USC safety Isaiah Pola-Mao’s first college play was a big one

It was a whirlwind start to the season for redshirt freshman safety Isaiah Pola-Mao. It started last weekend when USC released its depth chart that showed Bubba Bolden as the starting strong safety, playing next to Marvell Tell. Pola-Mao was listed as the second team free safety behind Tell.

Then on Thursday head coach Clay Helton announced that Bolden would not be available for the game and Pola-Mao would get the start in his place. If that wasn’t enough of a quick turnaround, on the very first play from scrimmage Pola-Mao jumped in on UNLV’s Lexington Thomas and forced a fumble, setting up the first score of the game for the Trojans.

In the interview above Pola-Mao said it was “just football” after the first couple of plays. He got into the game and the moment rather quickly. 

He said he was very sad about Bolden not being able to play in this game, but he knew he had to just clear his mind and get ready to play. Interestingly, Pola-Mao found out that he was going to start the game from Bolden who called him and told him. Bolden said he wanted to let him know before the coaches told him. The two safeties are very close and he hopes he can get through it. 

On the forced fumble Pola-Mao said he felt he was going to make a play in his heart as early as last night. He said the hole opened up and he didn’t think the running back saw him, so he went in there and punched it as hard as he could and it popped the ball out. 

Pola-Mao was very nervous coming into this season after sitting out last year during his redshirt season. He said in the spring he really started to feel comfortable. It started in the meeting room and knowing the plays and once he knew the plays he was ready to roll. 

Helton had this to say after the game about how the secondary played: “Yeah I was very proud of them, We basically split time between Greg (Johnson) and Isaiah (Langley) to
keep them fresh and I thought that they did a great job, and even Olaijah (Griffin) acted like he had been out there his whole life, I know that he is going to be sick to death that he didn’t pick that ball off, he did a great job and that’s what we are hoping for, to have a 2 deep that can roll and be able to keep us fresh, also proud of the two safeties that played a lot of ball today in Marvell (Tell) and Isaiah (Pola-Mao).”

Here is the post game press conference with JT Daniels, Clay Helton, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Porter Gustin:

Shared from: 247sports.com

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