Calen Bullock was doing something on Wednesday that a lot of his fellow freshmen at USC could relate to.
He was in class.
But immediately following that class, Bullock learned he’d be doing something that weekend that none of his peers could relate to. In fact — though he didn’t know this factoid in the moment — he’d be doing something that no (true) freshman who’s graced the University Park Campus since Su’a Cravens in 2013 could relate to.
He’d be starting at safety for the Trojans.
Bullock learned via a phone call from head coach Clay Helton that the team’s regular starter, redshirt senior Isaiah Pola-Mao, had been ruled out for USC’s season opener against San José State due to health and safety protocols. He learned that he would take Pola-Mao’s place. It would make Bullock USC’s first true freshman starting safety since 2013.
At first, Bullock was happy. Happy he was starting, of course, not because of the reason why. “My emotions went everywhere,” he said. Then he called his mom.
Then he locked in.
“I reached out to Isaiah,” Bullock said, “really just telling him I got him. Like, I won’t let him down.”
Apparently, Calen Bullock is a man of his word.
Bullock was a key cog in the defensive machine that held San José State to just seven points Saturday, the fewest USC has allowed in a game since September 2016. He made a key open-field tackle on third-and-2 just shy of the chains when SJSU was creeping toward Trojan territory in the first quarter. It was one of Bullock’s eight tackles on the day, a team high and tied for the second most in the game overall.
Either Bullock kept his promise, or Pola-Mao has some irrationally high standards. In fairness, though, the veteran safety’s expectations for the new kid on the block weren’t exactly low.
“He told me ‘you made for this,’ basically,” Bullock said of Pola-Mao’s advice. “We’ve been preparing for this since spring, and now I got the opportunity. It was my turn, he said.”
That it was. And it’s a turn Bullock had been anticipating for quite some time. He’s from Pasadena, home to UCLA’s famed Rose Bowl, but, as he said following Saturday’s game, it was always his dream to play for USC and at the Coliseum.
The veracity of that statement is backed up by Bullock’s apparent eagerness to get started with the Trojans. He graduated a semester early from John Muir High School and enrolled at USC this spring as the No. 9 athlete in the Class of 2021.
That early arrival on campus helped compensate for the lack of a senior season. He said the college game was faster than high school but that his experience with spring ball, and the guidance of his veteran teammates, had prepared him.
It didn’t entirely alleviate the nerves, though — nerves he readily admitted to afterward.
“Coming into the game, I was nervous, of course. Any freshman would be,” Bullock said. “Stomach started hurting; started going everywhere. I was kind of nervous running out [of the tunnel].”
But Bullock said his first tackle — which came on the first play of the Spartans’ second drive of the game — helped him ease those tensions. He was calm from then on out. After that point, he said, “it was football.”
His teammates took notice.
“For that to be his first game, he looked like he was very comfortable out there,” said redshirt senior nickelback Greg Johnson, whose fourth-quarter pick-six put USC up two touchdowns. “It was exciting just to see him fly around and do the things that he did. That just is a testament to his hard work and his work ethic day in and day out.”
Junior cornerback Chris Steele echoed Johnson’s sentiment.
“We call him sticks,” Steele said.
Wait. Huh?
Bullock wears No. 27, not No. 11, which that nickname usually refers to.
Sticks?
“He’s a tall, skinny kid,” Steele said of the 6-foot-3, 180-pounder. “That dude can cover ground. There was a few plays — I’m real big on calling plays — I would tell him, ‘Hey, play the post.’ Sure enough, that dude’s right there, breaking on the post, making plays on the ball. Just seeing his growth is really amazing. He was a dude that came in, enrolled early in the spring, bought into the program and now he’s making plays on the biggest stage.”
Bullock’s role the rest of the season is currently unclear. With Pola-Mao figuring to return for Week 2 against Stanford, and with redshirt junior Chase Williams holding down the other safety spot, Bullock may not start again this upcoming Saturday.
But whatever his role may be, Bullock showed he’s more than capable of stepping in when the Trojans need him to. And whatever USC had envisioned of Bullock’s role before Week 1, it’s not hard to imagine that vision expanded following the freshman’s standout debut.
“I knew what I was doing,” Bullock said. “It was no pressure on me.
“I did what I had to do.”