In an unfortunate setback ahead of what was supposed to truly be a potential breakout season for Jude Wolfe, USC coach Lincoln Riley said Friday the fourth-year junior tight end will miss the first part of the season with a left foot injury.

Wolfe was wearing a boot on his left foot and lower leg this week and was using a motorized cart while watching practice Friday. Wolfe broke that left foot previously during the 2020 season.

"Yeah, Jude has a foot injury. He's going to miss the first part of the season. He's going to have a procedure done here pretty quick and we'll get it cleaned up and hopefully have him back for the second half of the season," Riley said.

Wolfe went through spring practice working in the H-back role, which is a key component in Riley's offense, involved as both a lead blocker in certain run plays and also as a versatile chess piece in the passing game.

At Oklahoma last season, TE/H-back Jeremiah Hall ranked fifth on the team with 32 catches for 334 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Wolfe, a former four-star prospect, has 10 catches for 61 yards in his time at USC.

In his absence, redshirt senior Malcolm Epps should take on a bigger role in the offense. The former Texas Longhorn had 10 catches for 173 yards and a touchdown last fall in his first season at USC. Redshirt freshman Lake McRee and redshirt senior Josh Falo are other options.

Epps talked about his confidence for the season last week at USC's football media day.

"I feel like Coach Riley puts you in a lot of one-on-one matchups and it's up to you to go win them, and I have a lot of confidence in myself to go win those matchups," Epps said.

Epps had another interesting quote that day, when asked what role he was expecting this season, that is suddenly very relevant to the situation he finds himself in.

"I'm not focused on that, as a team we're not focused on that," he said. "We're just focused on like living in the moment. Like [leadership trainer/speaker] Tim Kight talks about, we live in the moment and when things happen they happen for a reason and we just have to just respond to them."

How Riley maneuvers his personnel with regard to the H-back role and more traditional tight end role will be worth noting moving forward.