USC Football: Top 5 remaining 2019 National Signing Day targets

Amid a tumultuous offseason, USC football has struggled to hold together its 2019 recruiting class. Can the Trojans finish strong on National Signing Day?

2018 was long thought to be a rebuilding year for USC as they transitioned from the Sam Darnold era under center to true freshman J.T. Daniels and a host of other underclassmen replacing multi-year starters that led the Trojans to consecutive New Year’s Six berths.

The season was worse than anyone expected, however, with USC slipping all the way to 5-7, their worst finish since 2000. Head coach Clay Helton wasn’t expected to be able to survive such a paltry showing for the Men of Troy, but Athletic Director Lynn Swann defied the popular narrative and kept Helton on board.

Helton did overhaul his entire staff, though, with the biggest move coming with the hiring of former Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury to be the team’s offensive coordinator. Kingsbury helped the Trojans put together a respectable signing class during the early signing period, pushing USC up to No. 14 in the class rankings, which is still a far cry from a typical recruiting class for the Trojans.

After a little over a month, Kingsbury bolted from Los Angeles for the head coaching gig with the Arizona Cardinals. After his departure, accompanied by the bad press surrounding Swann and the USC administrations refusal to let Kingsbury interview for head coaching openings, the Trojans’ recruiting class began taking on water.

Most notably, five-star athlete Bru McCoy, who signed with USC during the early period, entered the transfer portal and ultimately landed in Austin with Texas.

Currently, USC sits at No. 18 in the 247Sports composite team rankings with 18 players signed to their 2019 class. They’ve got four others committed who they hope will sign on Wednesday, along with a handful of other targets they’ll hope to sway to Los Angeles. The No. 18 ranking would represent USC’s worst finish in recruiting since 2001; they haven’t finished outside the Top 10 in the composite rankings since 2013.

The Trojans finally found their offensive coordinator to bring some stability to their staff, along with sticking with the air-raid movement by nabbing North Texas’ rising star Graham Harrell.

Can Harrell help USC finish strong? Will the Trojans hang on to their four unsigned commitments? Here are USC’s top five remaining targets ahead of National Signing Day: