We knew the USC football team was preparing for Notre Dame this week, but now with the help of junior journalism major Jack Smith, we now know they are preparing for the rain.
This Saturday’s weather forecast for South Bend — around 50 degrees and rainy — is far from optimal for the undefeated Southern Cal team, who will travel for the 94th meeting of the great USC-Notre Dame rivalry.
In a video filmed by Smith, while players were attempting to track where the football was, USC Athletics staff were shown spraying water out of a portable hose directly at the punt returners during catching drills. The practice may seem unconventional, but may be necessary, as wide-receivers Zachariah Branch and Dorian SInger dropped a ball each.
The video, originally posted by Smith on X, gained over 1.4 million views, and was reposted by several sports media accounts, including ESPN CFB, Bleacher Report and Sports Illustrated.
#USC staffers sprayed water at punt returners today during practice in hopes of simulating the rainy environment the Trojans will face in South Bend. pic.twitter.com/7k4nU5J9Jw
— Jack Smith 🎙 (@jacksmithpxp) October 10, 2023
According to an interview with Smith, who works as an intern reporter for uscfootball.com, this moment was captured during Tuesday’s practice, which is open to the media in the afternoon. Smith said he posted the video later on Tuesday, and it started to blow up.
“At first I thought it was cool, like it’s happened with some [posts] before, but not to that extent. And I just thought it was kind of random,” he said. “I posted the video expecting fans to be interested in it, but I think it got caught by the algorithm, got put on the feeds of different fan bases that dislike USC, and that started to drive the engagement.”
This practice strategy is puzzling some football fans, who are left asking if there are any other weird ways teams prepare for specific in-game situations.
“Most games that USC’s going on the road, they will practice with crowd noise,” said Smith. “Anyone that’s walking across campus I’m sure can hear it, they are using speakers to pipe in crowd noise … to simulate a road environment.”
Smith said that weather, and specifically rain, is a little bit harder to prepare for without wasting too much water.
“I thought it was an interesting strategy… Is it going to be the most game changing in the world? No. Can you completely prepare for the rain that’s going to come on Saturday? Probably not,” said Smith. “But they’re trying to put in some level of an effort, and I think it’s better to be slightly prepared than not prepared at all.”
Opposition media outlets do not feel the same way. Michael Chen of the Fighting Irish Wire, a Notre Dame sports website, said, “It’s kind of silly, if you ask me, typically teams just soak the balls with water before they’re used. If you think about what the Trojans are doing, it just doesn’t make sense. Take a look for yourself… At this point, after seeing how they handled the punts in the rain, we should hope it pours.”