Very quickly most of USC's Class of 2025 signees will go from projectable prospects to actual members of the program, as 16 of the Trojans' 21 signees from this week will be early enrollees, starting offseason strength and conditioning in January, spring practice a couple months later and onward as they look to earn roles as true freshmen.

History shows, this will end up being largely a developmental year for most of those newcomers.

But some will indeed see the field and make an impact.

During the 2024 regular season, five freshmen played at least six games -- RB Bryan Jackson (11), LB Desman Stephens II (10), TE Walker Lyons (9), DT Jide Abasiri (9) and Kameryn Fountain (7).

For Jackson, most of his work (105 out of 144 snaps) came on special teams, but Fountain (195 defensive snaps), Lyons (159 offensive snaps), Stephens (76 defensive snaps) and Abasiri (72 defensive snaps) all ended up playing notable roles at various points.

So which of the 2025 newcomers will make that list this coming season?

Well, coach Lincoln Riley was asked directly and cast a bit of wide net.

"It’s a great question. I’m kind of looking on here at like maybe who I don’t think would have a chance, to be completely honest," he said. "I look at [QB] Husan [Longstreet], I look at the two backs, Harry [Dalton] and Riley [Wormley]. Certainly all three of the receivers are very gifted. O-line is historically one of the tougher ones to do it, but I think we signed some really outstanding guys. [Aaron] Dunn was a big win. We thought he was one of if not the most athletic tackle we saw on the entire circuit. He was a big win. Obviously getting [Alex] Payne here at the end was big. [Elijah] Vaikona and Willi [Wascher] jumped on there quickly and were really steady guys for us. Elijah is massive and Willi has a great mind for it.

"Getting [TE] Nela [Tupou] here in the last week to 10 days from a great program from up there in Folsom, he was a guy who we were super impressed with the way he progressed. And I think if you kind of look at us, our usage of the tight end and tight end sets really increased this year compared to any other point. We really made a concerted effort of building up that room. Certainly the DB’s, you look at what we’re losing, they’re obviously all going to have a great opportunity. We’ll see who’s ready to go, but the position flexibility of these guys is really important.

"Obviously, they're not all going to, but there’s not a lot of guys that I would look at on this list right now and say they've got a really small chance of helping us next year. There’s a lot of potential high impact guys early on in their career on this list."

Certainly, all of the players Riley highlighted will not indeed play major roles as true freshmen, history shows.

As for which ones we think have the best chance, here's our top 5 of the mostly like true freshman contributors ....

Ironically, one of the few names Riley didn't mention in his answer (purely an omission) is actually the most likely to have a major role right away.

We don't know the numbers, but it's safe to say USC made a substantial NIL investment in five-star defensive end Jahkeem Stewart with the hope that will start returning dividends very quickly.

And Stewart, the elite pass-rushing prospect from New Orleans and the jewel of USC's recruiting class, will absolutely have every opportunity to compete for a role right away.

The reality is that USC's defensive ends combined for just 7 sacks all season, with none having more than 2 individually. That's almost hard to do through 12 games in an ignominious way.

If Stewart is all he's been billed to be, there's nothing stopping him from getting into the DE rotation right away with Braylan Shelby and Kameryn Fountain -- plus any transfers USC is able to add.

"I felt like when we watched him in high school that he was advanced enough that he could’ve made an impact on a college field even as a high-school-aged player," Riley said. "I mean, you watch the way that this guy plays the game, it’s pretty impressive."