Donte Williams Modifies USC's Game Day Routine Ahead of Utah

The interim head coach continues to make adjustments since taking over for Clay Helton.

When USC interim head coach Donte Williams took over, there were a few small changes made within the program. The former cornerbacks coach has preached 'accountability' since filling Clay Helton's role, with a new mindset of 1-0 everyday.

Williams has made a few notable changes to the Trojans' game week preparations, including bringing referees into practice, implementing an on-field team dress code, and establishing consequences for tardiness. 

As USC currently holds a 1-2 record for home games, Williams decided to make more adjustments, this time to the USC's game day routine.

“We made some adjustments. Just overall, just how we do things even on Friday and Saturday," Williams said.

"It used to be Friday, we did a walkthrough and the guys ate dinner at Galen. They ate dinner at Galen and then they had a little bit of free time, and they got on a bus and then they went to the hotel, and then they had snack. So in my opinion, they never got to lock in until Saturday. 

So right now we changed it for this game and going forward. Guys are gonna do the walkthrough and after that they’ll go to the locker room, take a shower, get on the bus and go to the hotel, and eat dinner in the hotel as a team. 

So just little things like that are gonna help them get focused in on Friday. It's kind of like what we do on away games. We fly out and have dinner as a team and focus right away on Friday. I think right now a lot of that focus has been lost because we haven’t started until Saturday. 

The next thing is walk through and on Saturday, we will do a walkthrough at a high school in the morning instead of doing it in a lobby or outside in a parking lot. We'll go to a high school for walk through. Just different things like that just to get the guys up and moving around. So we'll continue to tweak things like that.”

The USC Trojans are gunning for their fourth win of the 2021 season, currently holding a 3-2 overall record. This is the third time in history, and first since 1994, that the team has started the season W-L-W-L-W.

USC takes on the Utah Utes, October 9, at 5:00 p.m. PT.

----

Follow All Trojans on Social Media: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube