5 Burning Questions: How Good Is USC's Kedon Slovis?

A free-flowing weekly conversation on USC football with Pac-12 Networks analyst Yogi Roth regarding Kedon Slovis and how he stacks up in the conference and against other USC QBs from this decade, the Trojans' receiving corps, and a prediction for Saturday's game against UCLA.

Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports

A free-flowing weekly conversation on USC football with Pac-12 Networks analyst Yogi Roth regarding Kedon Slovis and how he stacks up in the conference and against other USC QBs from this decade, the Trojans' receiving corps, and a prediction for Saturday's game against UCLA.

Adam Maya (1): Okay, I want to begin with Kedon Slovis. The Pac-12 right now has a pretty good group of quarterbacks. Where would you rank him among Pac-12 quarterbacks -- today and his ceiling?

Yogi Roth: I’m ripping through the teams in my brain, he's doing some special stuff. I’d probably put him right around three, four, behind Justin Herbert and Tyler Huntley, they’re playing better than everybody, the command that they have. He’s not asked to know as much about defenses, just in their system. And then Anthony Gordon’s dealing, and then Jacob Eason.

Maya: OK, so three, four, five, somewhere in there.

Roth: Yeah, somewhere in there.

Maya: And then what about his ceiling?

Roth: I'm really excited about a ceiling. I don't know him as well as maybe you do. But everything I’ve been told about what type of learner he is, is incredible to me. And that to me is everything. I think it’s really high, because what he does that's really special is his second and third reaction game. It's a clean pocket, it’s first reaction. Dirty pocket, he's got to move and adjust, second reaction. And then his third reaction, you can look at the one to Drake London (versus Cal). He stays in the original pocket and then he has to get out, that was really impressive. Eyes downfield, he has the spatial awareness of where the line of scrimmage is. 

Obviously his arm talent, not arm strength but arm talent has a chance to be special. So I like it. I'm excited for the competition. Because JT Daniels, we forget because he hasn’t played since the second quarter of Week 1, but he did stuff with his arm in training camp. Every time I was like, Slovis is balling or Jack Sears has a chance or Matt Fink is playing well, and then JT would do something where you were like, wow, I haven’t seen that. I can’t wait to see these guys compete.

Maya (2): I've said this to you before off air, but I'm going to bring it here because I want to get your take. You’ve had a little bit more time and more film with Kedon. I still contend that out of the guys that Clay Helton has had at quarterback, you’re talking Matt Barkley, Max Wittek, Cody Kessler, Max Browne, Sam Darnold, Daniels, and now Slovis, I think he's the best thrower. I think he's the best passer. Just that. Not the best quarterback. But the best passer of that group. Do you agree?

Roth: Not yet. I think that with more tape or if I was at practice, I could probably give you a better answer, but I still haven't seen him make the soul crushing throws that Sam would make. And I go back to the Washington game on the road (in 2016), where he just placed the ball. He made the most difficult throws look easy. Kedon’s made beautiful throws, and he's made difficult throws look easy. But I haven't seen him have to place it in front of a safety over a linebacker as often as I saw with Sam. So I’m just not ready to go there yet. But I hope I can. I love watching him play.

Maya (3): I actually asked Helton the same question and he said something similar to you about Darnold’s ball placement between defenders, as well as his anticipation being unique. But he also noted Slovis’ accuracy, particularly on deep balls, is beyond what Darnold could do. I think USC is grooming one of its best passers, which is a hard group to crack.

Now let’s talk about wide receivers. That’s another fun group to compare and contrast. If you were to rank those guys by ceiling, how would you go? Mind you, Graham Harrell after the Cal game, said Drake London has the opportunity to be better than any of the other guys they have, which I did not anticipate him saying. I don't see it that way myself, but that's why I want to ask you. It’s an incredible group. There are other guys in there like Kyle Ford and Bru McCoy and Munir McClain that we haven't seen yet. But with the ones that we know more about, how would you rate their potential?

Roth: I went back through all the groups of USC receivers and this is the best group I’ve been around in 15 years. You can go even longer and say 18 years if you wan to include Mike Williams and Keary Colbert, they just never had the depth. That being said, I think all their traits shine. Michael Pittman is so physical and he’s so consistent. He's the most trustworthy of the guys to make big plays. He plays his size. Tyler Vaughns is the smoothest. Amon-Ra St. Brown is probably the, you could take him for granted because he just always shows up. He’s faster than you think, he’s a deceptive route runner, and he’s built.

Maya: He’s the most well-rounded.

Roth: Yeah. Well said. And then Drake reminds me a little bit … a little bit, OK? A little bit … of Larry Fitzgerald.

Maya: Oh?

Roth: When Larry was a freshman, Larry wasn't the greatest route runner. He would tell you that. Again, I'm only watching game film. So it's limited snaps. It's 20-30 snaps in a game, whatever London is playing. It’s not like he's separating a lot of the time because of his route running, in terms of dropping his hips, getting in and out of cuts. He's separating because he's attacking leverage, he's utilizing his body and he can sight the ball. And I think sighting the ball is a lost art. But because of his basketball ability, I think Clay’s quote was he played above the rim, and I’d agree. And that’s what Larry did. Larry came in and he knew what normal freshman know with the playbook, but his ball skills were so special. I can remember for us it was against Texas A&M, he just told the coach, hey, I can catch it, throw it up. Coach put him in on a fade route and just did kind of what Drake's done. 

