Spring Ball for USC and College Football

By Earl Heath

Contributing Sports Writer Spring has sprung for college football and USC. Teams are checking what they have player wise for the 2023 campaign.

The Trojans recently had its game at the L.A. Coliseum and the ‘sure thing’ was the QB position with Celeb Williams at the helm.

The Walter Camp Player of the Year only played three plays. He did throw a TD pass to Mario Williams during the short stint.

At the half Robert Whalen Executive of the Heisman trust was on hand to present Williams with the Heisman trophy in front of the crowd of 25,213 fans. Williams parents were present as were members of the 2022 USC football team.

Four-star freshman running back Quinten Joyner shined with big runs, including a 26-yard touchdown.

Marshawn Lloyd and A’ Marion Peterson are two newcomers that had strong showing in a crowed backfield.

Joyner had a 26-yard scoring scamper and drew praise from veteran teammate Austin Jones.

“The dude just naturally makes explosive plays,” said Jones. “He gets out of trouble all the time.”

On the defensive side former five-star prospect Anthony Lucas, who transferred to USC from Texas A&M this offseason applied pressure and will be a highlight all season. The 6-6, 265 pounder is a true athlete. He’s spent time at defensive tackle, defensive end and edge rusher, chasing the quarterback on one play, then flipping his hips to drop into coverage on the next.

Transfer Mason Cobb was an All-Big 12 Conference linebacker at Oklahoma State, crouched in the middle, running to every hole with reckless abandon. In front of him was Kyle Bars, who was an All-Pac-12 Conference defensive tackle at Arizona. The D-line looks improved already.

“We all knew deep down that we had some holes there last year,” head coach Riley said. “I mean, it is what it is right? You knew. And even when we’re winning games and playing, playing well defensively, like, you know, at some point this has got to be addressed. It was going to be a focal point no matter if we won five games last year, we won 11, or we won 15 games last year. Like, it was going to happen. And so I’m excited about what that looks like.”

“I couldn’t breathe,” said Garcia, 24. “I was going to get back up, but I just couldn’t get up. … He just caught me with a good shot – I don’t want to make no excuses in here – … and I just couldn’t recover. … He caught me with a good body shot, snuck under me and caught me good.”

The night started surprisingly even with a slight edge to Garcia as he dominated the latter part of the first round and showed his power early in the second. But things changed quickly and dramatically when Garcia started to cut the ring off and move forward against Davis but failed to land a left hook. Davis responded with a vicious counter left hook of his own that sent Garcia to the canvas for the first time of the evening. Garcia was never able to fully recover from the first knockdown as Davis controlled the rest of the night and sits at the top of the mountain in the sport of boxing.

Coincidentally, Davis last bout against Hector Garcia ended similar as Garcia absorbed so much punishment from Davis that he was forced to not respond for the 8th round of their fightback on January 9th in Washington, DC.

Davis who has 29 wins 27 of them by KO and the last six straight consecutive fights have ended in a knockout for Davis as well looks to continue his reign over boxing and the lightweight division.

When asked by Showtime’s Jim Gray if he was the new face of boxing Davis replied “I’m definitely the face of boxing. Absolutely!”

(Additional reporting provided by Virginia Van Zandt)