Emmanuel Pregnon woke up Friday morning convinced that, no matter the pain, he was going to play through it that night.
He might have been the only one. Lincoln Riley deemed the Trojans’ left guard “doubtful” for the meeting with Rutgers with a leg injury that had limited him all week. But really, given the aches and pains he was dealing with, no one was expecting Pregnon to give it a go. No one, apparently, but Pregnon himself.
The last year had changed, in many ways, how he framed that sort of thinking in the first place. Truth is the senior lineman approached football entirely differently than the player who had transferred from Wyoming in early 2023.
He was in better shape, having taken his strength training more seriously in the offseason. But the changes with Pregnon went deeper than that. His mindset changed. His energy was different. Now Pregnon approached every situation, he said, with a clean slate. And with that came a mental toughness he hadn’t known before, one that had helped turn him into arguably USC’s most dependable lineman this season.
“No matter how hard you hurt,” Pregnon said, “you’ve got to push yourself to keep going in life.”
That may not have been the case a year earlier. But Friday night, Pregnon kept thinking he would play until he was suddenly warming up and cleared to go. And even with an injured leg limiting his mobility, Pregnon still managed to put together one of his best games yet at USC. According to Pro Football Focus, it was the best run-blocking performance by a Trojans lineman this season.
“It ain’t nothin,” he said. “I believe you gotta get the job done, however and whatever it takes. That’s what I did.”
Led in part by Pregnon, USC’s offensive line has stabilized in recent weeks, allowing just five pressures against Rutgers.
After the game, with the team gathered, Riley took a moment to recognize how Pregnon had reached that point.
“I don’t know that he would have been in shape or been as mentally tough [last year] to not just play but play well, and he kind of went in there like it was nothing,” Riley said. “Like, I’m just going to find a way to overcome it. It was just cool to see, man.”
By the time the final whistle sounded, an aching Pregnon was asked to brandish the sword and lead the USC band, an honor often bestowed upon the game’s most critical player. But as Pregnon set out to climb the ladder, he worried he might not make it.
“I was pacing myself,” Pregnon said. “I was just making sure I got up there safely.”
The adrenaline had worn off. Now he could feel every step.
“I thought I was gonna fall through that thing,” Pregnon joked.
But he made it to the top eventually, where the band was waiting to serenade him for his toughness, a small token in the moment to recognize changes that, for Pregnon, had been many months in the making.
He lifted the sword high, a big smile stretched across his face.
Defensive injuries
After being down most of its starting secondary against Rutgers, the group’s status remains in question ahead of USC’s trip to Washington.
Safety Kamari Ramsey and cornerbacks Jacobe Covington, Greedy Vance and Jaylin Smith all missed last week with undisclosed injuries and none of the four were full participants at practice as of Tuesday.
“I don’t know that we’ll get all of them back,” Riley said, “but obviously when you have that many at one position, getting anybody would be very, very helpful.”
Washington ranks fifth in the Big Ten in passing offense and should be much more formidable through the air than Rutgers, which, until Friday, hadn’t thrown for 300 yards since September 2021.
Its defensive line could also be without a key starter as defensive tackle Nate Clifton didn’t practice Tuesday. He left USC’s win over Rutgers after just five snaps and left with a protective boot on his foot.
