LOS ANGELES _ When he's analyzing a client's blood, Chris Talley prefers to have no clue what he's searching for. He approaches the process with a detective's instinct, sifting through evidence until complex pieces of a grand, physiological puzzle begin to fit.
Each of the nearly 200 biomarkers for which Talley tests at his South Bay offices inform part of a larger story. And for the nearly two decades Talley has spent studying the blood of elite athletes, his primary job has been to connect those dots.
"It's a little bit like nutritional forensics," Talley explained. "What's missing? You're looking for all of those details that could solve the case. What's keeping this person from being optimal?"
It was that question, in the wake of his freshman season, that led JT Daniels to search his own blood for answers. After reclassifying to forgo his final year at Santa Ana Mater Dei High, the former top recruit and National Gatorade player of the year became just the second true freshman to open a season as USC's starting quarterback.
But Daniels never found his footing, and the Trojans stumbled, finishing 5-7 and missing a bowl game for the first time in a non-sanctioned season since 2000.
The ebbs and flows of Daniels' debut were like other young virtuosos before him _ Matt Barkley, who would go on to set most of USC's career passing records, had 14 passes intercepted to Daniels' 10 as a first-year starter.
But so few freshmen arrived with the full-blown mythos that Daniels carried with him from Mater Dei, where he lost only four games in three seasons.
Steve Daniels would go to great lengths to put his son in such charmed standing, surrounding him with anything or anyone he might need to succeed. But last season, as failure struck anyway, he too found himself wondering how his son might react.
His freshman year "was the first time in his life where JT worked his butt off and didn't have massive success," Steve said. But those closest to him, from his father to his fleet of private coaches and mentors, have since begun to wonder if a brief brush with failure might be the best thing for Daniels.
"Matt Leinart didn't face adversity like that until he got to the NFL," said Jordan Palmer, one of Daniels' private quarterback coaches. "I think that had a lot to do with how his career went."
Daniels isn't one to pontificate on the bigger picture or his place in it. But in any conversation about USC football or its quarterback, the stakes ahead of his sophomore season are altogether inescapable.
How Daniels responds in the wake of failure could very well determine the fate of not only his season, but the future of his coach and the direction of USC's program altogether.
With that specter looming over the months leading up to the season opener Saturday against Fresno State, Daniels focused his attention on something smaller. He reconsidered his approach from all angles. He needed to understand exactly where and why things had gone awry.
What he came to realize was that as an 18-year-old piloting one of the nation's most prestigious programs, he didn't really know what to expect. "I just kind of came in and was thrown into the fire a little bit," Daniels explains.
He didn't understand how his body would break down over a season or how his mental toughness might be tested.
What still wasn't clear was why he felt so constantly drained. Falling asleep had long been an issue; most nights, he lay awake thinking for hours before finally drifting off. As long as he could remember, he simply gutted through it, subsisting on naps when he could.
Finding an answer felt urgent. So Daniels connected with Talley, whose company, Precision Food Works, has consulted with teams involved in each of the last six Super Bowls.
It wasn't often teenage quarterbacks sought his services, which cost nearly $1,500 for a test and consultation. Most of his clients, Talley says, are professional athletes "looking to get 1% more." But Daniels' ambition impressed him.
The test results only furthered that intrigue. Biomarkers in Daniels' blood painted a picture of a high-level athlete whose physiology was hardly doing him any favors. According to Talley, Daniels was "at best average and a lot of times lower than that" in most of the micronutrients usually found in top athletes performing at their physical peak.
Talley said the tests found Daniels was extremely low in lycene, an amino acid that aids in recovery, and beta-carotene, an anti-oxidant. He was in the bottom 20% of the population for coenzyme q-10, a crucial catalyst for energy production.
Most surprising of all was the severe reaction his body was apparently having to dairy. Milk had been a constant in his diet for years, even while his body produced an abnormal amount of antibodies to combat it.
"My body seriously fights a flu every time I drink milk," Daniels explained, which was hardly ideal for someone downing it by the quart.
There was no magical cure-all hidden between the biomarkers. But the blood test had colored something he'd never before considered: For years, his body hadn't been operating at its full potential.
In fact, he'd succeeded in spite of it. So what did that mean now? As Talley offered detailed diet advice _ eat more grass-fed beef, try more bell peppers, cut out the Muscle Milk after workouts _ the implications of that realization dawned on him.
With a new plan in place, his sleep improved. His energy crept back. The lesson stuck.
The months that followed wouldn't be so much about sweeping changes, but the "1% more" that Talley mentioned. That's what separated freshman failure from sophomore success.
So, as spring faded into summer, Daniels wondered: Where else could he unlock that extra 1%?
