LAS VEGAS — Three weeks ago, USC’s third-string running back hopped on FaceTime with his folks and delivered a revelatory bit of news: Trojans coach Lincoln Riley had told him he was going to see a lot of time in the program’s upcoming bowl game.
“It’s go time,” Bryan Jackson told them, as father Bryan recounted.
Jackson’s parents were excited. But they were prepared for this. They’re practical people, the Jacksons: Father Bryan, of the same name, was once a tight end at James Madison, and mother Marion ran sprints in high school. They knew, for months, that USC starting back Woody Marks was on a meteoric trajectory for the NFL draft and therefore likely to forgo the bowl game. They knew, too, that the transfer portal could strike at any moment’s notice, and indeed it claimed backup Quinten Joyner.
Suddenly, a true freshman back with all of 20 carries to his name was set to start for USC against Texas A&M in Friday’s Las Vegas Bowl, and there was little time for celebration before Jackson’s parents implored him that the next three weeks would be far from comfortable.
“The reality of it,” father Bryan reflected, “definitely was felt.”
A week before the running back’s showcase in Vegas, the reality of it was written in plain sight on his legs, cuts and nicks adorning his kneecaps. He was asked about it and grinned. It had been a grind, he put it. He stands 6-foot and 230 pounds, the frame of a true bruiser, and these reps had bruised him right back, suddenly working as USC’s RB1.
“They gave me a chance to be the guy, so I’m going to give it everything I have,” Jackson said recently. “That’s come with it – scratches and bruises and marks, that’s going to come with it.”
The role in Riley’s offense is new to Jackson. The role, as a general concept, is not. He’s been the man, growing up in Texas, since his dad coached him in second-grade ball. He was the man in middle school, when he scored “every single touchdown” for his seventh- and eighth-grade teams, as father Bryan said. He was the man at McKinney High, shortly after his high school coach yanked him up to varsity after a single half of JV ball.
One glance at Jackson, and it doesn’t seem the former three-star back is exactly a hand-in-glove fit in Riley’s scheme. The head coach hasn’t deployed a back of Jackson’s sheer size since he had 231-pound Rhamondre Stevenson at Oklahoma in 2020. For the past two years, from MarShawn Lloyd to Marks, USC’s running backs have largely thrived off cutbacks and pockets in a spread-out offense. Jackson’s final two years at McKinney, as father Bryan reflected, were largely spent toting the rock on power runs.
But the world will be surprised, as dad Bryan said, to see what Jackson can do in space. Riley had been recruiting him since his sophomore year at McKinney, when Jackson played under a different offensive coordinator that more heavily emphasized his speed. He was a “complete back,” as Jackson’s former McKinney High head coach Marcus Shavers said, able to run routes and catch passes “better than anybody in the program.”
“I’m trying to build that into my game, trying to get a little more of the elusiveness into my game – like, I’ve been working on it,” Jackson said last week.
He’s had an ideal mentor in Marks, his roommate on the road throughout 2024, as Jackson’s father said. He’d watched Marks arrive early and stay late. He’d watched Marks study film. He’d watched Marks rehab his body. When Marks went down early in USC’s regular-season-ending loss to Notre Dame, Jackson stepped up, running for 71 yards on six carries; he and redshirt freshman A’Marion Peterson, a 220-pound force himself, are set to assume the torch from Marks and Joyner as USC’s primary backs come Friday night in Las Vegas.
And both have a chance against Texas A&M to jockey for a prime role in 2025, even as the Trojans added quick-twitch RB Eli Sanders in the transfer portal. Three Texas A&M starters on the defensive line – Nic Scourton, Shemar Stewart and Shemar Turner – are set to opt out in preparation for the NFL draft, giving USC a window to show strength at the line of scrimmage.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity for those two,” Riley said of Jackson and Peterson at a Las Vegas Bowl press conference Thursday, “to show that they can do the things that great backs in our offense have to do, and you’ve got to be able to do all phases well. It’s not just the power that you run with … obviously, knowing you have to be great in pass protection, you have to be great receivers, you have to do it all.”
“They’re going to get a great chance,” Riley continued, “to show why they should be the guy here.”
It was a chance that Jackson last week called “one of the biggest of my life,” a freshman mature enough to understand the weight of his snaps Friday.
“I’m going to go out there, give it everything I got,” Jackson said last week. “Give it all for the guys on the field in the same jerseys as me, for the coaches and for the fans.”
USC’s offensive front, similar to the Aggies’ defensive line, will head into the Vegas Bowl with some changes.
Center Jonah Monheim is headed for the NFL draft, and right tackle Mason Murphy has entered the transfer portal.
In their place, backup and former walk-on Kilian O’Connor, from Santa Margarita High, and redshirt freshman Tobias Raymond, from Ventura High, will start against A&M, Riley confirmed Thursday. It’ll be a test of USC’s offensive-line cohesiveness under newly tabbed OL coach Zach Hanson, as O’Connor and Raymond have a combined 179 snaps of collegiate football between them.
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday
Where: Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas
TV/radio: ESPN/710 AM
