LOS ANGELES – It was just another Tuesday practice in the middle of Red Mountain’s season, and wide receivers coach Diego Hernandez had no possibility to prepare for the show Ja’Kobi Lane unfolded before his very eyes.

He ran a simple out route, Hernandez remembered, his spindly limbs arriving to his destination before his quarterback could deliver. The ball arrived late, as Lane was already creeping towards the sidelines. So the kid threw his hands behind his back, toe-tapped to stay inbounds, and pinned the toss in his mitts.

“I was like, ‘Dude, that’s – human beings shouldn’t be allowed to do that kind of stuff,’” Hernandez remembered.

They have seen it coming, from Lane’s earliest days in Mesa, Arizona, a community waiting for the greatness to bloom within his towering frame and beating heart. He was the center of attention, at all times, because there was no way to ignore a 6-foot-4 kid who’d walk around campus bumping music from his headphones and dancing with cheerleaders and asking teachers for candy. And his coaches, throughout time, have tried to figure out how to steer Lane straight, a special talent coming with a complex package.

And for two years at USC, flashes of greatness have come interspersed with growing pains, the program curating a delicate ecosystem for Lane to both feel prioritized and challenged in his maturity.

“He’s the next Megatron,” Lane’s high school coach Kyle Enders told the Southern California News Group earlier in the fall, comparing Lane to NFL star Calvin Johnson, “if he wants to be.”

He made that leap Saturday in USC’s win over Wisconsin, preparation and personality and potential fusing together in an emphatic explosion. In another concerningly slow start for USC’s offense, as seemingly everything that could go wrong did in every facet of the game, Lane strapped up his behemoth of a right-arm brace and went to work in a star-making third-quarter drive.

Down 21-10, with some momentum deep in Wisconsin territory after a muffed punt recovered by long snapper Hank Pepper, quarterback Miller Moss – who’s become both an off-field friend and on-field mentor – found Lane for a first down on a third-and-7. A few plays later, on a third-and-15, Moss rolled right and Lane drifted with him to the sideline, waving an outstretched left hand.

Moss fired, and with incredible mind-body awareness, Lane planted both his feet in a deep lunge inbounds before catching and toppling out-of-bounds with a first down.

“He stepped up,” head coach Lincoln Riley said postgame, “and made some big-time plays.”

He simply looked unguardable, stretching himself both horizontally and vertically, going up high for a go-get-it fade ball in the end zone on that same drive. He played with toughness, when USC desperately needed it, hauling in one second-quarter ball over the middle and immediately thumped so hard his helmet flew off.

Immediately, Lane pointed in a signal for a first-down, beaming from ear-to-ear.

“These things are always, there’s a little bit of a grind to it, obviously,” Riley said, earlier in the fall. “A lot of time, all that, involved. When you got people that are high-energy people that everybody enjoys being around, they affect the mood of the group, the energy level of the group so much.”

He gave USC a jolt, on each of his 10 catches Saturday, racking up the first 100-yard game of the season by any Trojan receiver. And even as a host of issues have plagued USC’s young receiving corps this season, and continued on Saturday – drops, missed blocks, poor clock awareness – they followed in Lane’s wake in much-needed second-half playmaking.

Fellow vertical target Duce Robinson caught just two of his five targets, but made them count, with a 32-yard grab late in the third quarter followed by a touchdown snag three plays later. Burner Zachariah Branch struggled mightily to start, muffing a punt and taking a poor route on a one-on-one ball that was intercepted, but made a couple big second-half plays in the flat and finished with 44 yards.

“We’ve made strides in being mature, becoming more football smart,” Lane said postgame. “Knowing where to be, when, why we’re in these spots.”

And USC, now, may have found it top target in a crowded room, their next Megatron finding his breakout moment when his program desperately needed it.

Originally Published: September 29, 2024 at 2:03 p.m.