Zachariah Branch (born March 29, 2004) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

wide receiver and

return specialist A return specialist or kick returner is a player on the special teams unit of a gridiron football team who specializes in returning punts and kickoffs. There are few players who are exclusively return specialists; most also play another position ...

for the

USC Trojans The USC Trojans are the College athletics in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California (USC), located in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. While the men's teams are nicknamed the ' ...

Early life and high school

Branch was born on March 29, 2004, the youngest of two sons to Sheve and Renee Branch. His father is a sports performance coach. Branch and his brother grew up attending USC football games. Branch was raised in Las Vegas and attended Bishop Gorman High School. He was one of the top players in the

2023 college football recruiting class The college football recruiting class of 2023 refers to the recruiting of high school athletes to play college football starting in the fall of 2023. The scope of this article covers: (a) the colleges and universities with recruiting classes ran ...

, ranked No. 6 nationally by

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and No. 9 by

247Sports 247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on athletic recruitment in college football and basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount. The website hosts a large network of team-specific subsites, with each subsite b ...

. He was the top wide receiver in the class.

College career

Branch enrolled at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

in early 2023. In June 2023, he was recorded on a treadmill sprint at 26 miles per hour, close to

Usain Bolt Usain St. Leo Bolt, , (; born 21 August 1986) is a retired Jamaican sprinter, widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. He is the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100 metres relay. An eight- ...

's top speed. Prior to the start of the 2023 season, he was selected by

as a true freshman preseason All-American. In his college football debut, Branch tallied 232 all-purpose yards, including his first touchdown reception and a 96-yard kickoff return. Following his first game, the ''Los Angeles Times'' wrote that his "feats had even his opponents in awe", and his speed and ability to change direction drew comparisons to

Reggie Bush Reginald Alfred Bush Jr. (born March 2, 1985) is an American former football running back who now serves as an on-air college football analyst for Fox Sports. He played college football at USC, where he earned consensus All-American honors twi ...

College statistics

References

External links

USC Trojans bio
2004 births Living people American football wide receivers American football return specialists Bishop Gorman High School alumni USC Trojans football players All-American college football players Players of American football from Las Vegas {{widereceiver-stub