{"id":421230,"date":"2026-08-02T00:01:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T00:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421230\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T00:01:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T00:01:43","slug":"new-receivers-give-lincoln-riley-hope-as-usc-opens-fall-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/421230\/","title":{"rendered":"New receivers give Lincoln Riley hope as USC opens fall camp"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the start of his fifth fall camp at USC, Lincoln Riley<\/a> found himself enamored with all that felt new around him. Namely the state-of-the-art, $200-million facility towering over one end of the Trojans\u2019 practice field, with all the luxuries any football coach could ask for. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis building is magical,\u201d Riley said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain how different, how fantastic it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the field, in front of that gleaming facility, the Trojans also were breaking in something entirely new on Saturday: their receiving corps.<\/p>\n

USC<\/a> opened training camp this week without the services of its top returning wideout, Tanook Hines<\/a>, after the sophomore underwent an offseason surgical procedure that has yet to revealed. Riley said the injury affecting Hines, who missed the spring, isn\u2019t \u201coverly serious\u201d and that he\u2019s expected back for the start of the season. But his absence leaves the Trojans with a totally new and unproven group to catch passes; many of them are getting their first experience of college football, and of quarterback Jayden Maiava.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of new bodies. Fortunately he had spring and all summer with all these guys to start developing that chemistry and that confidence,\u201d Riley said of Maiava. \u201cBut that\u2019s going to be something we have to work at every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those new players is a host of top receiver recruits expected to contribute right away. Partly, out of necessity.<\/p>\n

Freshmen wideouts Trent Mosley and Kayden Dixon-Wyatt already made a strong impression and should immediately step into roles on offense. Tron Baker is another who presumably could carve out a place. And joining them this week at practice, after just enrolling this summer, is a freshman wideout who some believe will be the best of the bunch, top-60 recruit Boobie Feaster.<\/p>\n

It may take Feaster time to get up to speed. Hines stepped into a similar position last season, having just arrived on campus for the summer. He proceeded to start eight games anyway.<\/p>\n

But Hines was 19 years old by the start of his freshman season. Feaster just turned 17 in late May \u2014 and presumably would be one of the youngest players ever to suit up for USC.<\/p>\n

Receiver isn\u2019t the only position at which the Trojans are trending young. USC should get key contributions out of freshmen at tight end (five-star Mark Bowman), on the defensive line (five-star Luke Wafle), in the secondary and, at some point, on the offensive line.<\/p>\n

That sort of impact should be expected after bringing in a 35-player class that ranked No. 1 in the nation. It also helps, Riley said, that so much of that class has been enrolled for seven months.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving as many midyears made a massive difference; I mean, there\u2019s no question about it,\u201d Riley said. \u201cYou can feel some of the confidence level.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so the less that we can have new as we go on, the more these guys settle in off the field, the better they play.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the primary goal over the next four weeks of fall camp. One that Riley already has spent plenty of time focused on, while breaking in the Bloom Football Performance Center<\/p>\n

\u201cThese first few days in here have honestly been a little bit of a dream,\u201d Riley said. \u201cIt\u2019s honestly been hard to get players to go home. I haven\u2019t left this place in five days. I haven\u2019t left the compound.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the start of his fifth fall camp at USC, Lincoln Riley found himself enamored with all that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6223,168232,30810,48,52,51,168233,47,50,49,21767,168234,168235,4666,428,5931,94486,23138,3533,430,168236],"class_list":["post-421230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-end","tag-fall-camp","tag-freshman","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lincoln-riley-hope","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-new-facility","tag-new-receiver","tag-practice-field","tag-riley","tag-start","tag-summer","tag-tanook-hines","tag-trojans","tag-usc","tag-week","tag-wideout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}