caught a quick pass out to the left and dragged defensive back Calen Bullock for an extra 7 yards for a 15-yard gain. Even in a spring game, London always fights for every last yard -- it's one of his many elite qualities.

At the end of that same series, he then reeled in the longest reception of the day. London started out wide left, then motioned inside to his more familiar spot and took off on a post route up the seam, easily beating the defense for a 45-yard reception down to the 5-yard line as Bullock lost him somehow and safety Chase Williams couldn't get over to help in time.

It was a reminder that while London certainly can be an outside receiver, he's so dangerous working the seams that it will be tough to truly move him out of that role.

Overall, he finished with a team-high 7 catches for 139 yards.

It's a story that USC fans know well enough there's no need to fully rehash it, but in short, Trojans fans have been hoping for three-plus years now that running back Stephen Carr might one day again look like the player who seemed like a worthy successor to Ronald Jones II through the first part of his freshman season in 2017. Before the injuries piled up one after another.

Anyways, because that version of Carr was so fun, it's led to many extrapolations over the last few years based on a good game or a comment from the coaches that he may be getting close to that peak again. It's never truly materialized.

Now a redshirt senior, and a fine player the last few years nonetheless, it's probably not fair to Carr to keep drawing everything back to the start of that 2017 season.

So we won't -- we'll just say that he looked very, very good Saturday. As good as we've seen him in a long time. What's it mean? We won't know until we see what he does in the fall, but this was encouraging.

Carr led USC with 53 rushing yards and a touchdown on 8 carries, but there was one sequence in particular that had everybody buzzing.

On the second play of the drive, Carr started toward the congested middle of the line where there was not an opening to be found, and without any hesitation he cut right and took off down the sideline, catching a nice block from tight end Lake McRee and outrunning walk-on safety Tommy Maurice for 26-yard gain. Later, on a third-and-long, after Dart couldn't find anything downfield he liked, he checked down to Carr out to the right and the running back showed immediate burst picking up the easy yards and then lowered his shoulder and plowed forward for the final yards needed for the first down. (Unfortunately, the Pac-12 Network broadcast didn't pick up that highlight for fans watching on TV.)

Carr, who also had a 16-yard run early in the game while taking advantage of a gaping hole, eventually punched in the touchdown on that series that he instigated almost from start to finish.

"He has shown some really nice flashes. He did in the last scrimmage too. We had an inside run drill right prior to our scrimmage and I really thought he brought a level of physicality to that drill and carried it over to that scrimmage. And then today did the same thing," head coach Clay Helton said. "I thought he did some nice things not only in between the tackles, I think he may have had the highest yards per carry today, but also you saw him on a third down -- which was great to see -- he caught the ball on the perimeter and it's him and the safety and there was no stutter step. He ran through him, lowered his shoulder, same foot, same shoulder, and just looked healthy and confident. It's great to see that, it really is."

USC has no easy answers as the coaches state that they want to pick a true lead back and clear secondary back rather than using a committee. Vavae Malepeai has long been a favorite of the staff, Texas transfer Keaontay Ingram has really impressed this spring, freshman Brandon Campbell has piled up some highlights in his first camp, and junior Kenan Christon was already glaringly underused last season.

We expect the staff to give some deference to the redshirt seniors Malepeai and Carr, and if this is the version of Carr they're seeing in practice every day then it won't be a reach to give him another chance to try to close his college career strong. We hadn't noticed this Carr yet in the spring, though, so Saturday was eye-opening.

"What's great for Stephen is he's been so positive, even with the competition in the room. He's been welcoming to the new guys, really coaching them up too, but he also knows he's competing and he competed extremely well today," Helton said.