Jonah Monheim explains how the Holiday Bowl changed the 2024 USC team

With a little over a minute left in the 2023 Holiday Bowl, near the end of a roller-coaster season for the USC Trojans , emotions were flowing. Through all the celebrations in the stands and on the field, one voice came out of nowhere but said it all: “We a team now!” Redshirt junior cornerback Jacobe Covington was voicing the mood of this team which was undefeated and ranked inside the top 10, only to finish the season losing five of the next six regular season games. But somehow, this young team went down to San Diego and beat the No. 15 Louisville Cardinals by two touchdowns despite missing a lot of veteran leadership, their Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Caleb Williams, and their starting running back MarShawn Lloyd. Jonah Monheim noticed.

The fifth-year senior felt the change in this team in the lead-up to and then in the aftermath of the bowl game. He explained to Ashley Adamson on the Big Ten Network how this young team came together and new stars emerged for this upcoming season. Monheim recalled:

“That was a great moment for our team at the end of last year showing a lot of the work that those guys [the freshman wide receivers and offensive linemen] had done up to that point to get that break out moment and end the season the right way after the season had not gone the way that we had wanted.  I think building on to this next year, a lot of those guys are going to be significant contributors that we are going to count on day after day and game after game, so it was great for them.”

These same sentiments were shared by USC head coach Lincoln Riley and starting quarterback Miller Moss at Big Ten Media Days.

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