USC Athletics

The Trojans made third down efficiency a priority at practice today as they continue to prepare for the Pac-12 Championship Game against Stanford.

• USC head coach Clay Helton says the injury report remains the same as yesterday's.


• Helton noted that placekicker Chase McGrath and punter Reid Budrovich are back to full health and ready to contribute on Friday.


• He also explained that all four USC RBs are healthy again, and hopes to use the stable against Stanford. "Stephen [Carr] looks like he's fully back, so I expect more reps," he said. "But RoJo's running really good. I think Tee [Martin] has done a wonderful job of being in that 25 touch range for RoJo. Obviously it's producing some results for us. When he needs air, we'll put another one of those guys in."


• Stanford's got an impressive running back of their own that the Trojans have to prepare for, but Helton is confident in USC's run defense as of late. "You've seen us load the box a bunch with the safeties coming down, he said. "We've been able to get that extra safety in the box, and they're showing up and making tackles. And that's really helped us."


• Linebacker Cameron Smith, USC's leading tackler, will be key in stopping the run on Friday, and he's feeling refreshed after a long-awaited bye. "I think we got a lot of guys back that we needed and some guys that were kind of hanging on the edge and we needed to heal up a little bit, so it was big for us and kind of almost a regroup and refresher," he said.


• Smith watched the 2015 Pac-12 Championship Game against Stanford from the sidelines after a knee injury ended his freshman campaign, so he's excited to finally have the chance to take the big stage. "I didn't get to play them my freshman year, so it's something that I hoped we'd get the opportunity to play them again," he said. "They beat us twice my freshman year and we're hoping to go out there and do the same thing."


• Much has been made of the difficulty of beating the same team twice in a season, like Stanford did to USC in 2015. Helton said the key to flipping the script this year is knowing personnel matchups and identifying individual players' strengths and weaknesses.


• Senior safety Chris Hawkins identified the fade route as one of the strengths of Stanford QB K.J. Costello and Stanford's tight ends. "We know they're going to throw it, that's their bread-and-butter," the captain said. "Costello loves it, but hopefully I can sneak over and snag one out of the air.


• Hawkins identified the fade route as one of the strengths of Costello and Stanford's tight end group. "We know they're going to throw it, that's their bread-and-butter," the captain said. "Costello loves it, but hopefully I can sneak over and snag one out of the air.


• After a 10-2 start and a bye week, Hawkins and the Trojans are excited to get out and compete for the program's first Pac-12 title since 2008. "This is what we dream of at the beginning of the season, to be playing for a Pac-12 Championship," he said. "Our first goal is to win the South, we did that, our second goal is to win the Pac-12 Championship, and we're working our way toward that goal right now. We're fired up out here we're competing with each other, I haven't felt this good about us in a long time and I think we're going to come out on Friday and show how good we really can be."