USC football under Lincoln Riley is the main focus for Trojan fans in 2022. Yet, another team will become more of a conversation point for USC fans this year. If there’s a non-USC, non-Notre Dame program outside the Pac-12 which will gain a lot of attention from Trojan fans, it’s West Virginia.
Former USC offensive coordinator Graham Harrell will coach former USC quarterback J.T. Daniels this year. The two were both part of USC in 2019. Now they’re together again.
As an extra plot twist, Harrell and Daniels will go up against former USC quarterback Kedon Slovis in Week 1 of the 2022 season. West Virginia faces Slovis’s Pittsburgh Panthers in a revival of the Backyard Brawl rivalry, which is a huge game for West Virginia and Pitt.
Over the next several days, we’re going to give you insights from the West Virginia blog The Smoking Musket. We wanted to get an inside read on the new USC components of West Virginia’s football program, and on the big game against Pitt, which has a substantial USC flavor.
We asked The Smoking Musket about the connection between Harrell relocating to West Virginia and Daniels choosing to play in Morgantown for the 2022 season.
Here’s what The Smoking Musket said:
A lot of West Virginia fans overplayed the role that hiring Graham Harrell played in getting Daniels to Morgantown, but it certainly got our foot in the door and was a big help on his visit. Any sort of familiarity is going to be crucial when you’re expecting a QB to come in and start a rivalry game without the benefit of spring ball. There’s definitely an assumption that their relationship is an obvious plus, but I don’t think there’s the expectation that it’ll be instantly flawless. At the end of the day, it was one season — an eternity ago in college football years — so there definitely will be some early dust to shake off.
Stay tuned for more Graham Harrell and J.T. Daniels insights from The Smoking Musket, here at Trojans Wire.
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