Todd Orlando on appreciating vets, playing freshmen and his only worry

Wednesday marked the first day USC turned the page from fall camp and fully dove into prep work for its season opener against San Jose State. Defensive coordinator Todd Orlando spoke with media following practice and touched on a range of topics.

Orlando said he saw improvement all over the defense during camp and specifically praised the defensive line as well as the veteran players in the back seven, such as Isaiah Pola-Mao, Chase Williams and Kana’i Mauga.

“Sometimes when you’re a good player, you’re not just worried about yourself and making plays,” Orlando said. “They’re not only making plays, but there’s trying to help other guys. They’re helping us as a coaching staff. You can’t put a price on those things.”

Williams is someone Orlando has been high on since the beginning of spring ball, when he jumped into the starting lineup with the unenviable task of needing to replace All-American Talanoa Hufanga. Orlando said he wanted Williams to improve on things like his range and tackling for this season, but he’s been blown away by his presence on the field and at practice.

“He’s just been outstanding,” Orlando said of Williams. “He knows this package as well as we do. He’s running around. He’s making calls. We’re working on the side with him. He’s a spong. He does an incredible job with the younger guys. He’s an older vet and trying to teach the younger guys how to do things. He’s just been outstanding nothing but high praise for him.”

Orlando has also been effusive in his praise for defensive linemen Tuli Tuipulotu and Nick Figueroa. He praised them again on Wednesday, speaking specifically about their athleticism at those positions as well as their aptitude on and off the field. But the nose tackle position has been a question since the spring, when Brandon Pili went down for the year and Ishmael Sopsher was unavailable as he rehabbed from offseason surgery. Those questions became more pronounced when Jay Toia decided to transfer to UCLA.

Orlando said Sopsher’s availability for the season is “to be seen.”

“Waiting to see him be 100%,” Orlando said. “Just waiting on the medical stuff. Kind of a work in progress, but he’s working and that’s all we can ask right now. When they clear him, we’ll try to get him in. He’ll be part of that rotation. He’s a talented guy.”

The depth of the defensive line overall and defensive ends in particular is a question at this point. Tuipulotu and Figueroa are strong starts. Korey Foreman is coming on and Jake Lichtenstein will be a big part of the rotation as well. But it doesn’t go much deeper than that.

“We’re going to be fine,” Orlando said. “[It would] be nice to have a couple, handful more guys so we can rotate guys in, because the D line part of it’s a little bit tricky. The starters, Tuli and those guys, they can go 75-80% of the plays early, but when you get into week eight or nine, you have to pay the price on that. So you’d like to have somebody you can rotate in there, just get a rotation to kind of save those guys, because we want to play really good ball in December. And that’s the only thing I’m worried about. Overall depth early in the season I’m cool with. It’s just later on, you start to think about other plans to try to protect those guys.”

Foreman could be a big part of that rotation up front and fans will get an opportunity to see him right away this season. He and fellow true freshman Raesjon Davis will be thrown into the mix from the first game of the year.

“They have to play,” Orlando said, adding that they are coming along with understanding the playbook, but that it will be shrunk down for each game, focused on what the team is doing well and what calls need to be implemented for that game. “It’s a handful of calls, so as we go through the week we’ll just evaluate it. And then what we normally do on Thursdays is sit down personnel-wise and say, listen, Korey’s going to play this amount of plays. Raesjon’s going to play, regardless of what’s going on in the game, because their development is going to be really important. Because most of the time what you end up seeing is when you get to game six or seven, once they get a couple games under their belt, they really start to take off. So we have to play them early.”