Travis Dye cemented in USC Football history as he adds to TD streak

USC Football RB1 Travis Dye is the workhorse back with the Trojans for a reason. He has been a monster all year, averaging 6.3 yards per carry all the way to 858 rushing yards through nine games this season. He's also caught 20 passes for 194 receiving yards. The most important stat, though, is his nine rushing touchdowns.

Why is that the most important stat? Because he's scored those touchdowns in a manner that hasn't been seen in a Trojan uniform since ex-USC Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Allen did it in 1981. Dye is the first back for USC to have scored at least one rushing touchdown in eight straight games since Allen's 1981 Heisman season.

Dye didn't score a touchdown in the first game of this season, despite the team scoring 66 points. He played very well vs. Rice that week, though, averaging four yards per carry and catching three passes for 21 yards via the aerial attack. He also made many incredibly important blocks throughout the contest. It was evident that he had a lot of big plays in store for the Trojans this season.

That certainly has been the case, and proved itself again on Saturday. He ran for 98 yards on 15 carries against Cal, and of course scored a touchdown. He also had a couple of catches for 18 receiving yards. Against Arizona in Week 9, he became the first USC RB to rush for at least one touchdown in seven straight games. He was already having a tremendous year.

Travis Dye wanted to get in on even more history, though, while doing what hasn't been done since Marcus Allen played with USC Football.

Travis Dye being mentioned in the same sentence as Marcus Allen shows that USC Football is getting back on track to being an elite running back program. The fact that Dye is doing something that the likes of LenDale White and Reggie Bush didn't even do is wild. It also shows that he clearly made the right decision to come back home and play ball for USC.

Dye averaged 6 yards per carry with the Oregon Ducks in his collegiate career before he came over to the Trojans. That's obviously still a great YPC average, but not what it is in L.A.

The best part is that he'll probably get LOTS more carries coming up for him in these last three games (and Bowl game) of the season, as he's only ran it 136 times so far this year. That's 75 carries less than what even his career-high was coming into this year.

This year, he's averaged 15.1 carries per game. To get to that career-high he posted in 2021 (211), he'll need to average 18.75 rushes the rest of the way. Clearly, he can take the 211 carry workload, and even in a season where he caught 46 passes (he's caught much less at 20 through the first nine games of this year).

So, expect those touches to indeed go up these last four games. That also will of course lead to more scoring opportunities for Dye, which he has clearly proven to be able to take advantage of.