USC Football News: Fall Camp, Day 8 Practice Notes (8/12)

Day 8 of USC football Fall Camp focused on the unique challenges of being the road team, with the Trojans prepping for a tough away slate.

USC football head coach Clay Helton has been candid during Fall Camp about where his team is and isn’t excelling. Friday was no different as he critiqued his team’s efforts during more situational work.

“In continuing to learn situational football, we worked our backed up situations with crowd noise…to try to see where we are functionality-wise,” said Helton. “I didn’t think it was very good.”

The head coached indicated that his Trojans were sloppy during the period, which included artificial crowd noise and music.

“It’s something that we know that when you’re playing in the Pac-12 and you’re playing in an elite conference and playing some elite non-conference games, it’s going to get loud,” Helton said.

USC will face a particularly difficult road slate in 2016.

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Starting the schedule out at AT&T Stadium in Arlington against Alabama, they won’t deal with a hostile home crowd, but there will still be distractions at the neutral site.

From there the Trojans will be on the road against Stanford and Utah. The latter will be at one of the most rowdy venues in the conference and on a Friday night in primetime, Rice-Eccles should be particularly loud.

After a trip to Arizona, USC will then face Washington and UCLA on the road in back-to-back weeks.

Few teams will take on a more difficult traveling schedule, so Helton is right to worry about how is team will handle those high-pressure situations.

The sloppy day means the Trojans will need to go back and work on this particular situation again before Helton is satisfied.

From the Notebook

• Injury Update:
  • Offensive linemen Frank Martin and E.J. Price both sat out due to a stomach bug.
  • Lineman Chad Wheeler remained out with plantar fascitis. Helton expects it will be a couple more days before he can return fully.
  • Safety John Plattenburg is still out going through concussion protocol.
  • Receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster was pulled as a caution as he deals with a sore toe and ankle.
  • Cornerback Jack Jones tweaked his quad.
• Safety Iman Marshall missed practice to attend the funeral of a family member.
• Safeties Chris Hawkins and Matt Lopes and receiver Jalen Greene were available for some team work for the first time in a week as they each come back from hamstring injuries.
• Sam Darnold was intercepted by C.J. Pollard thanks to a tip by Connor Murphy (via Joey Kaufman).
• Max Browne led the team to a touchdown during that same two-minute drill (via Chris Trevino).