Former five-star receiver Kyle Ford sets aside frustration to finish strong at USC
On Sunday mornings, when Kyle Ford can feel his frustration boiling up from the night before, he tries to step away. He’ll skip the optional Sunday lift at USC, setting aside football in favor of something else entirely. Something just for him. Something to help reset.
“Just to get away,” the sixth-year senior receiver says, “and clear my mental and take a deep breath and be around people I love.”
Lately, he’s found that peace in golf, spending Sundays on the course where he can forget for a while about the season at USC.
“Sundays,” his father, Dan, said, “I don’t even call him. That’s what he needs. Just to get away from the world.”
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The past five years had given plenty of reason for the former five-star prospect to be frustrated. Since arriving at USC in 2019 with expectations of developing into the Trojans’ top target, nothing has gone according to plan. There were flashes of brilliance, notably during a strong finish to 2022. But through two torn anterior cruciate ligaments and multiple coaching changes, his moment never materialized. So Ford left the school he loved in search of opportunity with its bitter rival — only to find more frustrating circumstances awaiting him at UCLA.
“You just kind of start looking up at the sky, like, ‘What the hell, dude?’” Dan Ford said. “You go from the No. 1 receiver on the West Coast in high school, then two injuries, and you’re struggling to find opportunity?”
Ford wasn’t promised anything other than an opportunity upon returning to the Trojans this season. He was unsure if he even wanted to come back. Maybe if he had more than a year left, he wouldn’t have.
But USC needed a veteran presence, and coach Lincoln Riley had called the family within a few hours of the transfer portal opening. Plus, Ford still loved USC and envisioned what it might be like to finally get his shot, to finally step into the role he knew deep down that he could play. He still felt like that guy, even after the two knee surgeries and months of confidence-building that came after.
As the season began, though, Ford wasn’t getting many chances to prove it. Through seven games, he had just 10 catches. He was running fewer than a dozen routes per game. The lack of opportunity left him frustrated, and every Sunday, he found himself flushing those feelings away on the fairway.
They lingered especially long into last week, before Ford came screaming across the field on a shallow drag route against Rutgers, deep in the red zone. Turning upfield with the ball, he stiff-armed a defender to the ground before barreling his way to a diving score, his first of the season.
It was Ford’s best moment this season, just the sort of big-time play he’d patiently been waiting to make. When he met with his family after the game, Ford told his dad he didn’t understand why it had taken so long. He shared the same sentiment with reporters.
“I’m frustrated every week,” Ford said. “I just know what type of player I am. Just knowing who I am and having to just be patient — I’ve been patient my whole career, with injuries and stuff like that. And I feel like I’ve always performed the way I perform every time I get my opportunity. This is just another testament to it. Hopefully just keep building for those, for sure. That’s what I want to do. Help this team. That’s what it comes down to. I just want to feel like I’m contributing.”
Those feelings come as no surprise to Riley. “I’ve never had a receiver in however many years of doing this that was very happy with their role,” he said Tuesday.
How they handle their feelings can vary, Riley said. Sometimes frustration gets the best of them. Often it bleeds onto the practice field. But Riley has seen far less of that with Ford this season. He’s been impressed with how much the 24-year-old has grown in that regard.
“His first year, I don’t know that he would have handled it,” Riley said, “and I think this year he’s stayed in a really positive mind frame. He’s really, I think, tried to stay in the moment, and I just don’t feel like it has rattled him as much, and I think that’s why he was ready to go in and make some plays.”
That’s where Ford’s Sundays have come in. He’s able to clear his mind and “put that frustration towards something good,” Ford said. Even if that hasn’t always been easy for a receiver who once seemed on the fast track to the NFL.
He’s still sick of being patient, still frustrated with waiting. But then Ford thinks about the three years he lost working his way back from injury and how much he ached to just play football then, and those feelings melt away.
“Just being able to reset, take a deep breath, and say, all right, whatever is going on, it doesn’t matter,” Ford said. “If I’m in this play, in this moment, no matter how my day is going, that’s the most important thing.”
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Lately, he’s focused on being present and he’s proud of how far he’s come in that respect. But Ford also is well aware that his clock is ticking. The window to make his mark, like he once imagined, continues to narrow by the week.
But Dan Ford believes his son is coming to peace with how his career has played out. After sharing his frustration after the Rutgers game, Ford took a different tone a few days later when considering what he wanted from the final five games of his college career.
“It’s never how you start, it’s how you finish,” Ford said. “I just want to finish out strong and help the team where I can, you know? Everything that you do out there isn’t always on a stat sheet. You sometimes don’t see that. That’s fine. I came here to contribute, and ‘contribute’ doesn’t mean I have to have 7,000 yards and all that. It just means I want to help this team win games. I feel like I’ve been doing a good job of that.”
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