Stanford Wednesday: Notes

The Trojans steamed through the midway point of the week as the Stanford challenge grows closer.

USC head coach Clay Helton's injury report: DB Bubba Bolden (doubtful with a knee bruise), RT Chuma Edoga (knee bruise looked better), WR Michael Pittman Jr. (probably a week away).

With Pittman out, the Trojans have are looking for a big, physical receiver to step up and freshman Joseph Lewis IV is filling the void. "He's always had that powerful, natural skill set," Helton said about Lewis. He continued that the "light clicked on" for him recently and made a bold comparison, saying he could be a "faster version of JuJu [Smith-Schuster]."

Helton did not mince words when talking about his team's performance in week one. "I wanted to go out there and play our standard of football…and that didn't happen. The guys understood that."

LB Cameron Smith (pictured) is using last week's performance as fuel to improve this week. "I'd say nothing went our way, and it just shows a lot from our team. We learned a lot and I think it's only going to make us better," Smith said. "To see how we answered in the end -- we played four full quarters of football, and that's who we are now: we're finishers."

OLB Porter Gustin assessed the Trojans' performance with a critical eye as well. "There were a lot of times where there were just little things like...getting out of your gap a little too early or crossing over too soon and having the back cut back or somebody spills and somebody doesn't come off their butt like they're supposed to. It's just little things that I think we can clean up. We all saw it and figured out what we need to change and it's something that were focusing on."

There is no time for the Trojans to work through their problems as perhaps the season's toughest test looms on Saturday. "They seem to never drop off," Smith said about Stanford. "This is my favorite game every year leading up to it. It's an honor to play them."

Gustin is looking forward to having Smith on the field for all four quarters this time. "We're just all comfortable as a unit," Gustin said. "We've been with him and he's been with us for a long time now so him being out there, he's really vocal, loud and he's very commanding and gets the play out to everyone."

DB Marvell Tell III, who had one of the better performances on the USC defense against Western Michigan, is ready to get in the lab and diagnose the Cardinal. "Now that we've got good film on a team, I feel like just being able to prepare -- that's what really set us apart from other teams last year was our preparation," Tell said. "So now that we have this film, just got to go in there -- which we've been doing -- most guys on the defense are going up there every day with coach and just studying."

While the defense gears up, Helton knows that the Stanford game often comes down to special teams. The Trojans had some mixed results on Saturday. "I thought our punt team was phenomenal and it started really with Reid [Budrovich]," Helton praised his directional punting. However, the head coach explained that the kickoff team had the "opposite" problem as the return touchdown came on a misguided kick which threw off the coverage.

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