JC Johnson’s Undeclared Gems: Jordan Addison

It’s hard to build off a Biletnikoff Award season when there are so many changing variables. That’s exactly what Jordan Addison, the 2021 Biletnikoff Award winner, is going to attempt to do by transferring to USC to play for Lincoln Riley. 

This is exactly what USC had in mind when hiring Riley. It has not only paid dividends in the recruiting pool thus far with him flipping top 2025 recruits over to USC but it’s also played an even bigger role in the transfer portal. Riley has already netted Oklahoma transfers QB Caleb Williams (2024), former OU WR Mario Williams (2024), and the PAC-12 rushing leader from 2021 in Oregon RB Travis Dye (2023). Adding Pitt WR Jordan Addison is simply the cherry on top. Hollywood is back in Southern California. With Mario Cristobal leaving for his alma mater in Miami, the biggest threat to this USC team is Utah. They play Utah on October 15th at Rice-Eccles Stadium. With USC not playing Oregon or Washington this season, the two biggest games on their schedule will be Utah and Notre Dame that last week of their regular season. That game could play a fairly large role in getting a PAC-12 team back to the College Football Playoff. If that were to happen, it would be in no small part due to the electrifying talent of Addison. 

In a new era of the NIL, Addison is the first player that truly made his decision essentially a free agency tour. He visited multiple schools including USC, Texas, and Alabama, spoke to coaches, spoke to players on the team, and figured out who could provide the most for him both on and off the field. Now the all-important question: what does this mean for Jordan Addison’s devy value going forward?

Addison is already coming off a season as the best WR in college football. We know he’s the real deal. What’s interesting is he’s originating from a more pro-style offense under Mark Whipple, the offensive coordinator at Pittsburgh. He’s now migrating to USC where we’re assuming Riley is going to spread the field and utilize the superior athleticism he has assembled on this USC roster against slower PAC-12 defenses. I’m excited to see Jordan Addison show off his potential deep ball ability that he wasn’t necessarily asked to do with the pro-style system. He was more asked to make people miss consistently in the open field as seen below and take advantage of the play-action and terrorize the intermediate portions of the passing game, getting over the top of linebackers crashing down into the box to prevent the run.

Addison has already proven he can make you miss in a phone booth and he has great YAC ability. I’d love to see him just take the top off of a defense consistently though because that to me would show he’s an even more polished all-around WR prospect than we already give him credit for. In a loaded class that includes WRs such as Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Kayshon Boutte, Quentin Johnson, Josh Downs, Jermaine Burton, Rakim Jarrett, Parker Washington, and many more, Addison’s name is certainly atop that heap. Consensus ranks have him anywhere from WR3 to no less than WR5 in this class. If he were to put in another dominant season in a new conference, with a new system, and a new role in an offense, I think he can make it very interesting and potentially work his way into that WR1 billing for the vaunted 2023 draft class.

For me, my pro comparison for Addison is DeVonta Smith. They both have the same kind of body and the twitch necessary to make a lot happen out of very little to work with. Is there a Heisman Trophy in Addison’s future as well? I’m not sure about that, but he’s playing in a better system with a better QB than he had last year and some other weapons in the offense that makes it so defenses won’t have the ability to zero in on him. I’d expect another spectacular year from Jordan Addison.

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