Luca Evans (OC Register) — LOS ANGELES — Jay Fair never really had a handshake with someone before he came to USC.
Sure, he might have slapped hands with a fellow receiver, back when he was at Auburn. But not like this.
After finding a rhythm with veteran Kyron Hudson on Thursday, Fair has checked off individual, customized handshakes with every wideout in USC’s room. He still lags behind. Sophomores Zachariah Branch and Ja’Kobi Lane have between 15 and 20 with various members of the program.
There is a pride in this, evident in the smile on Branch’s face Thursday. Fingers lock in intricate two-step dances across practice turf, claps and sways as complicated as the routes they memorize from Lincoln Riley’s playbook. Branch, the sophomore burner, recently struck up a new routine with Georgetown grad transfer Asante Das – only to find it was too complex for the sticky gloves they wore.
“The part we do it is like this,” Branch mimed Thursday, pretending to interlace and twist his fingers, “and our hands keep getting stuck. So I’m like, ‘All right, don’t really grab my pinky.”
For a few minutes each morning at Howard Jones Field, USC’s fall camp briefly transforms into an exhibition for the exuberance of a youthful receiver room. They will hit their handshakes, trotting between pass-catching lines. They will shout for a student assistant to switch the song booming over loud field speakers, and sometimes Branch or sophomore Makai Lemon will run over to the aux (cable) and take DJ matters into their own hands. They will show off in individuals, Lane stretching every inch of his 6-foot-4 frame in a vertical leap or Branch reaching cross-body for a one-armed pluck.
Fair, too, didn’t feel much stability within his offense before he came to USC, finishing as Auburn’s second-leading receiver with just 324 yards in 2023. That’s changed, with the sophomore talent surrounding him at USC. They are ready – all of them, from Branch to Lane to Lemon to Duce Robinson – for expanded roles, and show it those mornings on Howard Jones.
But even in a spread-out Riley offense, there are only so many mouths to feed.
“I just think it’s always about football and winning games,” Lane said in late July. “So, if I don’t get to touch the ball and we still win, it’s not that big of a deal.”
In the spring, prospective starting quarterback Miller Moss smiled and shrugged when asked what a team with his DNA looked like. I guess we’ll see, he said then. Months later, standing and representing USC inside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Moss was asked again the aspects of his mentality he wanted the program to take on.
He hoped the group was selfless, he responded, speaking directly of his skill guys.
“I think that, especially in the offseason ball, is really key to success, especially when you have a lot of guys that are going to demand – and rightfully so – a lot of touches,” Moss told the Southern California News Group. “And they’re obviously very talented, and entitled to want that.”
Branch, after an All-American season as a true freshman returner in 2023, has been praised by Riley and teammates alike for his progression in his IQ as a receiver. The lanky Lane’s development, after a two-touchdown performance in the Holiday Bowl and an offseason putting on 15 pounds, has been “crazy,” as Branch put it. Lemon’s precision and cuts on route-running have popped off the turf in camp. The 6-foot-6 Robinson could emerge as a red-zone threat.
Add in Fair from Auburn, USC-turned-UCLA-turned-USC returnee Kyle Ford, and a steady-handed returner like Hudson, and that battle for touches will persist through December.
“I think the guys in the room that we have now, they aren’t selfish at all, so I mean, they want to see everybody win,” Fair said in July. “And I think the staff of Lincoln Riley, in the past, they’ve done a great job of being able to use multiple pieces in their offense.”
Moss, stepping into the limelight in the post-Caleb Williams era, has taken it upon himself to coalesce an eclectic group. On Father’s Day, with Lane’s and Robinson’s dads back in Arizona, Moss brought the two young receivers to his father’s home in Los Angeles, dad Eric Owen Moss said. And the first time Fair met the group after arriving in the spring, too, was after Moss sent a group-text inviting all his receivers to throw down in Orange County.
“That moment alone right there just kinda told me, ‘OK, I see what this team’s about, I see what type of guy he is,’” Fair said of Moss. “Because ultimately, coming in as a transfer, you don’t really expect to kinda have that feeling of, ‘OK, I’m meshing with the guys already.’”
The handshakes help, too. There’s quite a few now for Fair to remember, if he finds the end zone come fall.
“Hopefully,” he smiled Thursday, “it’ll just be muscle memory.”
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