He's not physically comparable to Larry. He’s just gifted in different ways. But in terms of a freshman going up and getting the ball and not being pushed to the sideline. I watch freshmen receivers every week run out of bounds on go routes. He’s doing the little things really well. I go back personally to the philosophy of the Air Raid that we talked about. It's based on personnel and space maximization, and the goal is to gain mastery through repetition. I think you see that. You look at the Colorado game and the seam route after the game was almost given away, he had to attack leverage and then win. Those are the things that jump out. 

But who is the highest ceiling as a college player? You might go him because he's hard to guard. I would say Drake probably has the highest ceiling based on what we've seen on tape. But I think Michael Pittman has the chance to play the longest, or Amon-Ra. Because those two guys are so physically gifted now. I don't know what his parents look like, I don’t know what his body type is. I don’t know what kind of basketball player he is. He might not play football again. I have no idea.

Maya: I guarantee that’s not happening. I don’t think he’s going to play basketball very long. So, Drake, one?

Roth: Michael is at his college ceiling, a Biletnikoff semifinalist.

Maya: He might still win it. He could be an All-American.

Roth: I’d go Pittman, Amon-Ra, London.

Maya: Now you got London third?

Roth: Because I know more about them. I think it’s hard. Next year’s he’s going to get bracketed. There’s other stuff that’s going to happen. I know what Michael Pittman does when he sees double coverage. I know how Amon-Ra works linebackers, works nickel defenders, works safeties, works single-high safeties I don’t know that about London yet.

Maya (4): That’s why it’s really hard. It’s just fun to talk about. I have a hard time myself. I’ve been convinced that Amon-Ra St. Brown was the most complete guy, but Pittman is having the better year. So I have a hard time distinguishing between the two of them. And I want to see Kyle Ford and the others. OK, X factor for USC-UCLA -- what do you feel like is something that people aren’t thinking about that will really have a huge impact on this game?

Roth: Well, my biggest takeaway from the game over the weekend was the defensive front. Everybody loves offense. I pulled about 10 or 11 clips of that defensive front, or just the scheme in terms of the style of blitzes, they got after it. Obviously Cal’s got a maligned offensive front, but that was impressive to me. So, how the defense handles all the shifts and movement and misdirection. Go back and watch the Utah game, don't just look at the score, UCLA moves the ball. They just killed themselves with turnovers, and Utah I think is the best team in the conference. So I think it'd be USC’s front seven and how do they handle the misdirection, the movement, the multiple tight ends and the option game. They run triple option. So I'd say that's the X factor. 

Chip Kelly is going to want to run the football. And if he can, it’s going to be interesting because if USC goes three and out or if they’re not having the success they’re accustomed to having on offense, it could be similar to last year. But I expect USC to move the ball, I expect them to win 1-on-1 matchups. Probably the biggest key for this game, and I’ll steal a line from Herm Edwards, he always says, play with passion, don't play with emotion. This game there's always so much chippiness. These guys know each other, they grew up together, they played Pop Warner, high school together. Teams can't hurt themselves in this game. But USC’s the favorite and I’d expect them to win.

Maya (5): What do you think is going to actually happen and what’s your score prediction?

Roth: I’m curious what it's like within that program right now. There's a lot of discussion around that team and Clay. When you take out the emotion, you look at this team that could finish 8-4 in the regular season. If you would have said you’re going to your third quarterback and fifth tailback and lose your top 2-4 defensive players in critical games. You’d be, OK. The BYU one still stinks. And then they’re going to have to prepare for Oregon. They're going to have to practice next week as though Utah loses to Colorado. 

I say that because I think that this team is going to be really focused, and I think that they feel and hear that noise. And I think we saw them do something that I didn't predict them to do against the Cal defense, which was to do what nobody else did to Justin Wilcox other than Oregon. Really in his entire tenure, Oregon is the only other team that’s really done that. I mean, U-Dub, Year 1. But it's not really anything that's happened to them. So I think we got to give Helton credit for how this team's playing and coming together. I think USC wins, like I referenced, and I think they’re going to score. I could see this one being 38-24.

Maya: OK, so pretty handily? You think they’ll be able to throw the ball at will.

Roth: They should. They’ll going to have to beat man coverage but I think that's the thing they proved against Cal. As an offensive guy, the reason you love receiver so much, when you're not that fast, you know where you're going and he defender doesn’t. Now, be fast and big and strong like the guys we just talked about, and that’s what we saw against Cal. Their secondary, they’re all going to be in NFL training camps, every one of them. 

Where they get there, how they get there is TBD, but they're all going to get there. And they were all in position to make plays. It's not like they were busting coverages left and right. This receiving corps just really proved to me on the biggest stage against the best DBs they faced since Utah that they're that much better than everybody. UCLA, they've been above average at DB, but they're not NFL draft picks right now.

Maya: Well, that ball placement was pretty good from that freshman quarterback.

Roth: Yeah, exactly. He makes it impossible.

-- Adam Maya is a USC graduate and has been covering the Trojans since 2003. Follow him on Twitter @AdamJMaya.

-- Yogi Roth is a Pac-12 Networks college football analyst, award-winning filmmaker, scholar, New York Times best-selling author, coach, motivational speaker and world-traveler. Be sure to check out all his latest work.