After watching his team go through its Fall Showcase scrimmage before a live crowd in the Coliseum on Saturday, USC coach Clay Helton was mostly positive -- overly positive really.
Which makes the few critiques he did offer all the more noteworthy.
Helton praised the decision-making of his quarterbacks -- all of them -- and deferred any thoughts on a decision at that position until he meets with offensive coordinator Graham Harrell on Monday.
He also praised the wide receivers for catching the passes that hit their hands, even though there were five pretty glaring drops.
So take some of Helton's instant evaluation with that perspective.
"I thought they made great decisions today. You didn't see any forced balls, they looked like [they had] great poise," Helton said of the QBs. "Each one of them led long drives. They're weren't any turnovers so you really didn't have any situations with sudden change -- you were going the long way about every time. And I thought there was consistency and poise amongst all of them, from freshman all the way up."
JT Daniels, whom most presume will retain the starting job heading into his sophomore season, was unofficially 19-of-27 passing for 225 yards, 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. Three of those incompletions were drops, he had another pass batted down at the line and had three overthrows (two going out of bounds on downfield sideline routes).
He had four completions over 20 yards -- a well-timed crossing route to Amon-Ra St. Brown that went for 32 yards on the catch-and-run, a 23-yard completion threaded perfect over nickel Chase Williams and into the hands of Velus Jones, a flukey 33-yard touchdown pass to tight end Erik Krommenhoek thrown off his back foot under pressure that was easily completed nonetheless as Greg Johnson fell down in coverage and a 22-yard hook-up with Devon Williams.
Jack Sears was 8 of 12 for 110 yards, 2 TDs and 0 INT, picking up the bulk of his yards on two big plays. He had a 41-yard completion to Jones that was underthrown but Jones was able to come back to it as freshman Jayden Williams got turned around in coverage, and a pretty 37-yard touchdown pass to St. Brown that he floated down the seam with safety Isaiah Pola-Mao in coverage. Sears, who also added 18 rushing yards, didn't do much outside of those two plays.
Freshman Kedon Slovis was 7 of 13 for 136 yards, 0 TDs and 0 INTs, salvaging his day at the end with back-to-back completions of 42 and 25 yards to Michael Pittman -- both against freshman cornerback Chris Steele.
And veteran Matt Fink was 8 of 12 for 148 yards, 1 TD and 0 INTs. His highlight was a 54-yard touchdown to a wide-open St. Brown downfield.
Asked if he's seen separation in the quarterback competition as the team prepares to turn to game prep next week, Helton deferred.
RELATED: A series-by-series breakdown of the key moments from USC's second scrimmage
(Continued below)
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