LOS ANGELES — Travis Dye is finally a USC Trojan, after four years as an Oregon Duck and a few months of mixed emotions within the process of change.
The puzzle is why it had to take four years for the former Norco High standout to find his way back home.
The Trojans – the Clay Helton Trojans – certainly had their chance to recruit him. Dye was an All-CIF Division 2 performer as a runner, receiver and returner at Norco in 2017, and he was that season’s Big VIII Offensive Player of the Year in a league that features perennial power Corona Centennial, a school that has sent multiple stars to USC including current Trojans Korey Foreman, Gary Bryant Jr. and Tuasivi Nomura.
So, Dye was asked last week, how hard did the Trojans try to recruit him out of Norco?
“Not at all,” he said.
Did he want them to?
“Of course,” he said. “I was always a big USC fan. My older brother (Tony, a safety) went to UCLA (2008-11), and so it would have been sweet from the jump to come to USC. But I was never a highly recruited running back coming out of high school. I had two offers, Oregon and New Mexico State, and I wasn’t going to go play for New Mexico State, no disrespect.”
Danna Dye, Travis’ mother – and an athletic trainer at Corona Centennial, before taking a leave of absence this school year to more closely follow not only Travis but middle brother Troy Dye, a linebacker with the Minnesota Vikings – noted that USC recruited Troy only late in the game, and he wound up playing at Oregon from 2016-19. And her thought was that USC not recruiting Travis out of high school, while frustrating, was probably for the best.
“I’m not going to say I was sad that they didn’t recruit him because I was not very impressed with the previous staff,” she said in a phone conversation this week.
“Working at Centennial for all those years, I’ve seen a lot of our athletes go to SC and I (was) just not impressed with the culture and what was going on over there. I was OK that both my younger ones chose Oregon at that time.”
It turned out well on both counts. When Troy Dye left Oregon he was the only player in school history to have led the team in tackles all four seasons and was a fourth-round pick of the Vikings in 2020. Travis is No. 5 on Oregon’s career rushing yardage list (3,111) and averaged 6.0 yards per carry with 21 rushing touchdowns and seven 100-yard games, including a 211-yard game against Washington last season and a 153-yard game in the Alamo Bowl against Oklahoma.
He also caught 83 passes for 869 yards and eight touchdowns as a Duck. The idea that Riley’s offense might give him more opportunities in that department, even with so many offensive weapons coming in, was a factor in his transfer, too.
“His running backs coach (at Oregon, Jim Mastro) did him a great service in that he pressed all of the angles of being in that position,” Danna Dye said. “Not only running routes and looking ahead – and Travis has this uncanny sense of seeing the field, kind of before it happens, so he hits those holes better – but (Mastro) made sure he blocked. And we just watched him go from a really (light) guy to being able to block in these last couple years, and that’s crucial.
“And he’s always had good hands. I think Oregon made him a better all-around back, absolutely. And now I just think this is going to be good for him, to learn a whole different system from a proven commodity.”
Dye didn’t say that he felt he had something to prove after the original snub by USC, though being passed up is never bad motivation. (And he did score what turned out to be the winning touchdown in Oregon’s 31-24 victory over USC in the 2020 Pac-12 championship game at the Coliseum.)
“I don’t take it personally,” he says now. “You know, there’s a billion kids in California. There’s a whole bunch of them that get overlooked with the skill sets like I have. I was just very, very glad that Oregon gave me that opportunity to show my skill set on a high stage, and I’ll always be thankful to them for that.”
The adjustment – from green, yellow and whatever other colors Oregon and Nike have in their palette to USC’s traditional cardinal and gold – was fairly seamless once he got on USC’s campus, Dye said, but there was some transition involved before that point. Dye took the Ducks’ offensive line out to lunch to break the news to them, and loosening the bonds established over four years was tough.
But Dye had the extra year of eligibility because of COVID-19 – he’s pursuing a Master’s degree in gerontology at USC – and the prospect of a coaching change at Oregon, from Mario Cristobal to Dan Lanning, and a new offensive system with the Ducks had an impact. And if he was to have a shot at the NFL, any college football player’s dream, this would be a make-or-break year.
“I needed to worry about my future at that time, and I thought USC (could) bring me a better future in football,” he said. “The decision was easy. But the transition part, and getting comfortable, that was the hard part. But I’m fully settled now, and very, very happy to be here. I’m a Trojan all day now, and whatever colors I’m wearing, I am solely into those colors.”
How hard was it? Danna said there were “probably about six to 10” video calls among family members to help Travis decide. As Danna described it, Troy broke it down to the basics when he referenced the Ducks’ coaching change and asked, “Is that the best coaching staff for you at this time? Will they be in the next couple of years? Yeah, maybe. But that has nothing to do with you.”
So the two sides go their separate ways, and though the Ducks and Trojans won’t square off in the regular season, there is always a possibility of a last hurrah in the Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas on Dec. 2.
If USC qualifies, at least, there will surely be a caravan up I-15 from Norco to ‘Vegas.
jalexander@scng.com
