Tyler Vaughns knows exactly where he stands on the USC career receiving lists, and more to the point, he knows exactly what he needs to do this season to leave as a Trojans record-holder.

"I'm well aware of the numbers. My screensaver actually has the numbers I want to reach this year for my goals," he said in an interview with TrojanSports.com. "I see it every day, I visualize it and I want to attack it."

Vaughns admits he didn't necessarily expect to be at USC for five years, but the feedback he got from the NFL after last season was not what he expected, and so he's back as a redshirt senior with a number of goals in mind.

First, he notes, he had a couple of classes still to finish up to complete his degree, and that was a motivator to return in itself. Of course, he also wants to finish at USC the way he started -- on teams that won a Rose Bowl and Pac-12 championship his first two years with the program.

But, yes, he also wants to change the opinions of the NFL talent evaluators, and if he can become USC's all-time leader in receptions or receiving yards along the way, well, that would be quite a statement in itself.

"It means a lot to me -- just because it shows how hard I've been working and what I've been trying to achieve," Vaughns said. "I am underrated. I don't think I'm high on anybody's board, per se. I just feel like people are not really watching the game and how I play. I feel when they do really get a chance to break down my game and see it -- there are some flaws and I understand that, that I'll be correcting -- but they'll see a lot of good things out of it."

Let's start with the numbers ...

Vaughns enters his final season with 189 receptions for 2,395 yards and 17 touchdowns.

That puts him just 64 catches away from passing Robert Woods (252 career catches) for the program record. Vaughns has had at least 57 catches in each of the last three seasons, including a career-best 74 in 2019.

He has a little further to go to catch Marqise Lee's Trojans record for career receiving yards (3,655), needing 1,261 to pass the former standout. Vaughns' career-high for receiving yards came last year with 912 despite missing most of the game vs. Cal and finishing without a catch due to an ankle injury.

With Michael Pittman and his 101 catches for 1,275 yards and 11 TDs last season now off to the NFL, Vaughns expects to have the opportunity to chase that receiving yards record as well.

"I do expect my role to be a little bit bigger because we are missing a big factor in our offense that we had last year," he said. "There's going to be more balls spread around, there's going to be more options and things put in place."

Meanwhile, the USC record for touchdown receptions -- Dwayne Jarrett's 41 -- is likely out of reach, but only two other players in program history have totaled 30, with Woods reaching 32 and Mike Williams catching 30 TDs. Vaughns, who matched his career-best with 6 TD catches last season, has set a lofty goal of reaching that 30-TD plateau with 13 this fall.

However it shakes out, he will have etched his name high on those all-time Trojans lists.

"That's my main focus going into this year is I just really want to help my team the best way I can while trying to meet my goals," he said. "... I'm not going to sit here and say that I thought I would be here for five years, but I did see myself beating records. That was a goal of mine going into high school [at Bishop Amat] as well as into college. In high school I broke my records there, and I wanted to come here and do the same thing."

But as he learned last offseason, the numbers alone won't set up the NFL future he hopes to have after this year.

Vaughns doesn't say exactly what draft grade he received from the NFL, as schools can submit names to the league for feedback before the players decide whether or not to enter the draft, but he did share what he took away from it.

"It wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It was more so that, I don't know, just telling me more things I have to work on, more things I have to develop as a man, as myself with my character. But it was just eye-opening and something I needed," he said.

"The [biggest] thing I always hear back from anybody really is my play size and how I look, just my body type that people don't really agree upon because I don't pass the eye test, they'll say. But I work perfectly fine at where my body is, what my body weight is. I play at 185 -- it just may not look as big and bulky as others. I'm a tall and slender kind of guy. ... It's something I've been dealing with for years now, people undermining me and how I play because of the way my body shape is."

Vaughns noted he is up to 190 pounds now and aiming to play the 2020 season at around 195.

There are a few other tweaks he's looking to make to his game as well entering this final season at USC.

"Just going out there and blocking better. That's my main focus right now. I am a good blocker, don't get me wrong or anything like that, but just hold onto blocks and make sure I get the last block down the field. Just little minor things I'm trying to focus on right now," he said.

Because, again, he expects the targets and catches to be there in this high-flying Trojans offense, especially now that he and quarterback Kedon Slovis have a full season of building trust and chemistry together.

"The more and more you play with Kedon, the more you understand how he thinks. He's more of a technical guy. So just knowing him, you've got to just be on his steps, be on his keys and everything like that," Vaughns said. "Once you get to knowing where he needs you to be ... if he sees you're hot, he's going to keep you going and make sure you stay hot."

To that end, Vaughns is expecting big things not only of himself but of this USC receiving corps and the offense in general.

"Just based on how we were rolling last year, our offense clicking how it was. They're older now, they're not as young as we were last year, we have key guys still here," he said. "We're missing one of our main [cogs] in our receiving corps in Michael Pitt[man], but we're going to dominate this year, I believe, because I know how our guys are preparing."