Does USC football need a true WR1 to have an elite offense?

The last time we saw the USC football team in action, sophomore wide receiver Makai Lemon was torching the Rutgers defense for 134 yards and a touchdown on just four catches. That led many to wonder if Lemon is emerging as USC's go-to option in the passing game.

It is easy to understand why Trojan fans have been looking for a breakout star to emerge from the wide receiver room all season long. After all, this is a program that has seemingly always had a star wide out on the roster.

Going all the way back to legendary players like Lynn Swan, Steve Smith, Dwayne Jarrett, Mike Williams, or Keyshawn Johnson, USC has been synonymous with great wide receiver play. However, as 2024 began, there was no sure-fire All-American WR on the roster. Instead, a group of talented young players were all battling for playing time.

Now, eight games into the season, the Trojans still don't have a No. 1 option at the position. In fact, five different players have led the team in receiving at least once this year.

Thus, head coach Lincoln Riley was asked earlier this week if his offense needed a No. 1 receiver to emerge.

"Not necessarily," he said. "I mean I think just that you've got enough good skill sets in the room that you feel like you have some advantages on the field that you can go tap into and that you can go put people in a position where they've got to make some tough decisions defensively. And so I honestly like it how we have it with this group where a lot of guys have stepped up, a lot of guys have had big games.

"I think we're a pretty multiple group to defend. It's not like you can go defend us and just zero in on one guy. That makes it a lot tougher and yeah, sometimes that's just the way that these games go, but I think never complaining about having an alpha, but when you've got a good complete room, I feel like we're really starting to become, that can be even tougher to defend."

Though Riley is downplaying the need for a No. 1 receiver, there is no doubt that his offenses have usually featured go-to pass catchers. Since he took over as the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma for the 2015 season, he's had Sterling Shepard, Dede Westbrook, Marquise Brown, Ceede Lamb, and Tahj Washington all post at least 1,000 yards in a season.

This year, though, Lemon leads the team with just 378 receiving yards (in seven games played). That puts him on pace for only 594 yards in the regular season, which would be less than Riley's top receiver at Oklahoma in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season totaled. That year, in only ten regular season games played, Marvin Mims caught 36 passes for 583 yards and eight touchdowns.

Lemon is starting to separate himself from the rest of the USC wide receivers though. He has led the team in receiving yards in each of the past three games and over that span, he's caught 18 balls for 296 yards and a score.

Currently, the Trojans are 16th in the nation in passing yards per game at 291.0. But in each of the past two seasons, the Trojans ranked in the top five nationally in that category.

Thus, it is fair to wonder if the team's slight regression is due to the lack of a dominant wide receiver. Fortunately, the stable of pass catchers Riley has at the ready is young and still developing. If Lemon or one of his teammates can turn into a go-to threat, maybe that will unlock the Trojan passing game and make it one of the elite attacks in the nation again.