Waymond Jordan is back. King Miller is bigger.

Might that portend the best 1-2 running back punch Lincoln Riley has had at USC?

“In terms of production, in terms of experience level in our offense,” Riley said, “it’d be tough to argue that these two don’t have a chance to be our best. We’ll be disappointed if it’s not.”

Riley said this reminded him of the rushing combo he had at Oklahoma with Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine, who helped the Sooners reach the College Football Playoff during the 2015 season when Riley was the offensive coordinator.

Maybe a school that’s produced Heisman Trophy ballcarriers Mike Garrett, O.J. Simpson, Charles White, Marcus Allen and Reggie Bush really is back to becoming Running Back U.

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If Jordan can replicate his start from an injury-shortened 2025 over an entire season, the Trojans might have dual Heisman campaigns between the running back and quarterback Jayden Maiava.

Before he went down with an ankle injury midway through the season, Jordan was making a strong case to be considered one of the best ballcarriers in the Big Ten, if not the country. He averaged 6.55 yards per carry, twice topped 150 yards in a game and scored five touchdowns.

More impressively, he was among the hardest running backs in the nation to bring down, averaging 5.15 yards after contact.

Jordan going down led to the rise of Miller, a redshirt freshman walk-on who earned All-Big Ten Honorable Mention honors despite not getting regular carries until midseason.

No matter. Miller finished the season averaging 6.2 yards per carry and 972 rushing yards with eight touchdowns. Then he went about shedding what Riley called a “high school body” by adding 15 pounds.

Now listed at 6 feet and 225 pounds, Miller said he didn’t sacrifice speed by adding weight.

“I think I’m gaining a lot more explosion when I’m getting out of my breaks or my cuts, so I think it’s good weight,” Miller said. “I’m definitely able to get out of my breaks even better, I’m bouncing off tackles a lot easier, so it’s definitely good for me.”

Miller’s breakthrough prompted the Trojans to put him on scholarship while making him understand he had earned the right to throw his weight around with his voice.

“I’m not one of those vocal leaders just saying whatever,” Miller said, “but I feel like if I have to say something, I will say something, making sure all my brothers are in line as one team.”

(Those brothers include two actual siblings – Kaylon, an offensive lineman, and Kayne, a walk-on safety.)

Miller and Jordan will be running behind a restructured offensive line after center Kilian O’Connor suffered a season-ending injury early in training camp. There may be no discernible dropoff considering Tobias Raymond projects as an NFL-caliber center and there’s more than enough depth to absorb one injury.

A scrimmage at the Coliseum earlier this week didn’t seem to yield many meaningful takeaways considering that Riley said the schemes were basic and the focus was on getting some of the younger running backs carries.

“It’s really more just like kind of put it in the players’ hands and let the players go play and show us what you’ve learned, show us how you’re going to respond,” Riley said, “so we did some really good things at the line of scrimmage, we had a couple of blocks where we missed and obviously we’ve got some pretty good defensive linemen that make life tough on you there, so we had a little bit of error there.”

Nevertheless, Riley said he was pleased with the running backs’ effort, even if they did get a little impatient during a two-point shootout near the end of the scrimmage.

“Our front seven defensively is not easy to run the football against,” Riley said, “so it’s been a good challenge each and every day and I think both sides have benefited from the talented depth in the running back room, the tight end room, the O-line and then certainly the D-line and the linebacker room.

“It’s kind of been a battle out there every single day.”

Ultimately, the key to this 1-2 running back punch packing a wallop may be preventing it from once again being overly reliant on just one ballcarrier.

“The ability to have different guys healthy at different points and as the season goes on, as competitive as this league is, you’re gonna need that,” Riley said. “You know, teams that only have one back, you’re going to have to get very, very, very, very fortunate for somebody to make it through the entire year.”